Android is making it easier to identify songs around you

Key Takeaways

• The Google app's latest beta adds a new Song Search tile within Quick Settings for quick and easy song identification.
• Tapping this new tile opens a globe-like interface, similar to the Google app's music identification feature.
• Although the feature is currently in beta, it should appear in the stable version of the Google app not too long from now.

The Android platform comes with a ton of useful features baked in, such as Quick Settings, which enables users to (quickly) access some of the phone's important functions and toggles by swiping down from the top of the screen. These Quick Settings tiles are highly customizable, with users getting plenty of tiles to choose from, including from third-party apps. It now looks like Google is gearing up to add a brand-new option to the already long list of Quick Settings tiles — Song Search.

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Digging into the Google app beta (15.39.39.29.arm64), Android Authority has uncovered a new Quick Settings tile for Song Search. This brand-new tile reportedly appears by default when the beta is installed, thus saving you the trouble of manually flipping flags to enable it.

When active, tapping this new QS tile displays the dotted globe-like interface that expands and contracts as it recognizes the song. This is a familiar interface for people who use the Google app's Identify song option, accessible from the horizontally scrollable list of pill-shaped buttons just below the app's search bar.

I managed to sideload the said beta and the Song Search tile showed up in the list of unused tiles. You may need to scroll a bit to find the tile, however. When you do find it, you can place it anywhere on your Quick Settings panel for easy access. Expectedly, long-pressing this newly added tile opens the App info page of the Google app.

A nice shortcut to identify that tune stuck in your head

This is a pretty handy tool to have within the Quick Settings panel. However, I prefer the Pixel's Now Playing feature, which does a solid job of recognizing songs playing in the background without manual intervention. In any case, this is an infinitely easier process than going through the Google app, although there are more ways than one to identify a song on your Android smartphone these days.

You can try this new tile right away if you install the aforementioned beta of the Google app (APKMirror link). Given that the feature is already present and active in the latest Google app beta, it shouldn't be too long before it makes it to the stable version.