With last month’s update, Google removed a small feature from Pixel smartphones called “Now Playing”, which has been on Pixel devices since the Pixel 2 smartphones. The change comes following criticism from Pixel users who noticed that the feature was gone, filling social media with concern. Finally, Google reinstated this feature on Pixel devices with the latest update.
What is Pixel’s Now Playing feature and why was it removed?
The Now Playing is a Pixel-exclusive feature which automatically identifies the music playing nearby and puts a notification on the phone for the user to check later. The music identification is near-instant because it uses an on-device database rather than relying on the internet. This limits the number of songs it can identify, so when the music is not identified, a notification is added on the home screen which users can tap to identify the song using the internet.
This feature was removed last month when Google released a Now Playing standalone app on the Google Play Store. Google released a minor update for the app that brought back the Now Playing notification on Pixel smartphones. Users praised Google for listening to them and bringing back their favourite feature.
If you disabled the automatic song recognition to save battery, there are a couple of tricks to quickly enable music recognition without unlocking the phone. The lock screen shortcuts can easily be replaced with a Now Playing shortcut. For that, go to Settings > Display > Lock screen > Shortcuts and select Now Playing from the list. A quick settings tile can also be added, which starts recognition quickly when tapped and shows the result on the tile itself, which is so cool.
Google bringing the feature back to Pixel devices is a good sign because this shows that brands are listening to user feedback and improving products accordingly.
