If a recent APK teardown conducted by Android Police is anything to go by, it would appear that Google’s preparing to bundle more extensive controls for playback quality, in addition to a new autoplay feature, in its next update for its Play Music app for Android.
At present, users only have the option to control streaming quality over cellular networks, like 3G and 4G. However, with this latest upgrade, they should also be able to alter the quality level for music streaming over Wi-Fi and music downloaded for offline playback.
Decreasing the quality of audio playback has many benefits, which include reduced data usage while streaming and the consumption of less storage space for music saved locally. It’s also pretty useful for low bandwidth connections as it could help listeners enjoy an uninterrupted stream of their favorite tunes.
Sadly, we don’t know much about the autoplay feature, other than that it’ll “automatically start [playing] music when you open the app.” Fortunately, the string highlighting the functionality was discovered in the Settings screen, so it certainly looks like it will be a feature you need to manually activate.
It’s worth noting, however, that although the code for these features has been spotted in the Play Music APK, there’s a chance they’ll never see the light of day. Personally, I’m not keen on the idea of the app playing music when I open it, but I’d like to see the wider range of quality controls make an appearance in the next build.
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