YouTube Music rolls out comments section in new Now Playing interface

By Umar Shakir, a news writer fond of the electric vehicle lifestyle and things that plug in via USB-C. He spent over 15 years in IT support before joining The Verge.

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YouTube Music has a redesigned Now Playing screen that includes the comments section from whichever YouTube video it’s pulling from. Now, you can read and write comments directly from the app if that’s what you’re into. The update is rolling out now to iOS and Android users, 9to5Google reports.

Other interface updates include larger album art and a new horizontally swipeable line of buttons above the progress bar. The buttons include save, a now easily accessible share, download, radio, and the aforementioned comments section button — though presumably only for songs with a video available. YouTube Music’s like / dislike buttons are also moved in line with the new buttons, so now the track name and album are aligned to the left of the screen (annexing the spot where the dislike button used to be).

Tapping on YouTube Music’s comments button pops up an interface almost indiscernible to the regular YouTube app and includes existing comments from the YouTube upload (compare the YouTube Music screenshot from 9to5Google above to the same song on YouTube). Although we were able to check out the new Now Playing interface, we couldn’t test the new comments section ourselves, as that button was still absent. However, you can try and see if you’re a part of the full rollout by force stopping YouTube Music on Android and reopening it (make sure your app is up to date). If you see it, drop a comment — and make it a good one, for Google’s sake.

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