The long lingering death of Google Play Music finally came to pass in December 2020. As with many Google products, it had a shorter than expected shelf life and was ultimately killed off without much sentiment.
And it’s not as if Google Play Music was a lemon. It was a success and available globally in some sixty-plus countries. It launched in November 2011 as what was essentially free cloud storage for users’ music downloads. But you could upgrade to get on-demand streaming access to the Google Play Music catalog and from YouTube, which Google had acquired five years earlier.
Users could also purchase music from Google Play and then listen offline using various Google mobile apps. But with the ground moving quickly under its feet, Google had to change tack and announced in August 2020 that they were winding down Google Play Music.
But it wasn’t all bad news. As had been widely expected, Google announced it was ditching its outdated music service in favor of YouTube Music and Google Podcasts.
Given the relatively modest level of uptake for Google Podcasts, it wouldn’t be surprising if YouTube Music and Google Podcasts get merged. This merger would make a lot of sense. It would mirror how others streamline all the user’s audio into one place rather than splitting music and podcasts into two separate apps.
YouTube Music
70 million songs
Live music performances
Thousands of curated playlists
Personalized playlists and mixes
Create playlists
Song lyrics
Upgrade for ad-free listening for $9.99 per month
Google Podcasts
Free to use
Listen and subscribe to all your favorite podcast shows
Show recommendations
Browse popular and trending podcasts across many genres
Customize your listening experience
Listen on multiple devices
Auto downloading for offline listening
PROS - YouTube Music
Music content you can’t find easily elsewhere
Exclusive content
Free with ads
Double the music track storage over Google Play Music
Works well with Google Assistant
Integrates with other YouTube apps
CONS - YouTube Music
Browsing your own music isn’t the easiest task
In some ways, YouTube Music is inferior to Google Play Music
Decent enough track selection but not as good as Spotify
PROS - Google Podcasts
Available for Android and iOS
Clean interface that’s easy to navigate
It’s free
Better than it used to be
Multi-language support
CONS - Google Podcasts
It lacks some standard features
Not as popular or functional as competitors.
YouTube Music and Google Podcasts can be downloaded for Android from Google Play. Likewise, iOS versions of both apps can be obtained from Apple’s App Store.
YouTube Music for Android requirements varies by device, and so too do Google Podcasts.
Meanwhile, the requirements on iOs for the apps are:
YouTube Music - 188.5 MB of storage space and iOS 11.0 or later.
Google Podcasts - 61.9 MB of storage and iOS 12.0 or later.
Google Play users award YouTube Music 4.2 and Google Podcasts 4.7 out of five.
App Store users give both apps 4.7 out of five.
