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Has anyone been using YouTube Music?
I've gone through quite a few of the music streaming services now. I was on Rdio for a long time until it (sadly) shut down, switched to Spotify for a while, then to Google Play Music, and as of yesterday I have access to YouTube music (which it sounds like is intended to replace GPM before too long).
From a quick glance at YouTube Music I'm a bit worried—the "library" functionality seems pretty limited, and the search isn't really working as I'd expect. It also doesn't seem to have any connection with my GPM collection or playlists.
I think it's been out in the US for about a month now, has anyone been using it? Any thoughts on it so far or suggestions about using it?
Looks like the allo of music, looks nice but missing features I use and until they port over my playlists I will not be using it.
What features is it missing for you?
Besides, like you said, there being no way to transfer your playlists, I didn't notice anything missing.
I didn't see a way to customize my feeds based on a taste profile. Also missing the music I've personally uploaded. No radio stations afaict.
When you first set it up it asks you to pick some artists to help it pick music for you.
Radio is actually what YT Music has always done right (in my opinion at least), even when it was completely video based, it always had the best radios. You can access them either through the context menu of a list item (song, album, artist), or by opening an artist page and pressing "Radio".
You're right though, there is currently no way to upload songs, but they have confirmed that it will be coming eventually.
Interesting, the discoverability isn't as apparent as it is on GPM. All of my uploaded music is local/indie/"bootleg" stuff not on GPM, I will be really sad if they don't port that over and end up shuttering GPM, probably will take my business elsewhere if that's the choice.
My primary issue with it is that it fucks with your Youtube subscriptions. I keep my videos and music separate, but if I were to use YT Music to subscribe to an artist, my main YT account is now subscribed to that channel. Playlists work similarly.
That's a no go, for me. Which is a bummer, because I love GPM.
This was one of the first things I noticed. I want those two queues / activities separate.
The UI looks nice and updated but it's missing some key features of a music player. Swyping to change songs stands out.
I have an app called NewPipe. It's on the F-Droid app store. It has a feature that allows background listening and downloading audio from YouTube.
I concur. It's a pretty good open source solution (note, Google API is proprietary) on mobile when you use YouTube or SoundCloud without an account.
I've been using GPM for a few years and really prefer it over Spotify. I hadn't checked out Youtube Music yet, but this post prompted me to check it out!
Initially, I don't like the UI. It feels too mobiley, lots of large images and white space. I'd like to try it out, but it's missing all my history, library, and preferences from GPM so it's a no-go until all that gets ported over. Otherwise, the artist page UI looks pretty close to the GPM artist page, just with more padding/white space.
If they continue to add features from GPM, it could be a good replacement. But for now, it's not usable for me.
I got a notification from GPM today that I could now access Youtube Music (I'm in the UK) but haven't got around to trying it yet.
I read somewhere that they're planning to make all GPM features work there eventually before GPM goes away forever, including porting over playlists and so on. Not that I really have much in the way of playlists, I tend to make them and then delete them.
If they make editing playlists easy (how is there not a 'remove album' option in GPM!?) then I'm there.
Ideally it's the best solution since you can have in your playlists songs that will never be available on Spotify while still being able to access Google Music catalog. But I really disliked Google Music interface and this one doesn't seem to be too good either.
I don't think it has access to the Google Music catalog, at least not yet. I tried to listen to a couple of deluxe edition albums that I knew were on GPM, and Youtube Music couldn't find them.
Not yet apparently it's coming. Imo like allo they released an mvp and that's shit for trying to take over the place of another app/service.
I never used Allo, but Youtube Music isn't awful so far. If they can get the catalog back up and bring over my recommendation history I'll be pretty pleased.
I have, I'm really liking it. The UI feels nicer than GPM IMO, I'd like a light theme, but I can deal with the lack of one. The desktop client (web-based) is also really nice.
As for library functionality, you can still make playlists like in other services (which will be in their own entry on your library), but if you add a song or an album to your library, it will be in its corresponding section (Albums, Songs, Artists). It's similar to how Deezer handles it, and much better than how GPM does it.
It would be nice there were a desktop client for downloading on your computer, but I've rarely ever been in a situation where I'd need it to be offline.
Its still way beta, I hope it's at least as good, or better than GPM