Apple in iOS 27 has made a small but significant change to how the Now Playing widget works on your iPhone’s Lock Screen – you can now swipe it away to get rid of it.
Previously, there was no way to dismiss the Now Playing interface on the Lock Screen. But in the first iOS 27 developer build released yesterday, a leftward swipe on the playback controls slides in a Clear button from the right.
Clearing the controls from the screen also removes the smaller Now Playing widget from the Dynamic Island.
It’s not quite clear yet how to bring the widgets back immediately – as 9to5Mac notes, the only workaround appears to be pausing whatever’s playing, waiting a few minutes, and then resuming it. It also seems to depend on which app you’re using for playback. For example, switching from a podcast to video playback re-invokes the Lock Screen widget.
Being able to make the Now Playing widget go away is admittedly a small tweak, but it will be welcomed by anyone who likes to dismiss whatever is taking up space on their Lock Screen, playback controls included. Apple will make iOS 27 available in public beta next month, with a general release expected in the fall.
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