YouTube Music makes some fixes, Google Play Music though

[ocanada_techguy]

 

As reported by Julia Alexander at The Verge, Goog, erm, I mean YouTube Music is now a whole lot easier to stream on TVs.  wooot??

 

Quotes

Quote

 On Monday, YouTube announced a number of updates for its YouTube Music TV app, including TVs running Android TV OS and the new Chromecast with Google TV. For all smart TVs...

 

My thoughts

 so wait, they're still not addressing all the shortcomings and rug-pulled-out-from-under-you of shutting down Google Play Music to the 2.5 billion Android users worldwide?  Weren't paying attention when Linus & Luke called 'em out on the WAN show couple weeks ago?  Baby steps I guess, for a multi-billion dollar goliath, baby steps.

 

Sources

 https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/12/21513300/youtube-music-tv-sets-browse-upload-library-android-os-smart-chromecast

[PlayStation 2]

I'm just waiting on YouTube to actually up the bitrate of audio on the site if they want to be taken even remotely seriously.

[AlTech]

56 minutes ago, handymanshandle said:

I'm just waiting on YouTube to actually up the bitrate of audio on the site if they want to be taken even remotely seriously.

Are they still at 128Kbit/s on YouTube Music?

[PlayStation 2]

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Are they still at 128Kbit/s on YouTube Music?

~128-160kbps Opus audio, yes. 128kpbs AAC audio for things that YouTube doesn't use Opus on.

[spartaman64]

6 minutes ago, Fooshi said:

Great, now we're 1% there! Maybe next year they will learn to not add random liked videos from YouTube that are not music related at all to my liked list.

same i have to be careful about liking videos now LUL

[thechinchinsong]

Wait, they are forcing everyone to go to Youtube Music? I'm still using google play music, when will they actually make me switch?

[Salv8 (sam)]

3 hours ago, thechinchinsong said:

Wait, they are forcing everyone to go to Youtube Music? I'm still using google play music, when will they actually make me switch?

from memory i think they will eventually force every to use youtube music, i'm not sure when it's gonna happen but i hope you have a back up of your uploaded music for when it does...

[Avocado Diaboli]

 

3 hours ago, thechinchinsong said:

Wait, they are forcing everyone to go to Youtube Music? I'm still using google play music, when will they actually make me switch?

Google Music will be shutting down by the end of the year.

 

 

I'd much rather YouTube Music finally implement sensible basic navigation. I've used Google Music mostly because Google allowed me to upload and host my entire music library without clogging up my phone's internal storage and also have it available on all other devices if needed. And to YouTube Music's credit, it allows for the same features and even offered an automatic migration of all my files which worked seamlessly. But the YouTube Music app on my phone and even the web version lacks some features that I enjoyed from Google Music:

 

• YouTube Music only shows their own music by default, I always have to manually switch to my own uploads and I can't set it as a default.
• If I go to view my music grouped by artist, opening up a single artist shows all their music tracks in a long list. It doesn't first group those songs by album and to get to the album from that view, you have to use the context menu of any given track and choose the "Go to album" option there. And yes, there is an album overview, but to me it's useless because it just lists all my albums in alphabetical order and isn't grouped by artist.
• Once I have an album in a playlist, I can't seem to actually edit that current playlist beyond reordering the tracks I've added to the current playlist. I can't actually remove tracks and clearing the playlist altogether also isn't possible.

All of these things were possible on Google Play Music. And I understand that my preferences for this probably differ from many other people. I tend to listen to entire albums, not individual songs, because I view albums as whole pieces and not just collections of songs. But I will probably ignore YouTube Music by the end of the year entirely since I'm already looking into finally getting my own NAS, I might as well put all my music on there and use something like a Plex server for the same purposes.

[Bombastinator]

The one that’s killing me is the YouTube updat that sticks ads in the middle.  It breaks the stream requiring reloading more than half the time.  I’ve had to reload longer videos 4 or 5 times.  It’s highly obnoxious.

[thechinchinsong]

I guess i'll use some 3rd party music player app and organize all my music. Luckily I have everything downloaded so I could care less about streaming.

[SubTract]

Now that Google play music is being shut down. The cost of YouTube Premium needs to drop or I'll be out. I would assume many others too.

 

YouTube music sounds significantly worse that GPM even with everything set to play at "High" quality.

 

The search function is confused and because it doesn't know if you want the YouTube video on just the audio it shows you both results. Mixed together. 

At least now when you're casting there is a video toggle.

On that note, when casting, the cover art for YouTube music stays in the middle of the screen. Rather than the gentle position transition it made around the screen with GPM. (Super useful for those of us with OLEDs)

 

The navigation is a mess, there is no extra way of filtering content. Not a problem with things like artist and album, but very problematic with things like downloads, subscriptions & playlists.

