Google has decided to join the music streaming mix with their brand-new YouTube Music platform, which has just launched in South Africa. Google has been trying to break into the music streaming market for a while, starting with Google Play back in 2011, and now feel confident that YouTube Music can take on the competition by offering both free and paid options, as well as a lot of great features. Here’s a rundown of the best YouTube Music features:
The Best Personal DJ
YouTube Music has thousands of themed playlists and the app’s personalised home screen automatically serves up recommendations based on your preferences and lifestyle. This means that it doesn’t only take into account what you’ve been listening to, but also adjusts to your location and activities. For example, if you’re at the gym, the app would recommend music to help increase your heart rate and help you power through your workout.
Free Ad-Supported and Premium Versions
Similar to competitors like Spotify, YouTube Music is available for free to anyone who is willing to put up with a few ads in between songs. If you’re a YouTube Music Premium subscriber, you get a totally ad-free experience on the platform.
User Generated Mixes and Remixes
Anybody can upload content to YouTube, which means you can get remixes of popular songs to hour-long mixes and everything in-between. Most of this content won’t be found on other music streaming services, so user generated content is a big draw for YouTube Music.
Offline listening
To save data, YouTube Music offers you the chance to download songs to keep on your device and listen to over and over again without using up your data. This means you can access these songs at any time and listen to your favourite jams even through the middle of the month when data is running low.
Background Listening
YouTube Music Premium comes with the ability to multitask on your device. You can still listen to your favourite tunes while doing other things that you need to on your device. Great news for our multi-tasking generation.
A single YouTube Music subscription is available for R59.99 a month, or if you want access for the whole family, the Family Plan will cost R89.99 a month for unlimited, ad-free music streaming.