Google provides cloud search for Now Playing feature

October 10, 2021

2 minutes read

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Now Playing feature on Google Pixel phones has got a cloud search feature for unrecognizable songs.

A disassembly of Android System Intelligence (S.6) revealed that Google was working on some significant improvements to Now Playing across Pixel devices.

The code indicated that it was getting a major redesign of the user interface and the Now Playing Search feature to help users submit a clip of songs to Google that would not be recognizable.

The UI revamp has yet to appear across Pixel devices. But Reports The latter indicates that the company has started rolling out the search feature through Pixel phones that are running the Android 12 beta version.

The new feature comes with the latest Android System Intelligence update and adds a new “Show search button via lock screen” toggle in Now Playing settings. Its description reads: Select songs playing nearby that your device doesn’t recognize.

Enabling the feature causes a popup that says: If a song is not selected using cross-device recognition. You can click the search icon to search for the song. When searching, the company receives the relevant audio information needed to determine what is playing nearby.

After you enable the feature, you see a search icon every time your phone can’t recognize a song. And if you tap it, your phone picks up a short audio clip and sends it to the company for song recognition.

Once the company identifies the song, the name appears in the same place. But if that doesn’t work, you see the “Song not found” alert instead.

The feature essentially works like Google’s Hum to Search and “what’s this song” features in the company’s voice assistant.

The time this new feature takes to identify a song depends on various factors, including volume level, background noise, and connection speed. But in testing, results were consistently accurate in less than 5 seconds.

Google brings a major revamp to Now Playing

Now Playing Search is currently rolling out to a limited number of Pixel devices running Android 12 beta. It is not known at the moment whether the launch includes all Pixel devices or not.

The company introduced Now Playing with the Pixel 2 series of phones in 2017. It hasn’t changed much since its launch. Its user interface looks very similar to what it had at the time, and offers almost the same capabilities.

The only noteworthy change to Now Playing in the past four years was rolled out with the Pixel Feature Drop in December 2020 last year. Which added the ability to export multiple songs from Now Playing to a YouTube Music playlist.