Google Play Music is being phased out in favor of YouTube Music starting next month. That change already exacerbates the need for the latter to achieve a desirable feature parity with its predecessor, but it also now presents a challenging chasm for Wear OS users who will lose access to Play Music without a robust YouTube Music experience.

A new Wear OS help page tells users that they won't be able to download or even use Google Play Music "in the next couple of weeks." And until a proper YouTube Music experience appears "in the coming months," that means they'll have to resort to other apps in order to download and play local files.

People are understandably upset about the lack of commitment Google has to its own wearables platform. It's been a struggle since day one, after all, and it will continue to be for some time. For the time being, as with almost any media source, Wear OS users will be able to control YouTube Music playback on their phone from their watches.

Upcoming Changes To Your Music on Wear OS

In the next couple of weeks, users will no longer be able to use or download Google Play Music on their Wear OS by Google smartwatches. Google is investing heavily in improving integrated music services through all of your connected devices with YouTube Music.

We are working on bringing our users a better music experience in the coming months with planned improvements to YouTube Music. In the meantime, you can use your Wear OS smartwatch to remotely control the YouTube Music app on your Android or iOS phone. When you play music from YouTube Music on your phone, controls will automatically appear on your watch.

Please continue to visit the Wear OS community for further updates.

Source: Google