It’s Pixel Feature Drop month! If you own a still-supported Google Pixel phone, this month’s Android patch is a special update that not only brings you up-to-date on security and bug fixes, you get new features to play with too. Those new features include new widgets, live caption in new places, Night Sight in Snapchat, and more.
The current list of Pixel phones getting this month’s update should include the Pixel 3a, Pixel 4, Pixel 4a, Pixel 5, Pixel 5a, and Pixel 6. Of course, you already know that the Pixel 6 update is delayed until “later this month,” so for now, enjoy, pre-Pixel 6 owners!
Here’s the simple bulleted list of everything new in the March Pixel Feature Drop:
- Pixel battery widget: The battery widget I begged for is here! The new Pixel battery widget will show you up-to-date battery information on Bluetooth-connected devices. It can spread across a home screen or shrink down to fit your specific spaces.
- At a Glance’s big update: The At a Glance widget at the top of your main screen (and on the lock screen) is getting its big update that adds info like battery levels of Bluetooth devices, safety check countdown from the Personal Safety app, reminders to turn off alarms, and more.
- Live Caption in calls: Now during calls, you can enable Live Caption and see what the other person is saying to you. You can even respond back through the keyboard if you are unable to talk.
- YouTube and app sharing in Duo: When Samsung announced the Galaxy S22, Google announced that Duo was getting a sweet new feature that allowed you to share YouTube or other apps. They are now expanding that capability to Pixel phones.
- Gboard’s custom auto-stickers: With the latest version of Gboard on your Pixel phone, you’ll be able to type out a message and then choose from custom stickers that were auto-created based on whatever you just typed. For example, if you typed out “Happy Birthday Steve,” you should get new stickers that actually say “Happy Birthday Steve” on on them. Pretty sweet.
- Live Translate to Spanish: Live Translate is expanding to Spanish on Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.
- Night Sight in Snapchat: Google continues its close relationship with Snapchat by now offering Night Sight within the Snapchat camera app on Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. That means better night photos and videos if you are using the Snapchat camera app to snap those life moments. Just look for the moon icon in the camera to enable it.
- New Curated Culture wallpapers: The new Curated Culture wallpapers for this month include three papers from Manjit Thapp, an illustrator out of the UK. This is a continued celebration of International Women’s Day. The three wallpapers can be seen at the top of this post.
For this month’s Feature Drop, Google is also expanding previously released features to other devices and languages:
- Direct My Call and Wait Times are now available on Pixel 3a and above.
- The Recorder app now transcribes Italian and Spanish on Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.
- Google Assistant Quick Phrases are now available in Spanish, Italian, and French on Pixel 6.
Finally, here is the chart of all the new features and which phones will get them:
Again, this big update is hitting the Pixel 3a up through the Pixel 5a today, with Pixel 6 devices getting in later this month.
Where is the battery widget cantt find it after updating
Took my phone overnight to show the “Settings Services” it’s under in widgets.
The pixel 6 is not set up to have interpreter mode used offline. It has the capability to work offline it just has to be set up so that it can work offline. Please Google make The interpreter mode work for people offline as you initially advertised
Still missing VoLTE support, I’m done with google , selling my pixel and getting a s22 or iPhone
Hopefully one of these feature drops will be a fix for the weather widget so it can update in the background and display the current weather in my location and not what the temperature was 3 days ago….
Where is the battery widget can’t find it after the update
Widgets > Setting Services.
Anyone know when the Pixel 6 Pro update will be released ‘later in the month’? Is there a more specific date?
I think the battery widget is hiding with the ever- elusive Apple Reaction update that still hasn’t showed up in Messages..
Where do I find the battery widget with March feature drop
Pixel 4XL here, I just installed the update, but I am not finding this new Battery Widget.
Widgets > Setting Services
All I see is the Settings shortcut.
Same. Seeing similar on reddit
Don’t seem to have the Setting Services option, just the Settings, appreciate the assistance
I like how all the preview screenshots Google provided are from a Pixel 6 Pro that the update isn’t even available on.
They should add a new section to the chart. “Delayed”
Absolute BS Google is still delaying Pixel 6/6 Pro updates!!
I mean, they could release them before they are ready – but wouldn’t that be worse?
So long as they contain Tensor, AI, and ML specific features then I suspect that a seperation of these updates will continue, if for no other reason than not to confuse people as too what parts of the update they’re getting. If the patches are just big fixes then it wouldn’t matter as much.
Imagine having the latest and greatest phone from Google but can’t download the latest and greatest update from Google. I can’t even imagine that because it has happened.
I think it’s going to be fairly common until supported Pixels all run Tensor chips.
For now it makes sense to seperate them because Tensor equipped phones are getting AI and ML goodies that older Pixels are not capable of using. This way no one with a Qualcomm soc is expecting features they were not able to run on their phones.
Now if this happens down the road when all supported Pixels are Tensor soc equipped then that would be news!
I think this has little or nothing to do with AI/ML stuff. The only things they implemented that use that are the transcription, photography, and supposedly the magic eraser – which all work pretty well overall as is. But if you remember, there was a short period of time where older Pixels could load the Pixel 6’s photos app and they were also able to use the magic eraser, albeit a bit slower than on pixel – but who really cares about a second or two extra. Nope, based on the LONG list of bug fixes (which means they fixed something that already existed – it’s not new features/code), this is just standard developer incompetence. Combine Google’s attention deficit disorder to stick to any one design or app and iterating on it with incompetent development and what you get are big delays and lots of bugs. Having some background in code, I can tell you it is significantly easier for me to write new code that works than trying to figure out what some incompetent moron coded up that doesn’t work and trying to trace and fix it.
Could be that they want more time for the Pixel 6 exclusive stuff I suppose. I’m just saying that it makes sense to seperate them so long as the update includes things Tensor/Pixel 6 related that don’t apply to other Pixels. I guess if Google doesn’t do that in the future then we’ll know. Time will tell.
Good thing I bought this phone purely for the cameras and not because I care about getting an update a couple weeks later.