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Google debuts an Apple Watch YouTube Music app

Just in time for the shutdown of Google Play Music later this month.

Google

If you’re one of those rare YouTube Music subscribers with both an iPhone and Apple Watch, you won’t be left out in the cold when Google shuts down Play Music later this month. As of today, the company has a YouTube Music app available for the Apple Watch. It’s mostly a threadbare experience in terms of features, allowing you to do basics like browse through your music collection and control playback — something Wear OS users probably wish they could do on their wearables.

Naturally, it comes with a complication you can add to your watch face to give you quick access to playback controls — just note not all watch faces support the feature. There’s also a shortcut that lets you cast a song from your phone to a speaker, as well as one to “Like” a track. You can also expect to see the app recommend new songs for you to check out based on your listening habits. What you won’t find is support offline playback. Effectively, what the software does is function as a music remote for your iPhone, making it not so different from Spotify’s Apple Watch app.

You’ll need a Series 3 or above running at least watchOS 6 to install YouTube Music on your Apple Watch. An active YouTube Premium or YouTube Premium Music subscription is also required.