Google’s December Pixel Feature Drop is a Bag Full of Surprises

Pixel users enjoy the luxury life of regular on-time updates when they are released. Google also pushes out occasional feature drop updates to add further functionality to your device. We were indeed expecting the search giant to release a new Pixel drop this month. However, we had no clue it would be this big. So let’s check out all the major new changes that are available for your Pixel smartphone after the December Pixel feature drop.

The Pixel Screenshots app which debuted with the Pixel 9 series received tons of improvements. It can categorize your screenshots, show a shortcut to save screenshots of credit cards, boarding passes, or movie tickets directly to Google Wallet, and work with Circle to search. It will now also provide text suggestions taken from your screen grabs in Google Gboard. But you need to enable “Show suggestions from your screenshots in other apps” in the app’s settings.

Gemini becomes much more useful after this December Pixel feature drop. It adds support for Spotify, Google Messages, and Device Utility extensions. It can provide smart replies while call screening using the on-device Nano model. This is limited to Pixel 9 devices in the U.S. We also saw support for 40 more languages coming to Gemini Live, and Gemini Advanced will now be able to remember your interests similar to ChatGPT memories.

This update adds the ability to capture Ultra HDR photos using the Instagram camera app for the Pixel 9 family. It also made Pixel Studio more useful by allowing you to share stickers created in the app from Gboard itself. Google’s Recorder app will now show a Clear Voice option to cancel out background noises. But again, this change is limited to the Pixel 9 series.

Older Pixel phones got a new Simple View option in Accessibility settings. This makes the font bolder and replaces gesture navigation with buttons. Now Playing feature can now show album art of identified songs. Tensor-powered Pixel devices will see an Identity check security feature that requires you to authenticate with your biometrics to unlock the device in an unknown location.

This Pixel drop also showered some love on the original Google Pixel Fold. It received the Made You Look feature, which plays a silly animation on the cover screen to grab the attention of your little ones while taking photos. Google also added a Joy to this feature, which you might remember from Disney Pixar’s animated movie Inside Out.

We also saw the addition of dual screen camera view in portrait mode for both Pixel foldable. While the future of Pixel Tablets remains uncertain, the company also released some really useful features for their big-screen devices. You can now add up to six widgets in the lock screen, and use the much-awaited free-form window mode, last seen in the QPR1 build of Android 15.

The Pixel Watch also didn’t go unnoticed as Google added support for live feed for Nest cams in Pixel Watch 2 along with Google’s Cardio Load and Target Load features. The latter are also available for Pixel Watch 1, Fitbit Sense 1 and 2. Lastly, the Loss of Pulse feature in the Watch 3 is now available in Germany, and Portugal.

So yeah, that’s about it for the main additions we saw with this month’s Pixel Drop. This is a pretty extensive list already, and we didn’t even mention QR codes in Quick Share, improvements in Emoji Kitchen, emotional expressions in Live captions, and automatic detection and enhancements of saved documents in Google Drive. Or maybe we just did it now.

With all these changes, Google is making it really lucrative to be a Pixel device owner. Now it’s your turn to let us know whether your Pixel received these changes, and if so, which feature are you enjoying the most in the comments below.