The Google Pixel 9 is here, and if you haven’t heard yet, it’s excellent. Google did almost everything right this year — releasing phones with gorgeous hardware, excellent cameras, great battery life, and more.
All Pixel 9 phones also come with a host of new AI features. Some of them, like Add Me and Pixel Screenshots, are legitimately great. Others, like Pixel Studio, could have used more time in the oven.
However, out of all the software tricks on the Pixel 9, the one I’ve enjoyed the most isn’t new at all. It’s a seven-year-old feature you might have forgotten about, but it’s easily one of the best things about the Pixel 9.
Now Playing is still the best
When Google launched the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL in 2017, one of the big new features was something called “Now Playing.” If your Pixel 2 detected music playing in the background, it could automatically show the song name and artist on your lock screen — all without you needing to lift a finger. The best part? It ran entirely on-device, meaning it worked even without an internet connection.
This might not sound like a big deal on paper, but in practice, Now Playing has become one of my all-time favorite reasons to use a Pixel phone. There are multiple times throughout the day when I hear a song on the radio, in a TV commercial, or in a restaurant that I want to know the name of. Is it difficult to pull out my phone and open the Shazam app to identify it? No. But it’s so nice to have my phone do it in the background without me having to think twice about it.
Google doesn’t make a big deal about Now Playing these days. In fact, it hasn’t been talked about at all during the last few Pixel launches. But the feature is still there — you just have to enable it. To do so:
- Open the Settings app.
- Select Display.
- Select Lock screen.
- Select Now Playing.
- Select the toggle next to Identify songs playing nearby.
Now, when your Pixel 9 (or any other Pixel phone) hears music playing, it’ll pop up on your lock screen. That’s all there is to it.
This is what makes Pixels so good
There are a couple of additional settings you can fiddle with from the Now Playing page. You can add a button to your lock screen to do a manual song check if a more obscure song is playing that’s not in Google’s on-device library. Additionally, you can view your Now Playing history to see all the songs it’s identified — and mark favorites to help you remember specific ones.
That’s about all there is to the feature. You turn it on, let it run in the background, and you never need to think about it again. It’s legitimately helpful, incredibly easy to use, and a fantastic example of why I love using Google Pixel phones so much.
For all of the talk of AI on smartphones this year, few things have made a big impression on me. Samsung has a lot of AI goodies as part of its Galaxy AI suite, but I could honestly live without all of them. Summarizing notes and websites is interesting, but nothing that makes my life easier. Apple Intelligence is flashy and well-marketed, but I couldn’t care less about having artificial intelligence write emails for me.
Google hasn’t been perfect in this department, either. Pixel Studio, one of the newest AI features on the Pixel 9 series, is a mess. Similarly, Gemini Live is a cool tech demo, but that’s about it.
But for every “meh” AI feature on Google’s Pixel phones, there are two more that I don’t want to live without. The Pixel Recorder app is the best recording app I’ve ever used and is the main reason I bring a Pixel with me to roundtables and interviews. Hold for Me, the feature that allows your Pixel to keep your place in line when you’re on hold during a phone call, is unbelievably helpful.
More than almost any other smartphone company, Google has figured out how to create smart/AI features that I actually want to use — whether that’s the Recorder app, Hold for Me, Now Playing, or something else.
If you have a Pixel 9 (or another older model) and aren’t already using Now Playing, you should! It’s been enabled on my Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL since I started using them, and it’s been lovely having the feature again after using other non-Pixel phones this year.
Also, let this serve as a reminder that not every new smartphone feature — AI-powered or not — needs to be a big, flashy spectacle. More often than not, the smaller, practical ones make the biggest difference. That’s the case for Now Playing, and so long as Google continues to offer the feature, it’ll remain one of things I look forward to the most whenever I use a Pixel.
