A teardown of YouTube Music version 9.44.52 by Android Authority reveals new animation files for playback controls such as play, pause, shuffle, repeat, skip, and podcast-specific jump buttons. The app currently uses static icons for these controls, and the update would add transition effects, including one for switching between pause and play. An animated sleep timer icon was also found, though it's unclear if the sleep timer will move out of the three-dot menu.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-11-03
An Android Authority contributor details Pixel settings he routinely turns off after setup, including auto-adding new app icons to the home screen, the always-listening 'Now Playing' song-recognition feature, and the camera's Top Shot mode. He cites clutter, battery drain, and privacy concerns around constant listening as reasons for disabling these defaults.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-10-29
Spotify has broadened its Music Quiz feature beyond its initial BTS trial from March to cover more than 2,000 artists, available to Premium subscribers aged 18 and over. The quiz appears as a card under the Now Playing screen, offering Easy, Medium and Hard questions, a final score, and the ability to challenge friends. The rollout currently spans the US, UK, Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Ireland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Singapore and South Africa.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-10-06
Spotify has expanded its Music Quiz feature, allowing Premium subscribers to test their knowledge across more than 2,000 artists through questions about music, album covers, and audio previews. The quizzes are accessible via the Now Playing view and are initially available in multiple countries, with plans to add more languages and artists later.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-06
A new third-party app called Now On Wrist relays song-recognition results from a Pixel phone's Now Playing feature to a paired Wear OS smartwatch. It can display detected tracks via notifications, a watch face complication, or a dedicated tile, and tapping a result opens the song in apps like YouTube Music or Spotify. The app requires Wear OS 3.0 or newer and is available now on Google Play.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-10-05
Apple has released a 7.0 beta of Apple Music for Android that introduces a Liquid Glass-inspired redesign, including a floating translucent bottom bar and mini-player, revamped top bars, artist pages with cover-matched backgrounds, a reorganized Settings page, and edge-to-edge status and navigation bars. The update also aligns Apple Music's Android version numbering with iOS 27, continuing a scheme started in the prior release.
9to5google.com
· 2026-09-30
Android Authority found evidence in Google app version 17.56.14 that Song Search could soon run in the background, letting users switch apps while it keeps listening for a track. A notification would alert users when a song is identified, tapping which now leads to an AI Mode result instead of a standard search page.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-09-08
Google is bringing back Now Playing notifications in the shade on Pixel devices, months after removing them during a March update that split the feature into a standalone app. The restored alerts show the song title and artist, plus a shortcut to favorite tracks or view listening history, without needing to unlock the phone. The rollout appears limited so far, based on scattered Reddit reports rather than an official announcement.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-09-08
Samsung includes a built-in feature called Edge Panel on all Galaxy devices, offering a customizable shortcut bar accessible by swiping from the screen's edge. It provides seven panel types—Apps, People, Tasks, Weather, Tools, Clipboard, and Reminder—that users can enable and arrange from the Display settings menu. Despite being standard on every Galaxy phone, many owners are unaware of it or have stopped using it.
wired.com
· 2026-09-07
Google has pushed a new update to the standalone Now Playing app on Pixel devices, tweaking its interface and reintroducing support for secondary user accounts on a device, a feature that had gone missing after the app was split out from Pixel's system settings in March. Android Authority also found early code evidence that Google is working on restoring song-recognition notifications and a history-sync feature, both of which were casualties of that earlier redesign.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-08-31
Google is reportedly working to bring back the notification feature for its Now Playing music-recognition app on Pixel devices, according to code found in the latest Android System Intelligence app for Pixel 11 devices. The feature was removed earlier this year when Google gave Now Playing its own dedicated app, breaking workflows that relied on notifications to log tracks into services like Last.fm. Code strings also hint at upcoming support for multiple user profiles, each with its own track history.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-08-24
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