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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- A YouTube app is coming to Android Auto.
- You can’t actually watch any videos, though.
- The app only lets you control the audio of a video that’s playing.
A YouTube app is coming to your car, but don’t plan on watching any videos.
Over the past several days, users have noticed a YouTube app appearing on Android Auto. But it doesn’t actually let you watch YouTube.
What’s the point then?
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The new YouTube app for Android Auto has no video playback and no browsing — it’s simply a media player for audio. You can play or pause content and skip forward to another video, and that’s all. That’s certainly limited, but if you frequently use YouTube for podcasts, long-form videos like lectures or classes, or music, this is a fairly useful feature. Android Auto already plays whatever audio is coming through your phone, so the ability to listen isn’t new. What’s new is easier controls with the buttons on your steering wheel or dashboard.
There’s another catch, though.
A push for YouTube’s premium subscription?
Unless you just set your phone down and let the video play, running down your battery, you’ll need the video to play in the background to keep the audio going. And to do that, you’ll need to be a YouTube Premium subscriber.
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YouTube offers a premium subscription for $8 a month that includes ad-free viewing, the ability to download videos, and, most importantly here, lets you keep videos playing in the background while your phone is showing something else.
Given that Android Auto implements quite a few restrictions as to how you can interact with it while driving, it’s no surprise that you can’t watch videos. You have to wonder, though, if this is a push to encourage people to sign up for YouTube’s premium subscription or even the beginning of a larger integration of YouTube into your vehicle, like watching videos while parked.
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