New button added to YouTube Music keeps the tunes and the videos playing

Somewhere in Mountain View there just has to be a locked room full of Googlers whose sole job is to come up with small, subtle changes to Android and Google's apps that move the needle slightly forward on the meter that tracks how much you are loving life. We hear that those inside the room get only Banquet brand frozen meals, lukewarm Diet Cola (from a generic brand), and cactus-flavored Jell-O until they come up with an idea.

Obviously, those inside this room, which has muzak versions of Barry Manilow tunes piped in 24 hours a day, have powerful incentives to create new features. Sometimes, all it takes is a new button on an app to impress the brass at Google. And by the way, as far as we know, there is no such room although the point is valid; Google wants to keep its apps smelling new-car fresh, and sometimes a minor change is all that is required.

For example, per 9to5Google, on the YouTube Music app on Android and iOS Google has added a "Play all" button for some of the carousels that show only four songs at a time. The carousels with the new "Play all" button include Quick Picks, Recommended Music Videos, Trending songs, Covers and remixes, and Heard in Shorts. These carousels show only four tunes or videos at a time; you can swipe left to see additional pages listing more songs or videos. Pressing "Play all" will play all of the songs or videos listed under a particular category.

The new Play all button just started rolling out to Android, iOS, and the web yesterday and the buttons do appear on my Pixel 6 Pro packing Android 14 Beta 5 and my iPhone 11 Pro Max running iOS 16.6. If you don't have YouTube Music on your Android phone, click on this link to install it from the Google Play Store. To install the app on your iPhone, click on this link.