Midway through December last year, Google began testing a grid layout for singles and albums from artists in YouTube Music. This UI change is now rolling out more widely on Android and iOS as well as on the web version.
As you can see in the screenshots below, the updated album view or singles view of artists pages now displays the titles in a grid format. The album art is at the forefront with the song or album name underneath it. Previously, YouTube Music displayed albums and singles in a list view, with tiny thumbnails of the album art and more prominent titles.
While a grid layout adds a visual appeal and makes titles more glanceable and easier to find thanks to the large, recognizable album arts, there are some downsides as well. Firstly, this layout displays a fewer number of songs/albums at once than a list view. You might have to scroll more to find a particular one.
Additionally, since the list view doesn’t highlight the album art, longer titles fit in easily. Not to mention, you also get an easily accessible menu for each title right on the artists’ pages.
That said, it’s the other way round on the web version of YouTube Music though. The grid layout shows more titles at once than the list view. Hopefully, Google will offer the users an option to manually switch between either layout across all platforms.
YouTube Music picks a grid layout for songs and albums
Google last year started shutting down the Play Music app and replaced it with YouTube Music as the default music player app in Android smartphones. The latter is still relatively new and lacks plenty of user-favorite features. However, YouTube Music has been picking up one after other great features throughout last year and it continues to do so this year as well.
This grid layout for songs and albums on artists’ pages is another useful feature that Google is now rolling to YouTube Music globally. You should soon start seeing this UI change in the app.
The grid layout also introduces a new cast button in the top right corner of the screen. The new button, which sits to the left of the search button, makes it much easier to cast to other devices from YouTube Music. Expect YouTube Music to pick up more such useful features in the coming months as Google continues to refine and make it a full-fledged music-streaming app.