YouTube Music is rolling out a significant update with version 9.22 for iOS and 9.21 for Android, shifting the search feature to the bottom navigation bar. This change replaces the Explore tab with Search while the Home, Samples, and Library tabs remain unchanged. The redesign aims to enhance user experience by aligning with layouts familiar to other streaming services.
The top-right corner of the app now solely functions for the profile menu and notifications. Users can access recent queries and a variety of categories, including New releases, Charts, Moods & genres, and Podcasts, through the search function. This aims to maintain a similar experience to the previous dedicated Explore page.
Testing for this update began last year, and it is currently becoming widely available. Users who do not see the changes can force stop the app from their device settings to prompt the update.