Music App Updates: Spotify, YouTube Music

Want to listen to your favorite Spotify playlists while gaming on the Xbox One? Well, you might be thrilled to know that Microsoft has recently announced this week that the Spotify mobile app is now made available on the Xbox One. This means that users with Xbox Ones will now be able to stream their favorite tunes on Spotify while playing their favorite games. They can even control the app by way of Spotify Connect on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop device. By the way, Microsoft has also recently taken the advantage of revealing that Spotify and iTunes will soon be landing on the official Windows Store. 

Things are going well right now for the world’s biggest music streaming subscription service provider. A little more than a week ago, it was reported that Spotify had reached more than 60 million paying subscribers. In terms of crossing over to gaming, the streaming giant has long been made available on Sony’s PS4 video game console, and by gaining support for Xbox One, it continues to expand its horizons. 

Meanwhile, for those who are familiar with Google’s YouTube Music mobile app, know that the search giant has recently updated the service. What updates exactly are we talking about here? The app now has support for track and album downloading. 

It is interesting to note that Google has not actually forgotten about its YouTube Music offering. The company had launched the service almost a couple of years ago, and before the very recent update, the app never really got significant upgrades since its debut back in 2015. And until now, many had thought of YouTube Music as sort of a means for casting songs that are not on the Google Play Music mobile app to a Chromecast Audio. 

But with the new updates, Google has made its YouTube Music mobile app a bit more useful than the usual. Users will now be able to download full albums, playlists, and of course, individual tracks to their smartphone or tablet device, as opposed to just a mere mix tape generated based on their recent music streaming history. 

To start downloading some music (perhaps for offline listening later), users just need to launch the Menu icon (the one that looks like three dots) located next to any track, playlist or album, and then choose Save Offline. When a pop up appears, users will have to select whether they want to save just the audio, SD video, or HD video (if applies). For those who are using iPhones or iPads, they can also swipe left on a song listed in a playlist, and then tap Offline. Accessing one’s offline music is just a matter of clicking one’s profile image, and then choosing Offline.