Tag: youtube music

  • YouTube Music rolls out new AI playlist art generator feature

    YouTube Music rolls out new AI playlist art generator feature

    YouTube Music has made significant strides recently in its efforts to compete with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music to become your de facto music app. In an effort to communicate to its users all the recent changes the app has gone through, Google took to its official YouTube Blog today to share the list.

    Amongst all the features that have been either slowly or quickly rolled out throughout the year, there was one standout feature listed that begins to roll out today: the ability to create customized covert art for your playlists with the assistance of AI. This feature is reminiscent of the AI wallpapers Google recently rolled out on Android 14 works by using a pre-determined data set to generate unique artwork. Currently, when a playlist is created on YouTube Music, a collage of the cover art from the first few songs on the playlist automatically became the cover.

    YouTube Music has made significant strides recently in its efforts to compete with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music to become your de facto music app. In an effort to communicate to its users all the recent changes the app has gone through, Google took to its official YouTube Blog today to share the list.

    Amongst all the features that have been either slowly or quickly rolled out throughout the year, there was one standout feature listed that begins to roll out today: the ability to create customized covert art for your playlists with the assistance of AI. This feature is reminiscent of the AI wallpapers Google recently rolled out on Android 14 works by using a pre-determined data set to generate unique artwork. Currently, when a playlist is created on YouTube Music, a collage of the cover art from the first few songs on the playlist automatically became the cover.

    The feature will began its rollout today as an experimental feature, but only for English-language U.S. users. It will be pretty straightforward to use, as it will provide you with a variety of themes and options to create a one-of-a-kind cover for your playlists. YouTube Music eventually plans to expand the feature to other regions and languages in the future.

    In addition, YouTube Music will also be launching a new feature called “Speed dial,” which will make it easier to listen to your favorite songs and artists. It will appear on the Home tab as a section at the top that will show your most listened-to music. Having this section will allow you to easily and quickly jump back into the songs you have on repeat.

    YouTube Music has also introduced many helpful features throughout the year. YouTube says that two billion people come to the platform every month to listen to their favorite music, so it’s a tall order to implement features that fit everyone’s tastes and needs.

    However, features that improve discovery of new music, personalization, and the sense of community, are always a welcome addition. Here’s hoping the generative AI playlist artwork feature rolls out quickly for everyone so we can all customize our music experience even further.

    The feature will began its roll out today as an experimental feature, but only for English language U.S. users. It will be pretty straightforward to use, as it will provide you with a variety of themes and options to create a one-of-a-kind cover for your playlists. YouTube Music eventually plans to expand the feature to other regions and languages in the future

    In addition, YouTube Music will also be launching a new feature called “Speed dial,” which will make it easier to listen to your favorite songs and artists. It will appear on the Home tab as a section at the top which will show your most listened to music. Having this section will allow you to easily and quickly jump back into the songs you have on repeat.

    YouTube Music has also introduced many helpful features throughout the year. YouTube says that two billion people come to the platform every month to listen to their favorite music, so it’s a tall order to implement features that fit everyone’s tastes and needs.

    However, features that improve discovery of new music, personalization, and the sense of community, are always a welcome addition. Here’s hoping the generative AI playlist artwork feature rolls out quickly for everyone so we can all customize our music experience even further.

  • YouTube Music, Premium launches annual subscription

    YouTube Music, Premium launches annual subscription

    Google has long been offering YouTube Premium and YouTube Music monthly account memberships, where users can subscribe and pay every month for access to millions of songs and videos for ad-free viewing and downloading.

    As of today, YouTube is officially rolling out a new subscription option to users across the board of both these paid YouTube services. In addition to monthly subscriptions, YouTube Premium and YouTube Music will now also offer subscriptions on a yearly basis, which will end up saving long-term users a good bit of money in the long run.

    So, how much money will the new annual subscription actually save you, compared to a monthly plan? Turns out, as part of the initial launch hype, Google is offering a limited-time discounted price, which will last for 6 days before it expires.

    Only until January 13, new users can benefit from an annual YouTube Premium plan priced at $107.99. Compared to the $11.99-per-month regular price, it offers a savings total of $3 per month, adding up to $36 of savings over 12 months.

    The YouTube Music yearly plan is slightly cheaper, coming in at $89.99 each year, or $2.50 less per month than the monthly subscription (for annual savings of $30).

    After the offer expires on January 13, we expect users can still enjoy decent rates for the yearly plan, but they will more than likely be less cost-effective than the current prices.

    Keep in mind that if you’re already subscribed to a monthly YouTube Premium/Music plan, though, you can’t just switch to the yearly subscription. You’d have to completely cancel your current plan, and then re-sign up to the new one. It’s definitely a slightly more time-consuming process, but still definitely worth considering.

    It should be noted that the yearly subscription plan is currently only available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Turkey, Germany, Thailand, India, and Japan.

  • YouTube Music adds a new Recently Played widget for Android users

    YouTube Music adds a new Recently Played widget for Android users

    Google has been pushing its YouTube Music service hard in the past couple of months, adding new features and updating existing ones. Earlier in November, the platform received a useful “Play My Station” shortcut on Android, and a month prior to that Google announced that YouTube Music’s free version will be getting background playback – a feature normally reserved for premium users.

    Now there’s another update to YouTube Music and this time it’s a new “Recent Played” widget for Android. This feature was previewed back in October but now it is rolling out with version 4.55.55 of YouTube Music for Android, available on the Play Store.

    The widget takes 5×2 spaces on your home screen by default and it is divided into two main sections. The top part gives users the ability to play and pause songs, give them a “thumb up”, and it also shows the album art of the current song playing with some basic information such as the name and the artist.

    The bottom part is a grid layout shortcut that gives you “quick access to your recently played videos, albums, playlists, and more.” In the largest 5×4 configuration you can cram up 10 elements in that particular section, and you can also resize the widget to be 5×1 or 4×1 but doing so will hide the bottom element and will leave only the barebone play/pause part hiding the thumb button too.

    The Recently Played widget follows Android 12’s Material You design philosophy, supporting also the Dynamic Color feature. If you don’t see the widget after updating to version 4.55.55, force stop the app and relaunch again.

  • Google shuts down Play Music Store, users advised to transition to YouTube Music

    Google shuts down Play Music Store, users advised to transition to YouTube Music

    Despite repeatedly announcing the upcoming closure of Google Play Music, there are probably a lot of people who are still using the music streaming service. Google has been adamant that regardless of whether or not YouTube Music will reach the parity of Play Music feature-wise, those using the latter will eventually have to switch to the former.

    Today, Google took one important step toward the deprecation of Play Music. The search giant announced that the Music store on Google Play is no longer available. If you’re one of the many music lovers who are still using Google Play Music, you have three choices as of today.

    First off, if you wish to continue listening to your Play Music library, discover new music with personalized recommendations, you must transfer your library to YouTube Music. Secondly, if you don’t want to transition to YouTube Music, you can keep your purchased music via Google Takeout. This option allows you to download previously purchased music from Google Play Uploaded tracks, your music wishlist and reviews, a list of the tracks, playlists, and radio stations in your library.

    Finally, there’s also the option to delete your Play Music library and recommendations history from the Google Play Music account settings. No matter which of the three options you choose, you must act by the end of the year, since that’s when the Google Play Music app will no longer be accessible and all data will be lost.