So if you ever got hands on a Google Pixel, or watched reviews of it, it has a feature named “Now Playing”. It’s basically used to recognize the song that is playing on near you and show it to you on the lock screen so you can instantly know what it is without doing anything except turning your screen on to the lock screen. There’s a way to get Now Playing feature on any Android thanks to an app, and so doesn’t require a long setup to do it.
Although it does need some requirements to work as well, and so we will list them for you below.
Requirements
- At least Android 12
- Shizuku must be running
- MTK Aurisys should be disabled(if you’re using a MTK device)
And these are the requirements you need to do it, you can also find how to get Shizuku running on this article as well.
Guide
You need to follow to this guide properly step-by-step to get it working, as the app is a little bit complicated to use.
- Start Shizuku first of all.
- Open the Ambient Music Mod app. This is the app we will use to get Now Playing feature.
- Tap the “Get Started” button on the app to start the setup.
- On the next step, the app will request Shizuku access to continue. Give the Shizuku permission to the app.
- On the other steps of the app, configure the app however you want.
- For the country, we suggest you to leave it at automatic, so the app selects the best one for you.
- On the next step, the app will download the Now Playing app that is taken from Google Pixel devices to get the feature working.
- Once the download is complete, tap “Start Install”.
- Install the Now Playing app.
- Once you have installed it, the app will ask you for additional needed permissions to make the feature work. Grant the permissons.
On the next step, disable the battery optimizations for the app, so the app can work in background and keep the feature on. Don’t worry though, the app roughly uses 2% battery on a daily usage, so it won’t affect your battery too much.
- And with that, the setup is completed. Tap “Close”.
- The app will be on with default options, and so won’t show on lock screen yet by default. You can turn it on settings with some extra steps.
Get Now Playing on lock screen
- In the main page of app, choose “Lock Screen” and turn it on. The app will ask you for accessibility permission. This is needed to display on lock screen.
- Allow the accessibility permission to the app.
- Once you allowed it and return to the app, you will see that now it’s on. And that’s it!
As you can see in the example picture above, we got Now Playing feature on a Non-Pixel device with the guide above.
Downloads
FAQ
The app doesn’t detect any songs, what do I do?
- In the app, tap “Recognize” and see if it picks up anything. If no, try changing database. If that still didn’t work, try listening to playback of what the app does hear. If the app just hears noises and nothing else, then try turning on the alternative encoder option inside of the app.
I get “Couldn’t parse file” when installing Now Playing apk, what do I do?
- This means you’re using an unsupported Android version. The app requires at least Android 12 as mentioned above, and unlikely to work on some OEMs such as MIUI.
The app detects the songs too late, what do I do?
- This is probably because the delay between listening periods is too high. You can adjust and change the settings of listening periods inside the app. Although be aware that shorter times equals higher battery usage and therefore less screen on time.
