We’ve temporarily removed the ZR Player from our 12.0.2 update on Android. This is because it was completely rewritten as part of our 12.0.0 ZRX update and it isn’t as intuitive or smooth as we would like. For now, Android users will need to use our External Player mode.

Normally, the ZR Player enables users to play their own music files, downloaded to their device, during workouts. We introduced it from the first versions of Zombies, Run! when the vast majority of users still bought and listened to their own music and when streaming players were far less popular. Crucially, the functionality required for the ZR Player was much easier to implement back in 2012 thanks to official support from Google.

Today, the vast majority of our users no longer buy and download their own music to their devices, preferring streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. Just as importantly, Google is making it harder for us to implement the ZR Player. Specifically, they have officially deprecated the Android Playlist functionality we relied upon. We have kept using it since then, but it is likely to completely stop working soon, hence our rewrite for ZRX.

This is not the end of the ZR Player on Android – we aim to reintroduce and re-imagine it in a future update, but given Google’s withdrawal of support, it won’t be as convenient to use as it once was.