Google has hammered another nail in the Play Music coffin. In a blog post, the company revealed that YouTube Music will now come pre-installed on all new devices launching with Android 10.
YouTube Music, which launched in Canada last summer, has slowly acquired many of the features that made Google’s other streaming music platform, Play Music, so good. With the way things are shifting, we’ve long thought that YouTube Music would eventually become the defacto Google streaming audio service. It looks like we’re a step closer to that.
According to the blog post, YouTube Music will come on every new Android 10 device. However, the post also notes that new Android 9 devices will also come with YouTube Music installed. Finally, the post mentions that this includes Pixel devices.
The post also says that Google Play Music subscribers with Android 10 devices “can continue to enjoy Google Play Music by downloading it from the Play Store and logging into their accounts.” While the post doesn’t explicitly say that Play Music will no longer come installed on Android 10 devices, it sure seems like that’s the case.
On one side, it’s a good move for Google — bundling two music apps on new devices is a great way to confuse customers. However, it’s sad to see Play Music fade away like this.
It likely won’t be much longer now until Google folds Play Music into YouTube Music and shuts down the app for good.
Source: YouTube Blog
