Have you ever been enjoying music and wished your phone could instantly identify a great song playing nearby? If you’re a Google Pixel user, you may already be familiar with the convenient “Now Playing” feature.

This impressive function allows your phone to listen quietly in the background and display the song title and artist on your lock screen, all without requiring any effort on your part. It’s an excellent example of passive music recognition.

However, there’s a limitation to this feature. Currently, “Now Playing” operates solely in automatic mode, meaning it continuously listens but cannot be triggered manually.

This can be problematic in situations where the music is too soft for detection, when the feature misses the beginning of a song, or in noisy environments when you want to identify a specific track. In such cases, users often turn to separate apps, like Shazam, to fulfill this need.

Fortunately, there may be promising news for Pixel enthusiasts. Reports suggest that Google could be developing a dedicated Quick Settings tile for “Now Playing” that would allow users to activate it manually.

This enhancement would empower users to take control, ensuring they can capture any song even when automatic detection falls short. It would effectively bridge the gap between passive listening and active identification, offering the best of both approaches.

This new feature would enhance the reliability and usability of “Now Playing,” eliminating the necessity to switch to another app for music identification. With this improvement, you would have song recognition right at your fingertips, ensuring you never miss out on another intriguing melody.

Let’s hope Google rolls this out soon, possibly alongside the release of the much-anticipated Pixel 10 flagship phones.