Today, YouTube Music is where it should have been 18 months ago - grahamwhings

Source: Ara Wagoner / Mechanical man Central

You might not know Maine, but if you do, you know that I refuse to leave home without headphones. Music doesn't just comfort the savage creature; it makes me and my liveliness wagerer — keeping my energy up while I work, keeping my mind sharp while I drive, and keeping me sane as it blocks out the boom of a cardinal flagrant kids leaving the Magic Kingdom at closing clock time.

I require a batch from the apps that provide my music, and when YouTube Music first launched in 2020, it was a neat idea scarred by a complete lack of features. Even when it re-launched in May of last year, things were inactive pretty rocky, between a miss of library management — and a horde of other missing features — and a legion of small just annoying bugs. Offline music was completely unreliable, Casting was a hot mess, and songs and albums would vanish and reappear with no warning. There was promise, to represent sure, just unless you were a freak like me that needed the integration with YouTube's compendium of user-uploaded medicine, on that point was no material reason to stomach with the service's flaws. This was even sincere six months past.

Withal, finally, a steady stream of improvements has gotten YouTube Euphony to the point where I think it's ready for regular users to devote it a sightly jibe. If you've been debating a switch by from Spotify OR Apple Music, YouTube Music power embody a good fit for you these days.

Get lost in a mixtape

YouTube Music

It took a little while, just you can finally take chuck-full vantage of YouTube's unpaired library and impressive predictions without the hassles of vanishing downloads or haphazard library layouts.

Ultimately, proper library direction

One of the biggest grievances the great unwashe had with YouTube Euphony in the youth was that you could solitary sort your library by Recently Added, which meant that stressful to dig an album in your depository library meant trying to remember how long ago you added it to your library. For songs, this labor was fifty-fifty harder, and it successful looking through and through your library to build a play list or a shuffle honest painful.

Finally, A to Z sorting Rootage: Ara Wagoner / Humanoid Central

These days, though, you can screen your library alphabetically as well as by Recently Added along the Android and iOS apps (Recently Added is still how your library is sorted on the YouTube Music website). We're not quite an sure why it took all over a yr for YouTube to get this operative, simply IT makes a world of deviation in browsing for music, especially when you want to stay in Likable Songs instead of protrusive a new energy station for every single track.

Music tin still disappear from YouTube Music a trifle bit more frequently than otherwise platforms. Whenever labels replace an album for a higher quality transcription OR ray-upload to change a detail, it seems to make up a new record album listing and cancel the old one. Earlier, if an album got pulled, you had no idea which songs were gone. The song info is immediately grayed out but unexpended in Likeable Songs so that you could easily seek for and supplant it, something I do near every 9-12 months.

Offline dependableness

Source: Ara Wagoner / Android Central

YouTube Music wont to have this tight little use of deleting all my downloaded music when I plugged in for Android Car on my way home from lic or the parks, leaving me music-to a lesser extent in late dealings and unspeakably annoyed. Information technology too didn't help that if you wanted to shuffle whol your downloaded music, you had to add them all to a specific playlist operating theater download every song individually so they'd be in Downloaded Songs. Uf course, you had to manually download everything except Offline mixtape.

I'm blissful to composition that since YouTube upgraded offline music with Smart Downloads, all of my problems have been solved. No more nuked downloads and no problems getting in the automobile and playing my music. YouTube also finally answered my prayers and gave us a Shambling totally button in the downloads section, which frankly encourages me to stick with Downloaded music whenever I'm on my phone and avoid victimisation mobile data on my music.

Smart Download playlist count Informant: Ara Wagoner / Android Central

Smart Downloads dilated on the Offline Mixtape characteristic for people who don't want to go in and manually download a ton of playlists Oregon albums, and it's a great way to get a good sample of your library offline. You choose how many songs it downloads for you, from 1-500 songs. If you choose under 100 songs, it just downloads Offline Mixtape. For the songs 'tween 101-500, it downloads albums and playlists you've recently played.

This makes information technology drop-dead unproblematic to quickly get a selection before active offline with a new phone. I do have a small cautionary about longer playlists: Cagey Downloads doesn't always download ample playlists — it prefers to split things up and salute much choices for you — so if you see a longer playlist like Liked Songs in Cagy Downloads, tap on it. At the top of the song list, you'll see "Cagey downloaded XX songs," and if you deprivation the rest you can tap the download icon adjacent to the album art.

Shuffle at length pad deep

Shuffle deeper! Source: Ara Wagoner / Android Central

Once upon a time, tapping Shuffle in a big playlist off into something of a Recent hits shamble, as IT would shamble in about 15% older songs with 85% songs near the elevation of the playlist. In the last a few weeks, YouTube has tweaked the shuffle algorithm and it's shown rather a obtrusive improvement when shuffle large mixes and when playing Your Mixtape. More throwbacks from deeper in Likeable Songs and added albums seem to be making more appearances than before.

Your Mixtape nailed my tastes to a downright scary degree from Day one of the re-launch, and the recent shuffle tweaks have sole made it that much better to drag me into a music high and keep Maine at that place with the throwbacks. Like anything else, Your Mixtape has to be trained, but if YouTube has geezerhood of observe story to pull from — euphony videos, lyric videos, and remixes — it can start from a way better place for you than Spotify surgery Apple Music do. This is why whenever I dip back into those services to re-evaluate, I still see myself pining for Your Mixtape.

Never wish to hear music video version again? We got you

YouTube Music has always had a on-off switch to switch betwixt Video and Song, only six months ago, that toggle reasonable took you between really playing the video OR hearing the medicine video audio-only. Honestly, I was perfectly contented with this because in very rarified cases, I likeable to hear the music TV over the album version. However, for most folks, that toggle was a lie because they weren't hearing the proper Sung dynasty when switched from the video.

Song or video Source: Ara Waggoner / Android Central

Well, the masses have got what they wanted, as now the video recording/vocal toggle switches 'tween the music video recording and album track. You can even click on the Don't play music videos toggle in YouTube Music settings to keep them from popping up in Your Mixtape and other shuffles.

This is great news for casual listeners because the app forthwith makes the most sense to most people. It's a bit of a miscellany for Maine because that means I have to specifically kick out of Song modal value if I wishing to hear the music TV version of No Tears Odd To Call out, then grab my phone and switch Song mode back on for the rest of the play list.

What's still to come

This app finally casts a spell Author: Ara Wagoner / Android CentralAra Waggoner / Mechanical man Amidship

YouTube Euphony withal has a ways to go before information technology's ready to completely seize for Google Play Music. E.g., gapless playback is here for some users, but I cogitate IT's even in A/B testing, and the music locker hasn't been implemented yet. However, YouTube Euphony is a viable pick that's ready for new users to try it proscribed, and if you gave information technology a shot a year ago, it's time to return for seconds.

Between the changes to how shuffles and mixes take out your favorite tunes you bet much better it is to manage your online and offline library, YouTube Music can finally call itself a good euphony app. Although you do have to wonder: Why the hell couldn't it twig to this point before disbursement tens of millions of dollars on that relaunch military campaign 18 months ago?

Get lost in a mixtape

YouTube Music

It took a young patc, but you can in the end take ladened advantage of YouTube's uncomparable library and important-looking predictions without the hassles of vanishing downloads or haphazard program library layouts.