The Now Playing Screen
The Now Playing screen is your main playback interface. It shows the current track’s artwork, controls, and — when you scroll down — full track metadata and AI tools.
Layout Overview
[SCREENSHOT: Full Now Playing screen with all regions labeled]
The screen has three main zones:
1. Artwork
A large rounded card showing the album art for the current track. If no album art is embedded, a music note emoji is shown.
Tap the artwork to flip it over and see the album’s track list. See Album Art & Track List (Flip).
Karaoke overlay — When synced lyrics are available and karaoke mode is active, the lyrics float over the artwork. See Karaoke / Synced Lyrics.
2. Track Info & Controls
Below the artwork:
Title — Scrolls horizontally (with a right-edge fade) if the title is too long to fit. The scroll animates automatically, pauses, then loops.
Artist + Quality — The artist name, followed by a quality badge if available (e.g. — FLAC 24-bit).
Action buttons (right side of the info row):
- 🎤 Mic — Karaoke mode toggle. Only appears when the track has synced (timestamped) lyrics.
- 〰 Waves — Spatial Audio toggle. Only appears for tracks exported as spatial mixes from Homecrate’s recorder. Requires Pro.
- ≋ Audio Lines — Spectral 3D Sound toggle. Available on all tracks. Requires Pro. See Spectral 3D Sound.
- ⊟ Sliders — Equalizer. See Equalizer.
Seek bar — Drag to jump to any point in the track. The current position and total duration are shown below the bar.
Playback controls:
- ⏮ Previous — Go to the previous track
- ▶/⏸ Play / Pause — Tap to toggle
- ⏭ Next — Go to the next track. Long-press to open the Up Next queue.
3. Metadata Panel
A thin separator line (with a drag handle above it) marks the boundary between the controls and the metadata panel. Scroll down past it to reveal:
- Full track info (album, year, quality, genre, ISRC, comment)
- Lyrics (plain text or synced)
- Shazam identification tools
- Music theory analysis
- Shazam “matched” badge (when identified)
See Track Info Panel for full details.
When No Track Is Loaded
If your library is empty or no track has been selected, the Now Playing screen shows an empty state:
[SCREENSHOT: Empty state — folder icon with "No music yet" and "Import Music" button]
Tap Import Music to go directly to the import flow.
Track Title Scrolling
Long track titles scroll automatically. The animation:
- Waits 5 seconds before starting
- Scrolls the title to the end
- Pauses 2 seconds
- Scrolls back to the beginning
- Waits 8 seconds before repeating
The right edge fades to transparent so the scroll feels smooth. The animation uses native scroll views driven by Animated.Value — it does not cause React re-renders.
Playback Position Memory
Homecrate saves your position in each track automatically. If you close the app and return, playback resumes from where you left off (to within about 30 seconds).
Position is saved to local storage every 30 seconds while a track is playing.
Background Playback
Playback continues when the app is in the background or the screen is locked. Use the Lock Screen controls or Control Center to play, pause, skip, and seek without opening the app.