Music fans will apparently have to wait until next year to finally give YouTube's much-rumored streaming music service a spin.
Originally expected to debut this past summer, the launch of the subscription service was reportedly pushed back to the end of the year. Now it appears the service won't appear until the first quarter of 2014, people described as familiar with the company's plans tell AllThingsD.
Although not yet officially announced by Google, the music service is said to resemble the platform employed by Spotify but with videos. And, like Pandora, it's said to have both a free version and a paid premium version that will give users unlimited access to albums and artists. Unlimited access is expected to cost consumers $10 a month and include access to ad-free music, as well as offline storage.
Strings of code recently uncovered in YouTube's new Android app, YouTube 5.3, suggest that Google is prepping an ad-free music subscription service called "Music Pass." Among the features reportedly revealed in the code are offline access to music and video and the ability to play music in the background while using other apps.
While Google has reportedly closed all the music licensing deals necessary to get the service going, the company is said to not be satisfied with the product itself, AllThingsD reports.
Google already has a monthly music-subscription service, called Google Play Music All Access, although it's possible that will be folded into a YouTube offering at some point.
