Following Now Playing’s split-view redesign earlier this year, YouTube Music is testing fullscreen cover art.

Update 7/28: This design remains in testing, with a tweak today shrinking the album art. It no longer appears behind the controls and progress bar. This new approach lets you see more of the square artwork.

Additionally, this redesign lets you tap on the cover art to switch between this new view and the full square, like before.

Original 7/16: Currently, artwork appears between the audio/video switcher and song title with rounded corners. 

This new design has cover art that takes up your entire screen, including the status and system navigation bars. You go from a square to this rectangle that might significantly crop things out as seen in the example below.

Old vs. new

It’s interesting how this effect also applies when watching music videos. This reflects how portrait, Shorts-esque video has taken over and something people are comfortable with.

The background of the pill-shaped buttons in the actions carousel becomes transparent, while YouTube Music entirely drops the artwork-based color theming for this screen.

Overall, it’s a bit reminiscent of the approach Google Play Music took for its Now Playing interface. 

YouTube Music’s fullscreen cover art redesign is still being tested and not widely rolled out yet.

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