YouTube Music update hides the dislike button and redesigns the ‘Now playing’ screen

Google may have failed with Google Play Music, but it’s going above and beyond to make the YouTube Music brand better and better with age. Today, it looks nothing like it did when it launched, and there are updates seemingly every week.

As reported by 9to5Google, the ‘Now playing’ screen has received a server-side update (version 5.32 on iOS devices) that features better visuals. In addition to showing the song that’s currently playing at the very top of the screen so that collapsing this keeps the information visible, the album art now has much more rounded corners.

Additionally, the play/pause button has had its colors inverted for accessibility and the artist’s name has been left-aligned instead of centered. Most notably, the dislike button has been completely removed as YouTube Music follows in the steps of the regular YouTube app!

If you’re listening to music in your library, the button is rather unnecessary, but I can see it being useful if you’ve changed your mind and no longer feel the same way about something you’ve previously added. However, removing the dislike button from all music as the app has done only serves to remove the ability for users to express their distaste – something that’s increasingly frowned upon for some odd reason.

When YouTube made this move, it upset millions of people and was seen as a tactic for the company to protect disingenuous brands from being outed for bad creative decisions. Without a dislike count on YouTube Music, the decision to remove the dislike button feels kind of dumb, although I will admit it’s consistent.