mcontrol: change in behavior?

I use mcontrol app on my android phone to stream from TIdal to my Ayre EX-8.

If I start playing an album and then put my phone in airplane mode, streaming stops when the currently playing song ends.  IOW, it seems like my phone is telling the EX-8 which track to play one track at a time.

I'm pretty sure this is not how it was before: once I started playback, my phone was not involved unless I wanted to change what was playing.

Anyone have any insights into what is happening here and if that has been the normal behavior for mcontrol?