Google Pixel's 'Now Playing' Feature Is Now Available On Other Phones - Android

A few years ago, Google introduced a “Now Playing” feature for its Pixel 2 phones. Thanks to XDA-Developers, the Pixel exclusive feature can be put onto non-Pixel devices. It will require some technical knowledge, however. The Pixel’s Now Playing feature automatically identifies music When Now Playing was unveiled, it was introduced as a Pixel Phone [...]

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A few years ago, Google introduced a “Now Playing” feature for its Pixel 2 phones. Thanks to XDA-Developers, the Pixel exclusive feature can be put onto non-Pixel devices. It will require some technical knowledge, however.

The Pixel’s Now Playing feature automatically identifies music

When Now Playing was unveiled, it was introduced as a Pixel Phone exclusive. The main draw of Now Playing was that the phone will automatically identify any ambient music that’s playing. It’ll display the information on the phone’s lock screen. It eliminates the need for you to summon the Assistant and point your phone at the radio. The feature has the microphones constantly listening for music.

What’s neat is the fact that you don’t even have to be connected to the internet to use the feature. Your phone will have a database of thousands upon thousands of song fingerprints downloaded onto the device. The feature uses very little battery and is very reliable. Most people can identify with the frustration of pulling out their phone just a split second too late to identify a song.

Porting over the Now Playing Mod involves a few steps

The mod was developed by XDA-Developers contributor and developer Quinny899. It’s a hybrid Xposed and Magisk mod and it’s called “Ambient Music Mod.” The mod itself is open-source and free to download. Installing it on your phone will take jumping through some hoops, though.

First and foremost, in order for your phone to run the mod, it will need to be using a Snapdragon processor. Next, you’ll need to make sure that your phone has an unlocked bootloader. If it has these things, you will need to install the Xposed and Magisk frameworks. They’re necessary for gaining root access to your device and accessing the Sound trigger on your Snapdragon SoC.

Once you have the frameworks installed, you can download the Mod here. Run the app and, after it runs some tests on your phone, you’ll see the option to “Build Installer.” Once the installer is built, open Magisk and install the module. After that, open Xposed, search for the Ambient Music Mod, and enable it. After that, restart your phone.

There are varying results, though. A user was able to get it to work on a OnePlus 7T, but some other devices have failed.

Ambient Music Mod has its own set of features

Ambient Music Mod will be able to identify music while offline because it will download the latest Google song Fingerprint database. It will also have a “history” function so that you can see previously identified songs. The app will have its own native history feature, but you can also use third-party history apps.

There’s also the option to manually go into the app to identify a song if, for any reason, the app doesn’t do it automatically. You can also view all of the recognizable tracks in the database. There are also pretty granular settings that you can tweak to suit your needs.

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