Now Playing is one of the coolest features on Android devices I’ve ever used. It’s currently only supported on Pixel devices. The main concept is to constantly listen to songs playing around the user and perform identification by giving the user title and artist information.
Coming soon, the Now Playing feature will allow users to choose their own default music player. Right now, Now Playing will display a menu for users to select music players installed on the device. In an upcoming update, once a song is identified and the user taps on the notification, it will immediately open the user’s favorite music player.
Although this feature is listed on Google’s user help page, it has not yet arrived on any Pixel device. This new feature is likely part of the Enhanced Now Playing that Google has been developing for a while. Now Playing also inspired Apple to integrate Shazam directly into iOS with a feature to display the history of songs identified. For other Android users, the Song Search or Circle to Search widget is a great alternative to Now Playing.