YouTube Music is Now Available for Wear OS 2 Watches

The YouTube Music app is officially available for Wear OS 2 users after one year of wait. As the move is long past due, Google is now trying to improve Wear OS 2 whilst also waiting for Wear OS 3 to arrive on non-Samsung Galaxy 4 smartwatches. 

It will launch to selected Wear OS 2 smartwatches. If your Wear OS 2 watch isn’t included on the list, you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks or months. According to Google, the app will be available on more devices later this year.

Before now, Wear OS only had the Play Music app and no other genuine third-party music app other than the Spotify app. The Spotify app, on the other hand, was bare-bones and served no purpose except to serve as a repurposed remote. When Google discontinued Play Music in place of YouTube Music in 2020, Wear OS 2 smartwatches didn’t have a dedicated music app. Google eventually made YouTube Music available on the Apple Watch—but not on Wear OS watches. 

There are a few minor glitches in the new YouTube Music app. The application, as per a user community post on Google, lets users to “download songs to your watch and listen to music offline or workout to your favorite tunes without carrying your phone.” Users may browse their playlists and songs, but as 9to5 Google points out, there doesn’t appear to be a means to directly stream tracks; instead, they’ll have to rely on downloads. Another peculiarity is that the watch must be charged and linked to WIFI in order to begin offline audio file downloads. 

Wear OS 3 new features will not be available to compatible smartwatches until at least mid-2022. That’s not ideal, and it’s far superior to having none at all. Spotify has also started providing offline downloads for Wear OS 2 users. By almost any measure, rising from next-to-zero options to having two functional apps is a significant gain over a year ago. The shift to Wear OS 3 is sure to have some glitches along the way, but it’s promising to see renewed interest in the Wear OS platform so far. Android users have earned it.