Google’s been pushing out a few updates today improving some of their popular apps. Inside one of the more important apps, Google Play Music, you’ll now have full support for Android 4.1 Jelly Bean expanded notifications. This is an amazing feature and one I’m glad to see arrive for Google Music.
As you can see above, once you clear a few notifications and open up more room Google Play Music neatly expands into a full out notification with complete music controls. This makes it a breeze to quickly toggle to the next track (and now previous) with ease. I love it! We also get bigger HD album artwork in the notification pulldown tray too, so that’s a thing.
That isn’t all either. Google’s updated and brought back full support for Google TV, and fixed multiple issues and bugs that were causing some issues. For those getting the new Vizio Google TV you’ll be able to enjoy your music collection with ease. This is a minor update but the expanded notifications was a biggie on our list.
Lastly Google also updated their Magazines app with better home screen performance and better recognition of available space, because somehow that was an issue. Then the app has seen some performance and bug fixes specifically for the Nexus 7 tablet and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean users. Google Play Magazines should be more stable now too. Next hopefully they’ll add more content so I can get some NFL Magazines to read on my tablet. Get the new apps from their respective links below.
Google Play Music link
Google Play Magazines Link
How did you set up those settings icons in the notification bar…? I’m on a Galaxy Nexus and don’t have those. Still stuck with the Power Widget.
That would be a custom ROM my friend. Called Notification power widgets and I’m on CyanogenMod 10 but they are in multiple custom ROMs.
This update actually happened as I was listening to music, I was delightfully surprised.
Does the expanded notification only happen when there is enough room? I’m on my nexus 7 and there is plenty of room yet it looks the same.
no, but you can pinch to close it (and same to expand it) but if you pinch it shut then clear a pending notification it expands again. It isn’t completely based on having enough room because you can always scroll through notifications.