YouTube Music Lands On Apple Watch As WearOS Shows Signs Of Life

It's been something of a busy week for YouTube Music. First, we saw a number of improvements for YouTube TV's smart TV implementation go live, with particular focus on improving the Android TV OS experience. Later that same day, Google took one more step toward making YouTube Music its main music streaming app by shutting down the Google Play Music Store. Now, to cap of this rather busy week (assuming there isn't some kind of YouTube Music roll out or update tomorrow), Google has put YouTube Music on the Apple Watch.

It seems that YouTube Music functions mostly as you'd expect it to on Apple Watch. You won't have a full app experience like you do on iPhone, but you'll be able to do a decent amount using just the Apple Watch alone. In a post to the YouTube Music blog today, Google explains that users will be able to control playback, browse music collections, or cast their music to nearby speakers.

Playback will be controlled by a new YouTube Music complication for the device's watchface. It's here that you'll also see recommendations for new songs based on your listening habits. In the lower left-hand corner, there's a cast button you can tap to cast music from your phone to speakers.

It's a relatively simple implementation but one that still should be useful for any YouTube Music subscribers who wear an Apple Watch daily. In order to use these features, YouTube says that you'll need the latest version of YouTube Music, either a Youtube Premium or YouTube Premium Music subscription, an Apple Watch Series 3 or above running watchOS 6 and above, and an iPhone.

While YouTube Music is coming to the Apple Watch, a WearOS version of the app isn't anywhere to be seen. Google says that it will offer additional updates on the incoming launch of a WearOS app soon, so we'll let you know when it does just that.