Google’s next move is to eventually merge Google Play Music with YouTube Red, its paid subscription. The decision was made back in February to combine both the apps to give way to a new service.
YouTube Red is available in the US, New Zealand, Mexico, Korea and Australia.
According to The Verge, YouTube Music head Lyor Cohen said the company wanted to merge the services to help “educate consumers and bring in new subscribers”.
The company claims to be in an initial phase of evaluation to see how both the services can enhance its music offering, and will notify users much before any change is implemented.
To note, Google Play Music and YouTube are already tied together. If the user is subscribed to YouTube, the access to Google Music Play comes as a perk similarly. Google Play Music subscribers get YouTube access for free – so both the services have gone hand in hand since day one anyway.
YouTube Red is a paid membership available in certain countries that gives users an enhanced and uninterrupted experience across YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, and YouTube Gaming. Uninterrupted – it comprises ad free videos and the user can save content offline to watch it later. It also allows multitasking: keep the video of music playing in the background while the user is using other apps or when the screen is off.
Google Play Music, available in 64 countries (excluding Korea), allows the user to listen to songs through the web player and mobile app for free. It allows the user to store up to 50,000 files but comes with advertisements. With the paid subscription, users get access to more than 40 million songs, without advertisement. The service is offered under a 30-day free trial for new users.
At this point, it is unclear how the integration will happen between the video and music apps. Also, it is unknown if the service will remain in limited countries or Google is looking at a global rollout.
The merging of these two apps will make user experience better, since they won’t have to switch between apps to toggle between audio and video.
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