- A new Pixel Feature Drop has landed for Google’s phones
- This update includes new AI photo editing tools and Wicked theme packs
- It also includes AI-powered notification overviews, scam text alerts and more
After a recent leak, the next Pixel Feature Drop has now landed, and there’s a lot here to latch on to.
First, there are various AI upgrades where you can now get AI-powered notification overviews so you can quickly catch up on messages without reading paragraphs of text. And Google promises that in December there will also be an update that lets you mute lower-priority notifications.
Also on the AI front, you can now use Google’s Nano Banana AI model to edit images directly in Google Messages.
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But if you go to Google Photos, you’ll find that the editing options there are even more powerful than they used to be, as you can now ask the AI to make edits for specific people that you mention by name. So for example, you can say “Remove Riley’s sunglasses, open my eyes, make Angel smile and open her eyes.” To do this, though, you’ll first need to make sure you’ve created ‘face groups’ for everyone you mention so Google Photos can identify them.
Other updates in this Pixel Feature Drop include Wicked theme packs that let you customize your Pixel with wallpapers, icons, sounds, and GIFs inspired by the movie, and there’s also a feature that will alert you to potential scams when you get chat messages from many popular apps.
With this update, you’ll also get priority notifications from people you designate as ‘VIPs’, and Google Maps now has a battery-saving feature that lets you see a simplified layout with only the most important information. Google claims that using this layout can extend your phone’s battery life by up to four hours.
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Limited availability
It’s worth noting that the scam warnings and personal edits in Google Photos are unfortunately only available in the US. There may be good reasons for this, but this uneven availability of features is something we hate to see.
Still, in more positive news on that front, this update brings some existing Pixel features to more regions. Now Google Pixel 9 or later users in the UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland and India can access AI-powered scam call detection.
Plus, Pixel users in the UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland and Japan can now make use of Call Notes, which uses the Gemini Nano on the device to record your calls, take notes and create a transcript and overview of them.
So this is a pretty hefty update and it’s worth downloading.
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