Editor-DN
What you need to know.
- YouTube is testing a redesign of YouTube Music’s Now Playing screen for multiple users.
- The company last tweeted the Now Playing format in September 2023, and is starting to roll out new changes a little over a year later.
- Highlights of the changes include a central Play/Puzzle set of controls that appear directly below the album artwork and song titles.
A year after YouTube last tweaked the Now Playing screen in the YouTube Music app, new changes may be coming. Several reports from Reddit users And 9to5Google indicated that YouTube Music’s Now Playing page is testing a major shakeup, with rotating buttons and a new-look scrubber. Android Central can already confirm the test, as the redesigned Now Playing screen has appeared on at least one of our devices.
Previously, the action carousel appeared directly under the song title, artist, and album artwork. This carousel gives users access to like, dislike, comment, share and more buttons. However, the new test moves the main playback controls — including play/pause, forward/rewind, and shuffle/loop — directly under the song title and artist name.
The test moves those important Now Playing buttons closer to the center of the screen and the song details. It also moves them further away from the bottom of the screen, which can cause accessibility issues when using your phone with one hand. This is a unique problem for YouTube Music, as it has an action carousel that forces the main Now Playing buttons up or down on the screen. Other streaming apps, like Spotify and Apple Music, don’t have this problem because they don’t have an action carousel or equivalent.
Additionally, the timeline has been redesigned, taking cues from the main YouTube app. It is now a rectangle with no dots visible to the scrubber. Instead, the scrubber will appear if you hold and drag it along the timeline to skip or go back. It’s a more minimalistic design that will feel familiar if you’re used to Google’s other timeline scrubbers.
Of course, since the Now Playing buttons have been moved up, the action carousel must be moved down. It’s now at the very bottom of the screen between the top next/tune/related buttons and the main now playing buttons.
While these changes may take some getting used to, YouTube Music has been updating its Now Playing screen for a while now, so maybe it was time for a tweak or two. This appears to be a limited test for now, and we’re not sure when it will roll out to all YouTube Music users. You’ll have to wait and hope you get lucky, like those YouTube Music users who got their rewind stats early.
