Speaker 1: Is the new YouTube music app goodenough to replace your
Speaker 1: current music app? What's going on? I'm Richdmiro. This is
Speaker 1: Rich on tech Daily. YouTube is added again with YouTube Music,
Speaker 1: a new app and music experience that's sort of like
Speaker 1: a competitor to Spotify. But it's not there just yet.
Speaker 1: Let me explain for starters. YouTube Music has already been
Speaker 1: around for a while. A quick check of my email
Speaker 1: shows that I first met with YouTube to discuss YouTube
Speaker 1: Music back in November twenty fifteen. But recently the app
Speaker 1: and experience was redesigned and relaunched. What used to be
Speaker 1: heavy on music videos is now a good mix of
Speaker 1: music videos and curated playlists. And let's be honest, I
Speaker 1: understand why YouTube wants to do a music app. I mean,
Speaker 1: who knows more about music than YouTube. Now. I don't
Speaker 1: have the numbers, but I'm guessing millions, if not billions,
Speaker 1: of music videos are streamed each and every day on
Speaker 1: their website. And that's the really smart part about all
Speaker 1: of this. YouTube has the data they know from all
Speaker 1: of these views, which acts are hot, which acts are
Speaker 1: up and coming, which artists are cooling off. They have
Speaker 1: all this data, and it's highly localized. For areas around
Speaker 1: the world, and that's kind of what YouTube Music is
Speaker 1: built off of. When you first open the app, it's
Speaker 1: going to ask you to choose some of your favorite
Speaker 1: artists and also for access to your location. This way,
Speaker 1: it can suggest playlists for like when you're at work,
Speaker 1: the gym, and various other places. Now, I'm not a
Speaker 1: huge fan of how the app is organized. It's not
Speaker 1: like other music apps that just kind of give you
Speaker 1: a bunch of categories and present playlists in those categories. No,
Speaker 1: this is much more complicated. But pretty much every aspect
Speaker 1: of YouTube Music is personalized and that's what they want.
Speaker 1: So right now, when I open the app, at the
Speaker 1: top of my screen, there are a bunch of playlist
Speaker 1: options for today's biggest hits. And here's where it gets confusing.
Speaker 1: There's almost too much choice. The first playlist option is
Speaker 1: something called pop hit List, but then the one right
Speaker 1: next to it is Today's biggest Hits. What's the difference,
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure. Then I see some playlists I
Speaker 1: recently listened to, which is fine that I can easily
Speaker 1: jump back into those, And then comes the part of
Speaker 1: the app that I really like, and this kind of
Speaker 1: surprised me. There's a section of the app that features
Speaker 1: videos with recent live performances, all featuring the artists that
Speaker 1: I like. Now, these are videos I would probably never
Speaker 1: search for on my own, but there they are, and
Speaker 1: I love watching them. It's kind of like this stuff
Speaker 1: you might have seen back in the day when you
Speaker 1: were watching your favorite artists on a late night TV
Speaker 1: show or an award show presentation. It's just cool, different
Speaker 1: versions of songs that you've already heard and you know
Speaker 1: and you love. After this, the app gets kind of
Speaker 1: murky again. You scroll down. There's an endless selection of
Speaker 1: various categories with playlists in those categories, and they all
Speaker 1: seem to be personalized. So right now I'm seeing mellow moods,
Speaker 1: then right after that energy boosters. I even think there's
Speaker 1: a playlist based on the weather, because it's saying it
Speaker 1: looks clear outside, so I've got a summer playlist. And
Speaker 1: then there's a selection of artists that you can play
Speaker 1: similar to the artists you like, and more recommended music videos.
Speaker 1: Then there's more similar artists, and it goes on and on.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a bit much, and again, I see
Speaker 1: no way in this app to just browse through a
Speaker 1: list of playlists in various categories. Now. I get that
Speaker 1: YouTube Music wants to be totally personalized just for me,
Speaker 1: but sometimes I just want to go into a category
Speaker 1: like workout or Focus or Indie and choose a playlist
Speaker 1: that I want to listen to. You can't really do
Speaker 1: that here. Another tap of the app features trending music
Speaker 1: videos from YouTube. These are not necessarily personalized, which is fine.