The home and explore pages are not only under the opposite headings, they're overly cluttered and makes finding anything difficult.

 

It could really use a video/audio toggle up the top that changes what the app is displaying FULL STOP.

 

I honestly think they'd be better off scrapping the app completely and starting again. Or just put GPM back in full support, at least it got most of the basic stuff right.

 

Also can somebody tell me if the YouTube Premium features for YouTube music listed in Google's FAQ here: https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/answer/9266556?hl=en are actually real?

 

If you don't have YouTube Premium do you not get background playback in YouTube music?  

Can you not use music only mode without the subscription.

 

If this is real. Why the actual F&$% is anybody actually using YouTube Music???

 

Google has really shot themselves in the foot with this one.

[mjuzikmen]

3 hours ago, SubTract said:

If you don't have YouTube Premium do you not get background playback in YouTube music?

Wait, surely you can right? I think you can...

 

I remember trying to switch to YTM, on my phone but then Spotify came into my country. 

 

The best way to listen to music on YT is either YT Vanced on mobile or with an ad-blocker on desktop.

 

If GPM actually gets shutdown i'll use some 3rd party software to listen to my downloads.

[MrRavens]

Why does Google like pulling the rug but not prepare the next place to have at least the features from the place you're leaving. I had to deal with this when they pulled Inbox and we didn't get most of all Inbox's features to Gmail till later. Like Google is filled with talent programmers and professionals, but they keep doing this...

 

They gave me the message, if I wanted to switch over. I said lemme take a peek. I never backed out of an app so quick lol. 

[Guest]

I'm hanging onto Google Music as long as possible; I've used it for so long and strictly use it for purchasing and downloading said music, I don't even stream or anything. Why fix what's not broken?

[Maticks]

1 hour ago, Stylized_Violence said:

I'm hanging onto Google Music as long as possible; I've used it for so long and strictly use it for purchasing and downloading said music, I don't even stream or anything. Why fix what's not broken?

i loved Google Music had it for as long as its been out and youtube red. I can't use this Youtube Music UI its impossible to cleanly drive it.

Dumped my subscription two months ago went to Spotify. somewhat similar interface to Google Music the Duo Subscription with me and my partner works out well price wise.

 

When you are forced off Google Music like we were in Australia you might have to look for another option.

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, Maticks said:

i loved Google Music had it for as long as its been out and youtube red. I can't use this Youtube Music UI its impossible to cleanly drive it.

Dumped my subscription two months ago went to Spotify. somewhat similar interface to Google Music the Duo Subscription with me and my partner works out well price wise.

 

When you are forced off Google Music like we were in Australia you might have to look for another option.

Does Spotify let you purchase and keep offline music or is it strictly a radio-like program?

[Maticks]

4 hours ago, Stylized_Violence said:

Does Spotify let you purchase and keep offline music or is it strictly a radio-like program?

It does let you run offline music from what i can see.

There was a mention of offline also you can load Spotify on your Desktop sync music into that and your mobile spotify app can sync off the Desktop client that music.

I haven't personally tried it. but i did notice a few things like the in Car Mode when i am driving it has a different interface which is bigger.

Integration into Google Maps which was nice and also my Apple Watch has a better App than i could do with Google Music.

Overal the switch over has been posititve, i would have done none of this if Google didn't dump Google Music.

[Kisai]

 

On 10/14/2020 at 1:20 AM, SubTract said:

Google has really shot themselves in the foot with this one.

Maybe they will pull an Amazon and make It and Stadia and some other services one fee and then Google might be worth it. But Google has always shown a lack of commitment to their services and products, often making it a poor choice for a long term commitment (eg chromecast, Google tv, chrome books, android)

 

the Google graveyard is pretty big.

[Maticks]

10 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

Maybe they will pull an Amazon and make It and Stadia and some other services one fee and then Google might be worth it. But Google has always shown a lack of commitment to their services and products, often making it a poor choice for a long term commitment (eg chromecast, Google tv, chrome books, android)

 

the Google graveyard is pretty big.

this site cracks me up https://killedbygoogle.com/

 

[Maticks]

omg this is the last thing i use from Google didn't know it was even going "Kicking the bucket in 2 months, Google Cloud Print allowed users to 'print from anywhere;' to print from web, desktop, or mobile to any Google Cloud Print-connected printer. It was over 10 years old."

 

[Virixiss]

Another Google service I liked that had the plug haphazardly pulled. (RIP Inbox).

They'll probably kill Google Podcasts next since I use that on a daily basis.