At the start of last month, we enabled a new YouTube Music widget for Android that was first teased in Pixel 6 ads. The “Turntable” widget is now briefly appearing for some YouTube Music users today.
Update 10/5: The Turntable widget is now widely available with version 4.47+ of YouTube Music following a server-side update on Android 12. It’s not appearing on Android 11 and older. Meanwhile, the central disc/cover art does not spin.
Original 10/4: After installing version 4.48.51 of YouTube Music, “Turntable” will briefly appear alongside the existing “Now Playing” widget, which does not currently appear to be getting a redesign.
The new one provides “Quick access to your most recently played tracks” and is 3×2 by default. You can expand it to take up the entire screen with the inner disc adjusting accordingly. That circle shows cover art with a play/pause button in the bottom-left corner and like/unlike in the top.
Given that there are only two actions, Turntable is not too useful for playback controls. Rather, it’s handy for getting back to a song.
In our briefing testing this afternoon, the cover art does not spin when music is playing. It also doesn’t appear to rotate with the current play position. This would have been very whimsical, but Google’s original Material You reel is more aspirational than fact.
A spinning widget would presumably have been resource-intensive, but maybe that’s something planned for the future. Another difference is how “start a radio” is not available from the widget.
Sideloading version 4.48.51 will cause the new homescreen item to appear in the Android 12 sheet and be usable for a minute or so, however, once YouTube Music syncs, the Turntable widget is removed and you’re left with just Now Playing. On the upside, a server-side update any day now could enable it.
More about YouTube Music:
- YouTube Music starts rolling out native Cast support on the web
- YouTube Music to roll out free background listening to all users in Canada from November 3
- YouTube Music now on Wear OS 2, starting with latest TicWatch & Fossil watches [U]
- Google’s iOS 15 app updates bring XL YouTube Music & Photos widgets, Focus mode support
Author: Abner Li
Source: 9TO5Google
