Apple Music vs. YouTube Music

[MartyvH]

you are aware that Google Play Music is shutting down by the end of next month?

It is being replaced by Youtube Music.

It's a drag so far. YouTube Music is inferior to GPM in a few ways, one is the sound quality if this article is correct. The interface is not as simple to navigate.

Another is that you can't just view your library by artist based on the releases you added or just slide your finger down the alphabet on the right like GPM. It's broken up by artists that have at least one song on compilations, which blows out the list to thousands of artists. To find a particular one it's the search function or nothing. Stupid.

And is it just getting every song from YouTube, which varies greatly in recording quality, or from Google's own library and playing that while just playing the video from YouTube? Or both and when does each happen?

It's a bizarre app that needs work. I do like the dark mode and the lyrics which GPM does not have.

 

[Puonti]

Yeah, it's not good. I dropped my grandfathered Google Play Music subscription last month because of the upcoming shutdown. Youtube Music just didn't cut it.

 

[madeirabhoy]

It's a drag so far. YouTube Music is inferior to GPM in a few ways, one is the sound quality if this article is correct. The interface is not as simple to navigate.

Another is that you can't just view your library by artist based on the releases you added or just slide your finger down the alphabet on the right like GPM. It's broken up by artists that have at least one song on compilations, which blows out the list to thousands of artists. To find a particular one it's the search function or nothing. Stupid.

And is it just getting every song from YouTube, which varies greatly in recording quality, or from Google's own library and playing that while just playing the video from YouTube? Or both and when does each happen?

It's a bizarre app that needs work. I do like the dark mode and the lyrics which GPM does not have.

ive just made the move and I agree with you, its a dog to use compared to GPM. I spent ages tidying up my GPM library before doing the merge, getting all artists tidied by using album artists to get rid of all the one song xxxx featuring yyyy, all compilations as album artist various artists, but on YouTube its a mess again.

scrolling is so annoying, as it hits the bottom of the scroll for each page and judders whereas with GPM you can scroll down as fast as you want, or grab the scroll bar to get right down to the later letters of the alphabet.

clicking on artists in GPM has a nice icons layout which makes it quicker to get to someone but YouTube only has this view bizarrely for albums

 

[philrock]

I suppose for hardcore music folks this is a big deal. I enjoy music but consider myself more of a casual listener. For years I used Prime music then last year I started paying for Prime Unlimited. The decision was both financial and system integration. Music and the Echo are the only non-Apple ecosystem entities in my household. I was able to get two Echo Dots and an Echo for half the cost of a single Homepod. I use Sonos for my home audio so a high end speaker integrated into the assistant wasn't required.

 

[madeirabhoy]

re switching to YouTube music, isnt there an automatic uploader? for google music there is but on googling, for YouTube I. have to do it manually. is this right?

 

[Puonti]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with automatic uploader, but just in case it's one of these things:

1) The Youtube Music app offered to automatically transfer over my playlists, library and uploaded songs from Google Play Music to Youtube Music, though I believe there were some limitations.

2) Google Play Music has / used to have a desktop application you could use to upload music to GPM. As I understand it Youtube Music does not have this kind of a dedicated app (yet).

 

[BMox81]

You can upload your own music now on the YTM desktop page.

 

[madeirabhoy]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with automatic uploader, but just in case it's one of these things:

1) The Youtube Music app offered to automatically transfer over my playlists, library and uploaded songs from Google Play Music to Youtube Music, though I believe there were some limitations.

2) Google Play Music has / used to have a desktop application you could use to upload music to GPM. As I understand it Youtube Music does not have this kind of a dedicated app (yet).

yes 2 is what I mean. my setup is basically any time I get new music, I throw it into iTunes, that uploads into iTunes Match, and the google play music uploader automatically does the same thing for GPM. like you YouTube moved over all my music and playlists, but from that day on, any new music I get will go onto iTunes and GPM but not YouTube.

its not a major issue, most of my music playing is through iTunes, google is just for my google home's. I presume I can change them to use YouTube but haven't looked yet.

 

[madeirabhoy]

ive just been looking, is it true what ive read that if you've only got a free YouTube account with your music uploaded, you cant ask for specific music with your google home boxes? what I read was you could only ask for genre.

ive gone into settings to try to check myself but I cannot get google home to play music from YouTube music. ive changed it for YouTube to be the default, but for example I have a playlist called chemical brothers

before with gpm set as default, 'hey google play chemical brothers' plays the playlist on gpm
with YouTube as default, the same phrase still plays the playlist from gpm not from YouTube.

any attempt at phrases such as 'play YouTube music playlist called chemical brothers' gets an answer saying that are no screens attached.

does that mean that at the end of the year my google home is gimped unless I pay google money every month?

 

[MartyvH]

ive just been looking, is it true what ive read that if you've only got a free YouTube account with your music uploaded, you cant ask for specific music with your google home boxes?

You ought to be able to do that. There should be nothing wrong with it. But I'm not sure. Check out the Google Home help website. I have often found the answers there.

 

[josephd]

I don’t watch live tv, nor do I want to. So I signed up for YouTube Premium, it includes YouTube music. I actually find YouTube music to be a very good music service. And YouTube premium has full episodes here and there ad free. Between the two, the $16 a month deal is hard to beat.
As for Apple Music, and I am not downing someone’s preference. There is too much hip hop and rap as to why I jumped ship.
I tried Spotify, and also didn’t like the service. I found too many quirks for my liking. And lastly, and IMHO. Prime membership used to be $99 a year, which included music,but with limitations. When they raised the cost to $125 a year, they could have at least included music unlimited as to why I don’t pony up the additional $8 a month. I am also a Pandora plus user. Pandora is still a solid music service. And I enjoy the radio aspect without the ads. I sometimes use my music app as just that, a radio. YouTube music does a decent job letting you subscribe to an Artist, or pick a song and use it to start a radio station. I am sure as time goes on, YouTube Music will continue to improve. What I like, they continue to update the app, and they seem to care about improving the service.

 

[Bustycat]

YouTube Music currently offers up to 256 kbps AAC.