As announced at I/O 2022, Google is optimizing its Android apps for tablets and other large screen devices. YouTube Music playlists have already seen a redesign and that UI is now coming to the album view.
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Personalized playlists based on listening history are a big part of YouTube Music, and the app is now giving users a quick way to view every “Mixed for you” creation available to them through a grid view.
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In addition to a new “Add to playlist” UI for mobile, YouTube Music is testing “Recommended radios.” Compared to radio stations generated from a single song, this new offering looks to be compiled from multiple influences.
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YouTube Music finally began offering an extensive year-in-review summary at the end of 2021, and now looks to be rolling out Spring Recap ’22.
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Google’s list of YouTube Music features launched in April and May is now available. We’ve already covered the major changes, but there are several smaller YouTube Music tweaks to the radio and shuffle.
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The latest updates to YouTube Music sees the web client tweak carousels and how you navigate them, while the service is trying a “Forgotten favorites” shelf to highlight your past listens.
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YouTube Music was one of the Android apps that Google said would get tablet optimizations at I/O 2022, and the redesigned playlist interface is now live.
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More than other streaming services, YouTube Music is defined by its algorithmic suggestions on what to listen to next. This feature is great in the Up Next queue but downright annoying in the Home feed. YouTube Music constantly juggles the order, if not the outright appearance, of carousels from one refresh to the next.
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At the start of this year, YouTube Music updated its Home feed for tablets and promised that more UI optimizations are coming, especially for playlists. One smaller change sees YouTube Music offer an improved settings layout on Android.
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Like the main Android client, Google is now offering Play Store betas for YouTube Music and TV to presumably test new features ahead of time.
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Google’s Cast standard has been around for quite some time and, at this point, it’s not uncommon for someone to own a hefty handful of compatible speakers and displays. To help surface the device you might be looking for, Google appears to be testing “Suggested” Cast devices.
Update: This post has been updated to reflect new details from Google.
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In addition to a new Recently Played tile, YouTube Music for Wear OS will soon let you stream songs over data/cellular instead of having to download songs, albums, or playlists ahead of time.
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Since 2019, the main YouTube app has offered to open song videos in YouTube Music, but this integration is now getting much more prominent.
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As we previously spotted, YouTube Music’s ‘Recently Played’ Wear OS tile is now available to let you quickly start listening to a previous album/song on your watch.
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Playlists are undoubtedly a big part of YouTube Music’s discovery angle, and Google is now testing a big UI redesign for them on mobile.
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Since its inception in 2015 (and the 2018 relaunch), YouTube Music has only ever offered a dark theme, but the Android and iOS apps are now adding a splash of color to liven things up.
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YouTube Music is breaking up the visual monotony of the Home feed on Android and iOS with a new grid design for the “Listen again” shelf.
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In April of 2020, YouTube Music replaced “Hotlist” with the “Explore” tab. A small addition that’s presented as a new way to access Explore more or less obviates its position in the bottom bar.
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The automatically curated My Mix section sometimes labeled “Mixed for you” in YouTube Music appears to be getting updated cover art for some users.
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YouTube Music has long been able to automatically download songs “based on your previous listening history” so that you always have a fresh collection of things to listen to when offline. A small YouTube Music tweak sees smart downloads get a new sparkle icon.
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YouTube Music recently added an Explore shelf to the bottom of the Home feed that makes the dedicated page largely redundant. That said, YouTube Music’s latest addition of an album carousel to Explore suggests that the tab will stick around.
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Google’s list of developments to YouTube Music in February and March is here and includes some notable additions (like to the radio algorithm) that weren’t already spotted.
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After first launching for iOS at the start of this year, YouTube Music is widely rolling out the “Save” queue to playlist feature on Android.
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In March of last year, YouTube Music widely rolled out the ability to shuffle songs when Casting but bafflingly didn’t also enable repeat. As of today, that latter action is available again.
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