Android 17 will bring a smarter media app switcher

Google released Android 17 QPR1 Beta 3 as something of a surprise announcement at I/O 2026, and it comes with a bunch of changes and new features. Among the many new features in Android 17 is a relatively small yet noteworthy change to the media controls.

Media controls in Android 17 now have a new UI. While Android 16 lets users switch between multiple media apps by swiping through them like a carousel, the latest beta minimizes other media apps into tiny cards on the sides.

Personally, I like the way it looks. It makes it more evident to users that they can switch between the media apps, and I find the tap controls better than swiping, especially because the media player also uses swipe gestures to control the seek bar. That said, swiping from one card to the other is still an option.

Android already arranges media apps in the carousel in descending order of importance. So you’ll see the locally playing media first, followed by media being played on remote devices, and past resumable sessions.

I have accidentally moved my music forward while swiping through the carousel-style layout to switch apps on more than one occasion. That’s not a pleasant experience, and this new pill-style layout should prevent such mishaps.

There’s some concern about the media controls getting even tinier, what with two other pills taking up space on the sides of the media player. If Google would let users change the size of the media controls, we could get around this problem as well.