Key Takeaways
- Google’s Now Playing feature will soon allow users to set a default music player, such as Spotify or YouTube Music, to automatically play identified songs.
- This feature will streamline the music listening experience by eliminating the need to manually select the streaming app.
- The feature isn’t live yet, but Google has already detailed it in its Now Playing support page.
Google’s Pixel-exclusive Now Playing goes a long way back. The tool, which was first launched with the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL back in 2017, offers a seamless alternative to applications like Shazam, essentially automating the process of finding music playing in your surroundings.
The tool, which highlights detected music on your lock screen and notification panel, also saves a neat list of all music it has detected in an aptly named section called Now Playing history. Tapping on the identified song, either from the lock screen, the notification panel, or from within the Now Playing history shows you the complete name of the song, an option to like it, one to delete it from your history, an option to share it, and several app-specific actions.
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App-specific actions include liking the song on a certain music streaming app, adding it to a playlist, alongside an option to play it on the app. In my case, it shows that the last song the tool scanned is available for me to listen to on Spotify, YouTube, and YouTube Music — the only three music/video streaming apps that I have on my phone. However, YouTube Music is the primary one that I use to listen to music, with Spotify installed for testing purposes and the regular YouTube app for videos.
Google likely knows that most users have more than one music streaming app on their phone, but they primarily use one for their daily needs — and that’s precisely why it seems to be working on a “default music player” for Now Playing’s results.
Google’s support page spills the beans
We noticed a change in Google’s Now Playing support page that wasn’t there up until late November. The page now has a “How to set a default music player?” section that details how users can will be able to set a default app to play their Now Playing results. Normally, in Google’s case, new features often show up first while the support page tied to it lags behind. It’s the opposite this time around, considering that even after updating to the latest Android System Intelligence build, the default music player functionality doesn’t seem to have gone live.
The fact that the information has made its way to the tool’s official support page all but confirms that the feature is coming, and that too, relatively soon — potentially alongside album art for the Now Playing history panel. Once available, users will be able to set their default music player by heading to Settings → Sound & vibration → Now Playing → Default music player.
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