Google Pixel ‘Now Playing’ feature may get location, activity tracking

The Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL brought one of my favourite Pixel features, the Now Playing function on the Ambient Display, which can recognize songs and display their name. Google improved Now Playing on the Pixel 3 and 3 XL by letting it store a history of songs it recognized, and the feature may be set to get more improvements soon.

According to an APK teardown performed by XDA Developers, Google is working on adding location history and activity history to Now Playing.

It’s important to remember that APK teardowns serve as useful indicators of future features, but don’t guarantee anything. Further, it’s possible to misinterpret code discovered in teardowns, so predictions might be inaccurate.

In this case, however, it seems pretty straightforward. Code extracted from the system app that controls features like Now Playing, Pixel Ambient Services, suggests history will include details such as whether you were driving when you heard a song, or where you listened to a song, such as at a restaurant.

<string name="history_context_activation_dialog">" Your Now Playing history can include location and activities, like driving. To include this information, allow "<b>Pixel Ambient Services</b> to access your location on the next screen.</string>

<string name="history_context_activation_dialog_button_negative">Cancel</string>

<string name="history_context_activation_dialog_button_positive">Continue</string>

<string name="history_context_switch">history_context_switch</string>

<string name="history_context_switch_subtitle">Now Playing history will show location and activities, like driving</string>

<string name="history_context_switch_title">Include location and activities</string>

The feature isn’t currently live in Pixel Ambient Services, and the code was only present in beta version 1.0.229715350. Considering Google tends to announce Now Playing features alongside hardware releases, and the company didn’t do so when it launched the Pixel 3a, it’s likely we’ll see it come alongside the Pixel 4.

However, Google may surprise us and start rolling it out sooner as well.

Source: XDA Developers