Speaker 1: But then another tap contains your library with all the
Speaker 1: music videos that you recently played, along with your downloads,
Speaker 1: your saved playlist, your albums, songs, and also the artists
Speaker 1: that you liked. And keep in mind, all this information
Speaker 1: is kind of shared with the YouTube regular site and
Speaker 1: vice versa. So if you liked a musical artist on
Speaker 1: the regular YouTube site, that data transfers over to YouTube Music,
Speaker 1: and if you like an artist on YouTube music, it
Speaker 1: goes into the data on your YouTube page as well.
Speaker 1: A feature I really like is called the offline Mixtape.
Speaker 1: YouTube Music compiles an ever changing playlist of up to
Speaker 1: one hundred songs that it thinks you're gonna like. It
Speaker 1: puts this all into a playlist. Right now, I only
Speaker 1: have twenty of them. I guess I haven't listened to
Speaker 1: enough music for it to give me one hundred, but
Speaker 1: that's all saved to your device. And this is really
Speaker 1: cool because it really saved me. The other day on
Speaker 1: the plane, I flipped my phone into airplane mode and
Speaker 1: realized that I had not downloaded any music from Spotify
Speaker 1: or apparently from YouTube music, so I had nothing to
Speaker 1: listen to except this little mixtape, which was great. And
Speaker 1: what's cool about the mixtape is that it spans all genres.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like YouTube's best Guess at all the
Speaker 1: stuff you'll like, both old favorites mixed in with some
Speaker 1: new stuff. It's sort of like Spotify's Discover Weekly, but
Speaker 1: even more personalized. The other place YouTube music excels is
Speaker 1: in remixes and those live performances. Now it's pulling audio
Speaker 1: from what is still Google play Music, which is also confusing,
Speaker 1: and all the videos on YouTube, so you really get
Speaker 1: it all. If you want to listen to fifteen different
Speaker 1: versions of a song, you pretty much can now. Search
Speaker 1: is also really smart on YouTube music. For instance, I
Speaker 1: just searched that new Ariana Grande song, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: No Tears Left to Cry came right up if I
Speaker 1: searched theme song from friends, it brings up I'll be
Speaker 1: there for you from the rembrants. Clearly, this is using
Speaker 1: Google Smarts in a really interesting way here. So bottom line,
Speaker 1: can YouTube Music replace your current music app? Probably not,
Speaker 1: at least not right now. For starters, to get all
Speaker 1: the best features, you have to pay ten dollars a month,
Speaker 1: So if you don't, you won't get the downloads for
Speaker 1: offline listening, you won't get the mixtape or an ad
Speaker 1: free experience, and I get it all the other music apps.
Speaker 1: If you want to get the best experience, you have
Speaker 1: to pay, so I understand that, But unlike the other
Speaker 1: free music apps, with the free version of YouTube Music,
Speaker 1: you can't listen to music in the background with your
Speaker 1: screen off unless you pay that monthly fee. That's a
Speaker 1: big downside. I also found that YouTube Music is not
Speaker 1: compatible with CarPlay right now, which most other music apps are.
Speaker 1: That means you can't use it as a one stop
Speaker 1: shop for all your music. What if you subscribe to
Speaker 1: this and now you want to listen to your car,
Speaker 1: you really can't use it with CarPlay. You'd have to
Speaker 1: use the app outside of CarPlay, which is kind of weird. Overall,
Speaker 1: I'd say YouTube Music is super promising because they have
Speaker 1: all the data to surface the stuff that you like,
Speaker 1: plus a huge music catalog with stuff you can't find
Speaker 1: anywhere else. I just wish it was better organized, not
Speaker 1: as confusing, and work with more devices like Sonos and CarPlay.
Speaker 1: It does work with Google Assistant and Google Smart Speakers,
Speaker 1: so you do have that. And don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: I'm not in love with Spotify, although I am a
Speaker 1: subscriber of that service. I think they've built a product
Speaker 1: that works pretty well and it works everywhere. Although these
Speaker 1: days I've kind of been loving Apple Music more since
Speaker 1: it's really simple, it's really straightforward, and the music on
Speaker 1: their playlists seems to work for me. But something tells
Speaker 1: me YouTube music is not finished just yet, and it
Speaker 1: will be in all those places that I mentioned, and
Speaker 1: I think it will just continue to get smarter and smarter.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you
Speaker 1: like what I'm doing here, please rate and review it
Speaker 1: in the Apple podcast stapp. I'd appreciate that because that
Speaker 1: way more people discover it links to everything I talk
Speaker 1: about at richontech dot tv. I'm Rich damiro I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you real so