YouTube has taken another jab at Apple and finally debuted the music streaming app it announced last month. The app helps users find new music to enjoy by allowing them to select from pre-made stations or create their own based on their musical tastes.
The app will launch straight into a customized home page based on your previous YouTube viewing habits, allowing you to mostly skip the process of telling Google what music you like in order to get things started. Videos you’ve liked will be saved and used to further tune the playlists, and a setting on these stations will allow you to determine how much variety should be added to the artist lineup.
Much like YouTube Gaming, the live-streaming app the company published earlier this year, YouTube Music isn’t so much a new service as a new skin over the existing YouTube content. It basically provides a new, music-centric way to browse music videos already available on the YouTube website.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwj1qFPnhow]
Those videos may not always be official music videos released by big labels, however. The app can also pull up fan videos related to or based on a song of your choice, creating what YouTube calls “a nearly endless catalog” of music.
The app is free to use, but comes with a few expected caveats. You’ll hear ads when you listen to music and you won’t be able to continue listening if you put the app in the background.
Last month the company launched YouTube Red, which allows for offline and background playback as well as ad-free video streaming. That service can be combined with the YouTube Music app to get all the same benefits for your music library.
You can grab YouTube Music for free from the App Store right now. Users who download the app will get a free 14-day trial of YouTube Red.
Earlier this month Apple debuted its own music streaming app on Android.
