- Evidence of a Now Playing app found in Android code
- This would mean that the Pixel’s Now Playing feature would be moved to a dedicated app.
- This will likely result in upgrades for this somewhat neglected tool
Now Playing is a feature that’s been on Pixel phones since the Google Pixel 2 series, but while it’s always been a built-in feature, it looks like Google is planning to give it a dedicated app instead.
That’s according to 9to5Google, which found a string of code in a new version of Android System Intelligence that mentions a Now Playing app that you can “upgrade” by downloading from the Google Play Store.
On top of that, an icon for the Now Playing app – which you can see below – had already been unearthed.
So while this change hasn’t been officially confirmed by Google yet, it seems very likely that it will happen.
Right now, the Now Playing feature will work in the background on your Pixel phone to identify the songs it hears playing, and then you can find those identified songs in the Now Playing section of your phone’s settings menu. This is a useful and minimally intrusive feature, but it does have some limitations and issues.
For one thing, having to dig through multiple menus in Settings to find a list of identified songs isn’t ideal, and for another, your current playing history isn’t synced to a new device when you change phones.
A likely upgrade – but only for Pixels
Having a dedicated app could potentially solve both of these issues and make it easier for Google to introduce or improve other features as well. Again, none of this is confirmed, but we don’t see why Google would turn Now Playing into a dedicated app if it wasn’t planning to upgrade the feature. So I hope it’s a good change.
As for when we’ll see this app, 9to5Google speculates that it could land as part of the upcoming Pixel Feature Drop in March.
However, if you were hoping that this move to an installable app meant that Now Playing would be available on devices other than Pixels, you’re probably out of luck, because Android Authority did its own research and found signs that at least for now, it will remain a Pixel-exclusive feature.
Follow TechRadar on Google News And add us as your favorite source to get our news, reviews and expert opinions in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can too follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form and receive regular updates from us on WhatsApp Also.
