Google today announced an update to YouTube Music on iOS and Android that will make it easier to seamlessly switch between merely listening to the audio and watching a song’s music video. To do so, you only have to tap a button at the top of the screen. This should work for almost every song that has a video because Google has time-matched more than 5 million official music videos to their audio tracks.
You have to be a paying YouTube Premium or YouTube Music Premium subscriber to get access to this new feature, though. If you’re using a free account, you’re out of luck.
While this is not exactly a fancy new feature, it definitely improves the user experience in YouTube Music. Google also argues that this move will make music videos more discoverable in the app.
Don’t care about music videos? Don’t worry. YouTube Music also features a “Don’t play music videos” setting.
Google’s music strategy is about as confusing as its messaging strategy, but as things stand right now, YouTube Music will replace the older Google Play Music experience at some point later this year. Or not. It’s always hard to tell with Google, given that Hangouts is still hanging in there, too. Clearly, though, the company’s music investments are now going into YouTube Music.