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First what I regard as the downside to YouTube Premium: You are subjecting yourself to even more data collecting by the Big Four tech companies and handing them over an even larger proportion of your cash-money.
Second, my editorial perspective: I have become a streaming service first consumer of music (as opposed to purchasing download files or CDs or other physical media), with rare exceptions where there is a hole in the catalog and I don’t have any media. And I am a music first and audio quality second person, within reason.
The next thing is, if you are interested in YouTube Music, just pay your $12 bucks a month for YouTube Premium (or $18 for a family account so everyone gets their own, up to a family of 6) if you are going to use YouTube Music. If you pay the $12 a month, you’ll get free downloads, the ability to have the music play in the background on your device (works great on iPad, and can stream to any Airplay or Bluetooth device), and no ads for both music and videos. You can get just YouTube Music for $10 a month if you want but you lose an awful lot for those $2 a month. You also get full access to the full paid version of Google Play Music, while it continues to exist. This includes the ability to upload up to 50,000 songs if they are not in the Google Play music catalog, and this feature is supposed to move on over to YouTube Music soon.
I am typing on my iPad while YouTube Music streams by AirPlay from my iPad in the background right now. Graphics and information on the music are appearing up on my TV screen one way or another. I think one way or another you can get it to work with just about any device.
Music streaming is reportedly at 256 kbps AAC once you pay for either YouTube Music or YouTube Premium. 256 kbps is 100 percent okay by me sound quality wise. If you are going via AirPlay I believe the 256 AAC sound quality is maintained fully (as opposed to possibly being subject to Bluetooth compression).
The straight-up music catalog is pretty much your standard 30 million songs-plus of Spotify, Apple, etc. I’ve found the major music services to have increasingly similar and small holes in their catalogs. There’s also a really big music video selection. It’s pretty delightful when this thing pulls up a mixtape of videos it thinks you might like. And there’s also every live music concert or out of print LP or CD that’s up on YouTube. For me this fills just about any hole in the music and commercial video streaming service catalog, of course subject to the amateur uploader’s sound quality and how YouTube treats it after that.
For many, many areas in the service, there is an i button on the left and three dots on the right that uncover a huge feature set. Create radio from the current song, download, go to album, the stuff you would expect on Spotify, plus some more. Also if you give the screen a little press or do whatever you have to do on a particular device, you’ll get a selection of ways to stream through an Airplay button on the bottom (at least on the iPad) and a Google streaming type symbol on the upper right. There are also mixtape features, cookie cutter radio stations, new release sections, etc. Click on the square symbol that would normally be the full screen symbol in YouTube and the screen morphs into different formats depending where you are.
I am surprised at how good this service is for me. To go through the whole feature set would probably take over 100 pages and put you to sleep. There are additional features explicitly planned for the near future. I’ll certainly never use all of the features. The depth does not clutter the screen. It takes a little getting used to as it’s a bit of a paradigm shift for a music service, but for my preferences and uses it offers a lot more than the other music streaming services.
So that’s the overview. I’m not a professional reviewer. If you want something more polished or to get down in the weeds there is lots and lots of reading at Android Central, centered around the below-linked very recent review. For many people there may be a free one-month trial period.
https://www.androidcentral.com/youtube-music
Second, my editorial perspective: I have become a streaming service first consumer of music (as opposed to purchasing download files or CDs or other physical media), with rare exceptions where there is a hole in the catalog and I don’t have any media. And I am a music first and audio quality second person, within reason.
The next thing is, if you are interested in YouTube Music, just pay your $12 bucks a month for YouTube Premium (or $18 for a family account so everyone gets their own, up to a family of 6) if you are going to use YouTube Music. If you pay the $12 a month, you’ll get free downloads, the ability to have the music play in the background on your device (works great on iPad, and can stream to any Airplay or Bluetooth device), and no ads for both music and videos. You can get just YouTube Music for $10 a month if you want but you lose an awful lot for those $2 a month. You also get full access to the full paid version of Google Play Music, while it continues to exist. This includes the ability to upload up to 50,000 songs if they are not in the Google Play music catalog, and this feature is supposed to move on over to YouTube Music soon.
I am typing on my iPad while YouTube Music streams by AirPlay from my iPad in the background right now. Graphics and information on the music are appearing up on my TV screen one way or another. I think one way or another you can get it to work with just about any device.
Music streaming is reportedly at 256 kbps AAC once you pay for either YouTube Music or YouTube Premium. 256 kbps is 100 percent okay by me sound quality wise. If you are going via AirPlay I believe the 256 AAC sound quality is maintained fully (as opposed to possibly being subject to Bluetooth compression).
The straight-up music catalog is pretty much your standard 30 million songs-plus of Spotify, Apple, etc. I’ve found the major music services to have increasingly similar and small holes in their catalogs. There’s also a really big music video selection. It’s pretty delightful when this thing pulls up a mixtape of videos it thinks you might like. And there’s also every live music concert or out of print LP or CD that’s up on YouTube. For me this fills just about any hole in the music and commercial video streaming service catalog, of course subject to the amateur uploader’s sound quality and how YouTube treats it after that.
For many, many areas in the service, there is an i button on the left and three dots on the right that uncover a huge feature set. Create radio from the current song, download, go to album, the stuff you would expect on Spotify, plus some more. Also if you give the screen a little press or do whatever you have to do on a particular device, you’ll get a selection of ways to stream through an Airplay button on the bottom (at least on the iPad) and a Google streaming type symbol on the upper right. There are also mixtape features, cookie cutter radio stations, new release sections, etc. Click on the square symbol that would normally be the full screen symbol in YouTube and the screen morphs into different formats depending where you are.
I am surprised at how good this service is for me. To go through the whole feature set would probably take over 100 pages and put you to sleep. There are additional features explicitly planned for the near future. I’ll certainly never use all of the features. The depth does not clutter the screen. It takes a little getting used to as it’s a bit of a paradigm shift for a music service, but for my preferences and uses it offers a lot more than the other music streaming services.
So that’s the overview. I’m not a professional reviewer. If you want something more polished or to get down in the weeds there is lots and lots of reading at Android Central, centered around the below-linked very recent review. For many people there may be a free one-month trial period.
https://www.androidcentral.com/youtube-music
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