Pixel phones are total powerhouses, but they offer so many features that it’s difficult to keep track of them all, so here’s an overview of a few significant ones that you should check out!
It’s so often that I hear about someone, who has been using a Pixel phone for months or years, that just found out about specific feature X or Y, that it really bums me out. I mean, I’ve gotten so much mileage out of these features, unique to Google’s line of phones, that I want everyone to have that same experience.
So this is that, basically: me telling you all about a few of my favorite features, unique to Pixel phones, that you might’ve never heard of before.
Double tap your phone’s back to do more stuff!
You’ve all heard of Gesture Controls, but Google phones add one more into the mix: double tapping your Pixel’s back in order to get something done.
You can find this setting under Gestures in Settings and your phone will let you do the following through it:
Take screenshot
Access digital assistant
Play or Pause media
See recent apps
Show notifications
Toggle Flashlight
Open a specific app
Personally, I’ve got this set up to my Flashlight and I use it pretty often. Here’s the deal though: it will take you a bit before you memorize the sweet spot to get the most out of your taps. And, depending on whether you’re rocking a case and what type it is, results may vary.
Pro tip: if you tap on your phone’s back while listening to music on the bus just like me, remember to toggle this one off, or otherwise strangers around you will keep wondering why you keep switching your flashlight on and off like a maniac.
App switch to send links or share images
This one has been around for a long time, but even though I was constantly seeing the little icons, I never actually noticed and understood them until recently.
Here’s the gist: when you open your app switcher and you’re looking at a specific app, which features an image or a link, your Pixel phone will give you up to two custom buttons that enable you to share either on the fly.
The best thing about this is that it works on images within apps too, like in Instagram. Recently, I had lost a beloved macro shot of mine of this cute, little green spider, so I actually used this feature to retrieve it via sending the image to my girlfriend. And it totally worked!
I must mention that, several times now, this feature has been rumored as headed to Android in general, but from the phones I — and my friends — have access to, only the Pixels actually have it. But if your phone is an exception, please let me know in the comments.
Oh, and by the way: the spider’s name is Watermelon and he says hi.
Night Sight is cool, but have you tried Astrophotography?
Now, I won’t lie to you: I think Google handled this one poorly and it is actually one of the few examples of things that I wish would change about the Pixel camera app, but oh well.
When you open up your camera app on a Pixel phone, you can navigate to Night Sight: Google’s low-light camera mode. And that’s great: it works really well.
But did you know that it has levels to it?!
The next one being Astrophotography mode and it performs even better, allowing you to capture the night sky itself. Depending on where you are, results may very, but I’ve had a blast using this feature.
Sample provided by Google, because I haven’t used this one in a while. It’s cold outside, okay?!
So what’s my beef with it? Simple: you can’t access it via a button. Instead, you get to participate in this boring, lengthy process:
Open up the camera and navigate to Night Sight
Point your Pixel phone at the sky
Wait for it to figure out that this is, in fact, the sky
It may do that a couple of times, then decide against it, that’s fine
Wait until the camera shutter button has changed before you tap it
Now you get to wait even more for the shot to be taken
And, I mean, the waiting is worth it, because some of the resulting shots can look outright amazing. But still, I’d rather have a toggle.
Google, I don’t know if you’re reading this, but if you are: just give us a toggle and let us have our fun.
