YouTube Music's iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets have speedy listening in mind

Youtube Music Apple Music Spotify On Iphone

(Image credit: Luke Filipowicz / iMore)

YouTube Music, the Google-owned music streaming service, has updated its iPhone app to add support for iOS 16 and Lock Screen widgets.

The update, which is now available for download from the App Store for free, adds the new widget support and the usual array of bug fixes and improvements. If you have automatic updates enabled, you might already have access to your new Lock Screen widgets and not even know it.

All locked up

Lock Screen widgets were one of the big additions to iOS 16 and might be one of the best iPhone features we've seen added in some time — although we're sure that the Dynamic Island might have something to say about that. By putting widgets on the Lock Screen, developers can give people instant access to features that would otherwise require more swipes and taps.

Widgets are even more impressive with a new iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14 Pro Max. Those iPhones have an Always-On Display, allowing widgets to be displayed even when the iPhone's screen normally turns off.

In the case of YouTube Music, iPhone owners can put one of two Recently Played widgets on their Lock Screen. One is a larger widget that displays the name of the song, video, album, or playlist that was last played.

Another smaller widget is also available, but it's less valuable and often has text truncated because of its small size. Still, it's an option for people who are short on Lock Screen space and want a quick way to get back into YouTube Music right from their Lock Screen. Now might be a good time to request that Apple adds more spaces for Lock Screen widgets in the future — as part of iOS 17, perhaps?

Don't yet have YouTube Music installed? You can download it from the App Store for free now.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.