Details on YouTube Music Key Leaked

Since last year, we’ve heard mixed reports and rumors about a music streaming service coming from Google’s YouTube, the latest concerning its delays and setbacks towards actually launching. A new treasure trove of leaks reveals details about what the service will entail. The short answer? It’s another subscription-based music streaming service. But it seems like it’ll make using YouTube for playing music on your mobile device much more user-friendly.

AndroidPolice got the scoop yesterday, revealing that the service is called YouTube Music Key. For $9.99 per month, users will have access to “over 20 million high-quality tracks – complete albums, organized into artist discographies,” without advertisements and the ability to save songs to a device for offline use. Moreover, subscribing the service will also provide a free subscription to Google Play Music Key, which will be the new name given to what’s currently known as Google Play Music All Access service.

On that note: It’s not entirely clear what the differences will be in terms of selection between the two services – they’re both owned by Google, so what can you find on YouTube Music Key that You can’t find on Google Play Music Key? Even still, the additional subscription makes it seem as though the differences will be significant enough to make this a selling point, so we’ll find out more once Google officially pulls the veil on this.

What’s interesting, though, is that subscribers will also be able to keep YouTube Music Key running in the background with the screen off or with other apps going. There have been more than a few times in the car where my friends and I have turned to YouTube to hear a specific song, but at the expense of keeping the mobile device’s screen on, or not being able to look at Google Maps’ Navigation. This new feature will apparently make this a thing of the past. But again, will this apply to all videos searched on YouTube now? Or only those accessed through YouTube Music Key? Will YouTube Music Key be accessed through a different app, or will it simply apply to your YouTube account?

All those features – plus YouTube’s ability to suggest more songs based on your consumption data – make YouTube Music Key sound pretty solid. It also gives this service an edge over the competition; Amazon Prime Music, Spotify, nor Apple’s recently acquired Beats provide users with access to music videos. YouTube Music Key does by default, in addition to providing screen-less music for other activities where screens aren’t necessary.

Hopefully Google will work out whatever’s holding this service’s launch back so we can get the full, official details soon.

[Source: AndroidPolice]