Gadgetory

hello again ladies and gentlemen i'm joe hindi the android authority app guy and the new YouTube Music app is officially out in the wild which means we're about to check it out insert silly rhetorical question here and let's get started to be perfectly honest YouTube music UI is delightful it's a little bland and minimal however you can also get to just about everywhere in the app within two taps the app consists of three main screens which are the home screen the hot list and the library the home screen shows recommendations for things like new releases various playlists music videos and stuff like that the hot list is basically just the most popular and trending music videos the library shows your playlists saved artists saved albums downloaded content and like songs you can tap the profile picture in the top right to see some more stuff that includes settings downloads viewing and listening history the switch account action and the help and feedback section the settings are fairly bare-bones with most settings dealing with network usage notifications and a restrictive mode that blocks things like offensive language the actual music player UI is also fairly standard fare there aren't any surprises here you swipe up for playlists and hit the three-dot menu for additional options and that's basically it for the UI really it's simple effective quick to navigate and it shouldn't take you long to get it down we really hope that they keep that core simplicity as they continue to expand the app and add new features we can definitively say that this is vastly easier to use than Google Play music ever was even if there isn't much there yet YouTube musics content is a little bit of a mystery it offers all of the music videos from YouTube and that gives it a greater list of songs than any streaming service there is also a separate selection of stream only songs without the video searching for content shows both along with people's playlists and albums thus it solves the age-old problem of not finding a song on your streaming service and then having to open YouTube to find it there the application searches for both in the same spots and subscribers have unmitigated access to both video and audio only content we're not sure how many on-demand non-video songs YouTube music supports but we imagine it's in the tens of millions much like Google Play Music & other comparable services the application still gives access to every music video on YouTube though and that really helps fill in the blanks left by most other streaming services the integration between on-demand music streaming and music videos is present in every function of the app and that's where things get a little interesting you can create playlists with both music videos and on-demand music content in the same place giving YouTube music and advantage over other music streaming services additionally all videos have a toggle that turns off the video for an audio only mode which is an older feature from before the update and this essentially turns all music videos into on-demand music streams thus in practice you can't really tell the difference between a music video from YouTube or an on-demand song from YouTube music integrating the two was a stroke of genius in terms of content even in its current form it has more music than whatever it is you're already using there aren't a ton of additional features aside from the usual array of music streaming mainstays like playlists music on-demand and other such things the application is fairly bare-bones right now but we expect that to change as the application and service both mature there are a few extra things though the previously mentioned restrictive mode makes the application more friendly for younger folks or for those who don't like swearing and of course the application has grown cast supports this is an early access bait of those so there aren't a ton of extra features to write home about yet it should get a bunch of features from google play music as they integrate the two over the course of the next several months and we're sure that there are other plans for this application as well that we don't know about yet in short there isn't a ton of additional features but there is more than enough evidence to support that more features are coming soon nothing is perfect though and that includes the new YouTube music we did see a few flaws that we'll talk about briefly in hopes that they get fixed before too long for some reason this application doesn't show song lengths in the search results this is odd behavior because YouTube does show the length in its search results and considering that bands like dire straits have live versions of Sultans of Swing that are both 5 minutes long and 11 minutes long we would have liked to have seen track lengths so that we know what we're dealing with everything you do in YouTube music is reflected somewhere in the main YouTube application for better or for worse any playlists you make in YouTube are visible in YouTube music and vice versa every song on YouTube music is also a video on YouTube and this may reflect in your recommendations on the standard YouTube app eventually you can choose video quality on YouTube but not audio quality and the same goes for YouTube music you get whatever audio came with the video and that's all you get it's usually fairly middle-of-the-road stuff and it's not terrible by any stretch but we're definitely not dealing with high quality mp3s either most people likely won't notice or care and that's perfectly fine however those who enjoy higher quality audio might be disappointed finally there are a swath of popular videos that are basically entire concerts or albums in a single video YouTube viewers have long relied on comment sections and video descriptions for timestamps so they know where the songs start and end YouTube music doesn't show comments or video descriptions and you can see why that might be a problem for longer productions longer concert style videos are still better on the main youtube app at least for now and if we're being perfectly honest other than changes to the UI we're having trouble discerning the differences between the new YouTube music and the old one most of these issues are minor nitpicks but they are issues that we would like to see fixed sooner rather than later there are some UI elements that seem a little undercooked however this is an early release so we kind of expected it YouTube music is a very interesting product it's massive library of content already eclipses basically everything else on the market even SoundCloud and it's absurd number of tracks the integration between YouTube and YouTube music is neat and the promis'd inclusion of the best parts of google play music should make almost any music fan giddy with excitement this one has a lot of potential however like we said a moment ago there really isn't much of a difference between the new YouTube music and the old one there is no audio quality setting everything you listen to in a video is available on YouTube anyway and aside from these scaled back UI a larger focus on music and removing non music content you'd be hard-pressed to find features in YouTube music that aren't also available in the main YouTube app already for now though we recommend that you don't cancel your spotify subscription just yet YouTube music is an early access beta and it has a long way to go there is definitely promise the application works well and some of the ideas here are utterly fantastic however until it starts acting like its own product and less like an offshoot of another product it's difficult to recommend that people spend money on it right now of course we want to hear your thoughts as well and you can tell us about it in the comment section below and that about does it for this one folks if you liked this video you know what to do and if not well you still know what to do we have the written version of this video linked up in the video description below along with a download link to YouTube music if you want to check it out as always thanks for watching everybody and have a wonderful day