In summary
- November Pixel Drop rolling out now
- Themes, notification summaries, scam protection and more
- Some features US-only
The November Pixel Drop is here, bringing several new features to Pixel smartphones.
Google has commenced rolling out its latest Pixel Drop, which is the name it gives to major Pixel smartphone software updates laden with fresh features.
They tend to arrive every few months, but as we reported towards the end of October, this latest one has arrived a month early.
Here are the main additions you can expect with the November Pixel Drop. There’s a more extensive rundown on Google’s support page.
Notification summaries
Google has put its powerful AI to use in offering bite-sized summaries of incoming notifications right there in the notification shade. This means that you can get the gist of a lengthy message or conversation at a glance, without even opening the app.
We’ve seen something similar from Apple in recent versions of iOS, though it’s often not very useful. Here’s hoping Google’s provision gives more useful insight.
From December, Google says that you’ll be able to silence lower-priority notifications.
Personalised photo edits
Continuing the development of its spookily naturalistic image editing tools, Google now provides the ability to fix group shots with a sentence.
Tap “Help me edit” and ask Photos to “Remove Riley’s sunglasses, open my eyes, make Engel smile and open her eyes” (other friend names are available), and Photos will now pull image info from other photos in your gallery to make the appropriate edits – provided your contacts are properly labelled in Face Groups.
Again, this is US-only for now (sigh), and you’ll need to be 18 or over and with location estimates enabled.
Scam protection in messages
Google has upped its Scam Detection game app with the new Pixel Drop, offering scam alerts across a number of popular messaging services.
When a potentially dodgy message comes in, Google will give you a “Likely scam” heads-up notification.
Unfortunately, this is a US-only feature for now, and it’ll only work on Pixel 6 phones and later.
Wicked theme packs
This addition was heavily featured in leaks ahead of the November Pixel Drop, but Google is adding themed customisation packs to its Pixel phones. These include custom wallpapers, icons, GIFs, and even sounds.
To kick this off, it’s provided a Wicked: For Good theme pack to tie in with the new musical movie. There are three styles to choose from the off: For Good, Glinda and Elphaba.
VIP priorities
As predicted, Google is giving its half-baked VIP contacts feature some love. Notifications from your selected VIPs will now be prioritised, and there’s now a crisis badge in the Contacts widget to keep you updated on critical alerts.
Photo remixes
Google has added a Remix feature to Google Messages, allowing you to make on-the-fly edits within the message thread. If the other party is also on Google Messages, you can even bat remixes back and forth between you.
And yes, the results will show up for whoever’s in the chat with you, regardless of the phone they’re using.
Save power in Google Maps
This one’s neat. Press the power button while navigating in Google Maps, and it’ll switch to a simplified layout showing only key information like your next turn. It means you’ll still have navigation even when your phone is about to die.
Scam Detection and Call Notes expands
We’ve already signalled our annoyance at the US-only availability of some of these new features, but Google is bringing some of its previous additions to more people.
Scam Detection in voice calls is now coming to Google Pixel 9 (and later) users in the UK, Ireland, India, Australia and Canada.
Call Notes is rolling out to Australia, Canada, the UK, Ireland and Japan, allowing users to transcribe and summarise phone calls.
Magic Cue gets a boost
Remember Magic Cue? It’s the Google Pixel 10 feature that apparently offers one-tap cross-app suggestions, but which many people (myself included) have never really been able to get to work.
Google says it’ll now offer “more timely suggestions”, which I’m hoping means “will actually work for most people”. We’ll see.
