Now Playing gets a dreadful change, and we hope it’s not final

“Now Playing” has been a small yet significant feature on the lock screen of Google Pixel devices. The feature silently listens to the music playing in the background and continually refreshes the lock screen or always-on display with information about the current track. Although Now Playing has existed in its current form for years, Google has been testing an upgraded version that displays album art, along with controls to play the track on your phone. Before that actually rolls out, we’re seeing an upsetting change to the current version, and we’re unsure if this is a bug or an intended switch.

After Google recently pushed out the Android System Intelligence update, which bumped the version to B13 on eligible devices, Now Playing has lost one key feature. 9to5Google reported that it no longer shows a dedicated button for tracks marked as favorites.

You can still mark particular tracks as favorites from the lock screen and the notifications shade. However, with the Favorites tab now gone, the only way to access liked tracks is to find the ones in the Now Playing history with a filled heart next to the title.

There’s no definite means to know if this is a bug introduced by the Android System Intelligence update or a planned change. The support page hasn’t been updated to reflect the change, leaving room for its chances of being reverted.

Meanwhile, Google is preparing for a massive transformation for Now Playing. The current simplistic text might soon be replaced with a more prominent lock screen widget featuring buttons to mark a particular track as a favorite or launch it with your default music streaming app. Simultaneously, Google is also testing new ways to trigger Now Playing, including a new lock screen shortcut added to Android Canary, as well as a Quick Settings tile we recently spotted under development.