What you need to know
- Google has brought YouTube Music to Android TV.
- The service is not a discrete app but comes as part of an update to the main YouTube app.
- It's not an optimal version of the app. Features like shuffle and repeat are missing, and users may not be able to access their full libraries.
Google has brought YouTube Music to its Android TV platform, but it's not as straightforward as that. There isn't any discrete Android TV app as you may expect given the parties involved. Instead, YouTub Music comes as an update to the regular YouTube app. This adds an extra tab to the navigation menu where users can access the Android TV-optimized version of YouTube Music.
As per Android Police, there are a few essential missing features that serve to spoil the experience. There's no background playback, no shuffle or repeat controls, no toggle between audio and video playback, no playlist management, no lyrics for karaoke night, and no access to your YouTube Music library or uploaded music. It's YouTube Music, but only nominally so.
The Android TV app is just another way Google's failure to properly build a YouTube Music app for larger devices. On smartphones, Google regularly tests and rolls out new features to spruce up the app. The web-app has been less so improved. Google has added the new explore tab, but suggestions, lyrics, and a more thoughtful interface are exclusively on mobile for now. Perhaps Google will get around to fixing the web and TV experience over the next few months.
The Android TV Music app should be available server-side, but you can grab it here from the Play Store.
