The persistent widget
For years the Now Playing widget has occupied the Lock Screen whenever something is playing — music, podcasts, audiobooks — with no way to make it disappear while keeping playback active. iOS 27 changes this: in the first developer beta it is possible to swipe away the playback controls from the lock screen, as spotted by user Aaron (aaronp613) and reported by MacRumors.
Known limitations
For now the feature has somewhat unpredictable behavior: the widget does not reappear immediately and the most reliable way to bring it back is to pause playback, wait a few minutes, and resume. Behavior also varies depending on the app being used — switching from a podcast to video playback, for example, re-invokes the widget. These are typical first-beta behaviors, likely to be refined before the autumn release.