- Evidence of a Now Playing app has been found in the Android code
- This would mean the Pixel’s Now Playing feature would be moved to a dedicated app
- That will likely lead to upgrades to this somewhat neglected tool
Now Playing is a feature that’s been present on Pixel phones since the Google Pixel 2 series, but while it’s been a built-in feature all along, it looks like Google plans to give it a dedicated app instead.
This is according to 9to5Google, which found a string of code in a new version of Android System Intelligence that mentions a Now Playing app you can “upgrade” to by downloading it from the Google Play Store.
On top of that, an icon for the Now Playing app – which you can see below – was previously unearthed.
So while this change hasn’t been officially confirmed by Google yet, it looks very likely that it’s coming.
Right now, the Now Playing feature will work in the background on your Pixel phone to identify songs it hears playing, and then you can find the identified songs in the Now Playing section of your phone’s settings menu. It’s a useful, non-intrusive feature, but it has some limitations and issues.
For one thing, it’s not ideal to have to dig several menus deep into the settings to find a list of identified songs, and for one thing, your Now Playing history is not synchronized with a new device when you change phones.
A likely upgrade – but only for Pixels
Having a dedicated app could potentially solve both of these problems and could make it easier for Google to introduce or improve other features as well. Again, none of that is confirmed, but we don’t see why Google would make Now Playing a dedicated app if it had no plans to upgrade the feature. So hopefully this will be a good change.
As for when we’ll see this app, 9to5Google speculates that it could land as part of the next Pixel Feature Drop in March.
But if you were hoping that this move to an installable app meant that Now Playing would be available on devices other than just Pixels, you’re probably out of luck, as Android Authority has done some digging of its own and found signs that, at least for now, it will remain a Pixel-exclusive feature.
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