YouTube Music Will Soon Properly Identify Audiobooks, Live Shows and More

Jun. 4, 2020

After adding the ability topre-save unreleased albums, YouTube Music is all set to roll out more features in the coming days. Hints about the new features were spotted by9to5Googlein an APK teardown. According to the report, YouTube Music is prepping an external Bluetooth device setting. Also suggested by the report is the addition of a label for audiobooks and live shows.

The report found strings that suggestthe app will allow external devices to start playback via Bluetooth. The code is apparently“a direct copy paste from Play Music and aimed at car systems or wired headsets”. While the feature has long been a part of Play Music, it is yet to go live on YouTube Music.

Meanwhile, YouTube Music v3.69 also just started rolling out on the Play Store. Code from this version reveals thatthe app will distinguish between songs, audiobooks and live shows.These are currently all lumped together as ‘Songs’ in YouTube Music. Apparently, v3.69 has added the ‘Book’ and ‘Show’ labels, suggesting that the app will soon properly identify these non-music audio categories.

YouTube Music has been rolling out a series of changes ahead of theplanned deprecation of Google Play Music. A recent update to the app added the ability totransfer content from Google Play Musicover to YouTube Music, while an earlier update hadadded a new library organization systemthat made it easier to find specific artistes or tracks.

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