In the quiet background of daily life, Google's Pixel 6 has long been listening — cataloguing the music that drifts through a room without ever being asked. Now, engineers appear to be building a bridge between that passive accumulation and something more intentional: a way for users to mark, save, and return to the songs that matter. Discovered within unreleased code, a forthcoming Favorites tab and heart icon gesture toward a future where ambient technology becomes a personal archive. Whether this feature reaches the hands of users remains uncertain, but it reflects a broader human desire to
Google Pixel 6 Now Playing Update Spotted With Song Favorites Feature
A passive background function becomes an active music discovery tool
Mark
So this is just a feature buried in code that Google's testing. How confident are we that it's actually coming?
Mimi
That's the right question. APK decompilation shows real work—the feature is genuinely built and testable. But Google builds lots of things that never ship. This one's enabled and visible, which is a good sign, but there's no timeline and no guarantee.
Luke
Right. And we don't know the rollout method yet. Is it an app update? A server-side change? That matters for how many people actually get it and when.
Mark
What's the actual value here? Why would someone want to favorite songs from Now Playing?
Mimi
Now Playing identifies music passively in the background—at restaurants, in stores, wherever. Over time you accumulate this long list of songs you've heard but might not remember. A Favorites tab turns that into a real music discovery tool instead of just a history.
Luke
Though we should note: users can already save songs manually. This just makes it easier and more organized. It's an interface improvement, not a fundamentally new capability.
Mark
Has Google said anything officially about this?
Mimi
Not yet. This is all from code analysis. Google hasn't announced it or confirmed a release date.
Luke
Which means we're reporting on intent and capability, not commitment. The company could change course entirely.
El Pulso
- Google's Now Playing feature has silently been building a listening history on Pixel 6 devices — and a new update wants to give users real control over what they keep.
- A heart icon and dedicated Favorites tab have been uncovered in unreleased Android System Intelligence code, signaling a shift from passive logging to active curation.
- The discovery was made through APK decompilation, a method that reveals what engineers are building but offers no guarantee the feature will ever ship to the public.
- The redesigned interface is functional in testing but remains invisible to everyday Pixel 6 owners, with no confirmed rollout date or delivery method from Google.
In the quiet background of daily life, Google's Pixel 6 has long been listening — cataloguing the music that drifts through a room without ever being asked. Now, engineers appear to be building a bridge between that passive accumulation and something more intentional: a way for users to mark, save, and return to the songs that matter. Discovered within unreleased code, a forthcoming Favorites tab and heart icon gesture toward a future where ambient technology becomes a personal archive. Whether this feature reaches the hands of users remains uncertain, but it reflects a broader human desire to hold onto the moments a melody made meaningful.
Google appears to be rethinking how Pixel 6 users interact with Now Playing, the ambient music-recognition feature that silently identifies songs in the background without any user prompt. Code buried inside the latest Android System Intelligence APK, surfaced by 9to5Google, reveals a redesigned interface that would let users favorite songs and collect them in a dedicated tab.
The update introduces a heart icon — accessible from Now Playing notifications and the lock screen — that saves a track to a new Favorites tab. The existing History tab continues to display songs in reverse-chronological order, each accompanied by the same heart icon for quick saving. The passive nature of Now Playing means the system can quietly build a rich listening log over time, and this feature would let users curate something personal from that accumulation.
The caveat is significant: the feature was found through APK decompilation, a technique that illuminates what developers are working on but does not guarantee a public release. Google has neither confirmed a timeline nor explained how the rollout might occur. The Favorites tab is visible in testing on Pixel 6 hardware, but remains unavailable to the general public — a promising glimpse at a tool that could transform ambient listening into genuine music discovery, if it ever ships.
Google is testing a redesigned version of Now Playing for the Pixel 6, the company's flagship smartphone released earlier this year. The update, discovered in the latest Android System Intelligence code by 9to5Google, introduces a new Favorites tab and a heart icon that lets users mark and save songs they like.
The Now Playing feature itself is not new to Pixel phones. When Google launched the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro a few months ago, the company included a manual lookup capability that functions as a search button on the home screen. The feature works passively in the background, continuously identifying music playing around the device without requiring user input. That passive operation means the system can accumulate a substantial library of songs over time.
What's changing in this update is the interface and how users interact with their listening history. The redesigned bottom bar now includes a dedicated Favorites tab. When you mark a song as a favorite—either by tapping the heart icon in a Now Playing notification or using the note next to the track name on your lock screen—it gets added to this tab. The History tab displays songs in reverse-chronological order, with each entry accompanied by a heart icon for easy favoriting.
The discovery comes from an APK decompilation, a technique where developers extract and analyze the code of an app's latest version to spot unreleased features. This method provides a genuine glimpse into what Google's engineers are working on, but it carries an important caveat: not every feature found in code makes it to the final product. Google may decide to refine, delay, or abandon the Favorites tab entirely before releasing it to users.
At this stage, the feature has been successfully enabled in the latest Android System Intelligence version available for Pixel 6, and the redesigned interface is visible in testing. However, it is not yet live for the general public. Google has not clarified whether the rollout will happen through a standard app update, a server-side push, or some combination of both. There is also no confirmed timeline for when—or if—this feature will reach the stable release that all Pixel 6 owners can access.
The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro have received generally positive reviews since their launch, though critics have noted that the camera system, particularly video recording, could benefit from additional refinement. The addition of a Favorites feature to Now Playing would give users a more organized way to revisit music they've discovered through the phone's ambient listening capability, turning a passive background function into an active music discovery tool.
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