Photo: autoevolution
The transition from Google Play Music to YouTube Music in the Android ecosystem, and this includes Android Auto as well, is happening at a faster pace these days, as the Mountain View-based search giant plans to kill off the service by the end of the year.
And most recently, the company retired Google Assistant integration for Google Play Music, which means that you can no longer control the app with voice commands even when connected to a smart speaker.
As discovered recently, if you launch Google Assistant settings on your mobile device and try to configure the Music settings, Google Play Music is no longer available and there’s no way to add the app back. Instead, YouTube Music is now at the top of the list, as this is the recommended choice for everybody previously using Play Music.
Is there anything you can do about it? Not really, as the days of Google Play Music are clearly numbered, and Google just wants to complete the retirement as soon as possible.
For Android Auto users, however, the demise of Google Play Music is a painful experience, not necessarily because they’re forced to migrate to a new service, but due to the fact that YouTube Music still doesn’t seem to be ready for a fully-featured experience behind the wheel.
One of the things that users have criticized the most about YouTube Music is its subscription model. By design, YouTube Music requires a subscription to access the content, but for former Google Play Music users, this also means they can no longer listen to the songs they previously purchased from the Google store. Unless they have a subscription, that is, so theoretically, these users are forced to pay one more time for a library they already paid for before.
Google has already promised to address these shortcomings and further refine the experience with YouTube Music both on the phone and in the car, but no other specifics were shared.
As discovered recently, if you launch Google Assistant settings on your mobile device and try to configure the Music settings, Google Play Music is no longer available and there’s no way to add the app back. Instead, YouTube Music is now at the top of the list, as this is the recommended choice for everybody previously using Play Music.
Is there anything you can do about it? Not really, as the days of Google Play Music are clearly numbered, and Google just wants to complete the retirement as soon as possible.
For Android Auto users, however, the demise of Google Play Music is a painful experience, not necessarily because they’re forced to migrate to a new service, but due to the fact that YouTube Music still doesn’t seem to be ready for a fully-featured experience behind the wheel.
One of the things that users have criticized the most about YouTube Music is its subscription model. By design, YouTube Music requires a subscription to access the content, but for former Google Play Music users, this also means they can no longer listen to the songs they previously purchased from the Google store. Unless they have a subscription, that is, so theoretically, these users are forced to pay one more time for a library they already paid for before.
Google has already promised to address these shortcomings and further refine the experience with YouTube Music both on the phone and in the car, but no other specifics were shared.
Google News