YouTube Music redesign finally comes to iPad

Long-overdue makeover at last brings improved cover art display

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A mere two years after the changes were first rolled across Android devices, theYouTube MusiciPad app has finally had a major update.

As highlighted by9to5Google, a new version of the app that has just appeared on the App Store brings about some much-needed changes to the Now Playing screen.

The UI overhaul primarily brings improvements to how cover art is displayed, with images no longer going edge-to-edge thanks to a new border.

Tapping the art work now brings up options to share what’s playing, download it for offline listening or add the track to a playlist.

The Thumbs Up/Down has been shifted next to the song title and artist, while the playback controls now nestle in nicely below the cover art.

It’s not all good news, however. Although you can now swipe up or down to access  the Up Next queue, for some reason you can’t swipe left and right to change track like you can with Android versions of the app.

While it’s not clear why the changes have taken so long to arrive on the iPadOS version of the app – the iPhone app received an overhaul over a year ago – the changes will nevertheless be welcomed by users of the service onApple’s tablet.

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Analysis: Is this the start of more frequent updates for Google apps on Apple devices?

WhileGooglerolls out updates to its Android apps with impressively frequent regularity, it’s fair to say users of its iOS and iPadOS apps haven’t been feeling quite the same amount of love in recent times.

From the agonising wait forpicture-in-picture to land on its Apple versions of YouTube, to the companytelling users that its own apps were out of date and were a security issue, Google’s treatment of its iOS and iPadOS apps has been borderline neglectful in recent years.

Most overlooked of all have been iPadYouTubeMusic subscribers who had been left wondering if the platform had been abandoned completely.

News of this overdue software revision, alongside recent changes to the Archive feature on its Photos app (which was rolled out in tandem with its Android versions), will nevertheless give hope that the days of Google treating its apps for Apple devices as an afterthought may finally be at an end.

Kevin Lynch is a London-born, Dublin-based writer and journalist. The author ofSteve Jobs: A Biographic Portrait, Kevin is a regular feature writer for a number of tech sites and the former Technology Editor for the Daily Mirror. He has also served as editor ofGuinnessWorldRecords.comand has been a member of the judging panel for the BAFTA British Academy Video Game Awards. Alongside reviewing the latest AV gear, smartphones and computers, Kevin also specialises in music tech and can often be found putting the latest DAWs, MIDI controllers and guitar modellers through their paces. Born within the sound of Bow Bells, Kevin is also a lifelong West Ham fan for his troubles.

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