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Last month, YouTube made YouTube Red official. Essentially it’s a service that is bundled with Google Play Music Unlimited for $9.99/month (if you sign up through a iOS device it’s $12.99/month due to Apple’s 30% cut), and it removes ads as well as adding some premium content that’s not available on the free version of YouTube and also adds Offline Playback. With that announcement, YouTube also announced that there was a YouTube Music app in the pipeline that would be launching soon on both iOS and Android. And today, that app did indeed launch. It’s available on the Play Store for those that are subscribing to YouTube Red, as well as those that are not.
This app from the YouTube team is similar to the YouTube Gaming and YouTube Kids apps that were recently released. In that it only shows you music on YouTube. The app include just about any video, as well as album and artist and starts a non-stop station for you to use. There are also personalized stations which learn your taste and play music that are similar to your tastes. This is a great way for discovering new music, that you will likely like. YouTube Music also has a trending tab which allows you to stay up to date on the newest releases. There is also a “on the rise” section which shows new songs and artists. Finally, the latest hits are located in “The Daily 40”. The catalog in YouTube Music is near endless. YouTube is not stating how many songs are there, but there’s likely more than what is available in Google Play Music, which is over 30 million. With YouTube Music, you also get concert footage and live recordings, something you definitely won’t get in other music streaming apps.
YouTube Music is available on the Play Store now, and supports Android 4.0.3 and up. However, it appears to not support tablets, at least not yet. In the drop-down of compatible devices – at least for me – it shows as incompatible with a number of tablets, many of which I know are running at least Lollipop. Otherwise, it should support just about every smartphone.