Our low-key favorite Pixel feature is about to get a massive upgrade

Now Playing is one of those Pixel exclusive features that identifies songs playing nearby. It’s even better than Shazam because you don’t need to do anything. Simply look at your phone’s lock screen to see the info about the song playing nearby.

And Now Playing is finally getting an update that will show album art on the lock screen and the history page (via Android Authority). The feature was spotted in a code change submitted to the Private Compute Services repository, a system app that handles the database used by Now Playing to figure out what song is playing.

Album art makes everything better

Source: Android Authority

The updated code adds album art to the Now Playing history screen. Currently, you can only see album art for the song playing at this moment, and when you want to see past songs your phone heard, you can see only the name of the song and the artist. It’s a rather barren experience.

But album art in history changes the entire game. It makes it much easier to quickly identify songs you’ve heard playing in the past. It sure beats scrolling through an endless wall of text. Album art lets you visually scan your history, and it looks great.

The changed code suggests that Now Playing will download album art from a dedicated subdomain. This might mean Google is planning more features for the service in the future.

When will album art arrive?

There’s no indication when the new album art for Now Playing will roll out, but it could be set for December 2025. There was an obscure reference to that far-off date in the code base. However, the feature seems fully realized and ready for release. In that case, we could see it soon, and a different feature could be coming to Now Playing next year.

The album art is a welcome addition to Now Playing, which has been in need of some love for some time. The service arrived with the Pixel 2 way back in 2017, and it is one of those features people love about their Pixel phone. This update is sure to be a hit with music fans.