{"id":246370,"date":"2025-09-22T13:15:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T13:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/246370\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T13:15:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T13:15:17","slug":"now-playing-gets-a-dreadful-change-and-we-hope-its-not-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/246370\/","title":{"rendered":"Now Playing gets a dreadful change, and we hope it&#8217;s not final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\"e_xg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  title=\"Google Pixel 9a now playing history\"  alt=\"Google Pixel 9a now playing history\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Google-Pixel-9a-now-playing-history.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Ryan Haines \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n<p>TL;DR<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The \u201cNow Playing\u201d feature on Google Pixel devices is missing a key feature after a recent Android System Intelligence update.<\/li>\n<li>With the update, the Favorite tab is no longer visible in Now Playing.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s an unwelcome change, especially as Google is preparing to overhaul Now Playing with a fresher design.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cNow Playing\u201d has been a small yet significant feature on the lock screen of Google Pixel devices. The feature silently listens to the music playing in the background and continually refreshes the lock screen or always-on display with information about the current track. Although Now Playing has existed in its current form for years, Google has been testing an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/now-playing-album-art-2-3576964\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">upgraded version that displays album art<\/a>, along with controls to play the track on your phone. Before that actually rolls out, we\u2019re seeing an upsetting change to the current version, and we\u2019re unsure if this is a bug or an intended switch.<\/p>\n<p>After Google recently pushed out the Android System Intelligence update, which bumped the version to B13 on eligible devices, Now Playing has lost one key feature. <a href=\"https:\/\/9to5google.com\/2025\/09\/19\/now-playing-history-favorites\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">9to5Google<\/a> reported that it no longer shows a dedicated button for tracks marked as favorites.<\/p>\n<p> <strong>Don\u2019t want to miss the best from Android Authority?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You can still mark particular tracks as favorites from the lock screen and the notifications shade. However, with the Favorites tab now gone, the only way to access liked tracks is to find the ones in the Now Playing history with a filled heart next to the title.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_xg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"Pixel Now Playing history 1\"  alt=\"Pixel Now Playing history 1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Pixel-Now-Playing-history-1.jpg\"\/>Older UI<img class=\"e_xg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"Pixel Now Playing history without favorites\"  alt=\"Pixel Now Playing history without favorites\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Pixel-Now-Playing-history-without-favorites.jpg\"\/>UI after update<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no definite means to know if this is a bug introduced by the Android System Intelligence update or a planned change. The <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/pixelphone\/answer\/7535326?hl=en#:~:text=How%20do%20I%20Favorite%20a%20song%3F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">support page<\/a> hasn\u2019t been updated to reflect the change, leaving room for its chances of being reverted.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Google is preparing for a massive transformation for Now Playing. The current simplistic text might soon be replaced with a more prominent lock screen widget featuring buttons to mark a particular track as a favorite or launch it with your default music streaming app.\u00a0Simultaneously, Google is also testing new ways to trigger Now Playing, including a new\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/now-playing-lock-screen-3576491\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">lock screen shortcut added to Android Canary,<\/a>\u00a0as well as a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/google-now-playing-tile-apk-teardown-3563095\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Quick Settings tile we recently spotted<\/a> under development.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for being part of our community. Read our\u00a0<a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-stringify-link=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">Comment Policy<\/a> before posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Haines \/ Android Authority TL;DR The \u201cNow Playing\u201d feature on Google Pixel devices is missing a key&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":246371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[15882,611,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-246370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-google-pixel","9":"tag-mobile","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115248137865701140","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}