YouTube has introduced a new feature for its Premium users.
While listeners could previously download songs to listen to offline, now with ‘smart downloads’ the YouTube app will automatically download up to 500 songs for you based on your music preferences.
And you don’t need an active Internet connection to listen to them!
Users can control how many songs they’d like to be downloaded into the Offline Mixtape based on their storage space.
If you don’t like any of the songs the app automatically downloaded, they can easily be removed from the playlist by swiping left.
The track list is updated every 24 hours – granted you connect to the Internet and have at least 40% battery charge – ensuring you have a constant inflow of new music options.
This is a great new feature if you struggle to branch out with your music taste, and want to explore genres you never thought you would like.
However, despite this update, YouTube Music is still leaving a lot of its users frustrated.
This is especially true for those who don’t use Apple Music or Spotify, YouTube Music’s competitors, and rely on Google Play Music instead.
The platform still has not offered a way for users to migrate their existing music libraries from Google Play over to YouTube, so they rely entirely on YouTube’s song selection.
Understandably, this inconveniences users as its prevents them from unifying their music library and instead they have to access it on more than one platform.
This may be a concern that YouTube should look into addressing as it could mean a growth in popularity for them.
However, the site has been receptive before. YouTube users’ biggest complaint was the mobile app needed to stay open, in order for the video to keep playing.
When YouTube Music launched, YouTube offered their premium users an audio-only mode where videos could continue to play in the background.
We’re looking forward to see how YouTube responds to its users’ requests.
Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Photo credit: Jason Cipriani via CNET.