{"id":214449,"date":"2026-02-17T07:32:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/17\/now-playing-pixel-feature-getting-its-own-android-app\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T07:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:35:09","slug":"now-playing-pixel-feature-getting-its-own-android-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/17\/now-playing-pixel-feature-getting-its-own-android-app\/","title":{"rendered":"Now Playing Pixel Feature Getting its Own Android App"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techadvisor.com\/article\/3063175\/now-playing-pixel-feature-getting-its-own-android-app.html\">Now Playing Pixel Feature Getting its Own Android App<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techadvisor.com\/article\/3063175\/now-playing-pixel-feature-getting-its-own-android-app.html\">https:\/\/www.techadvisor.com\/article\/3063175\/now-playing-pixel-feature-getting-its-own-android-app.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-17 07:32:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.techadvisor.com\">www.techadvisor.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>Summary created by Smart Answers AI<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"miso-summary-title\" id=\"in-summary\">In summary:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Google\u2019s popular \u2018Now Playing\u2019 feature, which automatically identifies background music on Pixel phones, is being converted into a dedicated app for broader Android availability.<\/li>\n<li>Tech Advisor reports this change was discovered in Android System Intelligence version B.21, suggesting non-Google Android phones will soon access this functionality.<\/li>\n<li>The first Android 17 beta includes minor UI improvements like a redesigned search bar and cleaner volume panel, with more features expected before June 2026 launch.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One of the best Pixel-exclusive features is coming to an Android phone near you.<\/p>\n<p>There are a lot of reasons to favour Google\u2019s way of doing things \u2013 the Pixel 10 and its Qi2 support is looking more like a killer feature by the day \u2013 but Now Playing is a personal favourite of mine and the TA team.<\/p>\n<p>For the uninitiated, this is a feature that sees Pixel phones constantly listening out for music playing in the background. Your phone will then identify said song for you (most of the time \u2013 it can be a little flaky), and even log previous discoveries for later reference.<\/p>\n<p>Good news: Now Playing will soon be available on non-Google Android phones. <\/p>\n<p>9to5Google has discovered that Now Playing is being turned into a dedicated app, with version B.21 of Android System Intelligence (which powers Now Playing on Pixel phones) making reference to an \u201cupgrade\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCredit\">Chris Martin \/ Foundry<\/p>\n<p>More explicitly, there\u2019s an exhortation to \u201cDownload the new Now Playing app\u201d, together with the following explanation: \u201cNow Playing has a new home. Your settings, song history, and other features can be found in the dedicated app\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>This is good news for two reasons. For existing Pixel users, it means that Google will likely be fleshing out this already pretty cool \u2013\u00a0if bare bones \u2013\u00a0offering.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s even bigger news for the rest of the Android crowd, as it means&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techadvisor.com\/article\/3063175\/now-playing-pixel-feature-getting-its-own-android-app.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now Playing Pixel Feature Getting its Own Android App https:\/\/www.techadvisor.com\/article\/3063175\/now-playing-pixel-feature-getting-its-own-android-app.html Publish Date: 2026-02-17 07:32:00 Source&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.techadvisor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/google-pixel-now-playing-history.jpg?quality=50&strip=all&w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[70,72],"class_list":["post-214449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-android","tag-google","tag-pixel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214451,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214449\/revisions\/214451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}