While we're still waiting for Android 12's bigger redesign to land, Google is also working at countless other smaller visual changes, and that includes this latest tweak. In Developer Preview 2, the media player now picks up on accent color cues from the system rather than trying to match album artwork, as it did previously.
Left: Android 12 DP1 (which generally matches Android 11's appearance). Right: Android 12 DP2.
In the examples above, preset "styles" with font and color combinations show that Android 12 DP2's media player responds to those color cues to adjust the background, while Android 12 DP1 (and Android 11) instead inherit a color determined by the album art.
This isn't the first accent color-related change to land in Android 12, either. The new and thicker pattern unlock that debuted with DP2 also follows that cue. An internal project called "monet" may also bring dynamic wallpaper-based accent colors in the future — or, at least, Google is working on the feature, though it isn't enabled in any public preview yet.
Multiple colors, visible on the lockscreen.
The previous album artwork-based color behavior actually dates all the way back to Android 8.0 Oreo, long before we even got Android 11's further tweaks to the media player. As usual, this change may see adjustment in the future or even a reversion before Android 12's final, stable release, but given how closely it matches Google's apparent vision for Android 12, I doubt that will happen.
For more about Android 12, check out our ongoing series coverage here, or bookmark our regularly updated changelog and check back in later. If you want to install the developer preview on your own device, find out how in our Android 12 download guide.