Google Tests Putting a Music Player in Android 11 Quick Settings Panel: Report

The first Android 11 Developer Preview was rolled out on Thursday, and developers have since been busy digging inside to find all the new features sit brings. A publication has now spotted a new feature that brings the music player inside the Quick Settings in the notification shade. This new feature has apparently been spotted in the test version of Android 11, and it may or may not be arrive in the stable release.

Google is reportedly testing placing the music player in the Quick Settings panel for whenever you're listening to music. The player originally sits in the notification shade, and when users receive too many notifications, the player gets shifted to the bottom of the scroll, often forcing users to go all the way to the end to find it. To eradicate this bad user experience, Google is testing relocating the player to the Quick Settings panel. XDA Developers' Mishaal Rahman noticed it first, and the screenshots Rahman shared on XDA show the music player sitting in the Quick Settings panel, and to make place for it, the other toggles have shifted to the left side, while the other side is taken up by the music player.

The report says that if you open up the panel completely, the music player will shift to the bottom of the panel, and all the other toggles will shift above. With this little tweak, Google looks to make the music player always accessible to users. This feature is not enabled by default, so one may not see it even if they are on the first Android 11 Developer Preview. Also, because it was seen to be tested in the first preview, there may be several changes made to it, before it is launched in the stable channel, or it may even be shelved completely before the stable launch.