Google Pixel

At launch, both of the Pixel 4A 5G and Pixel 5’s rear cameras worked in astrophotography mode. Then, like the Grinch in the night, Google quietly took the ability to use the ultrawide for night sky photos away — and it’s been absent on subsequent models.

You can watch the whole 26-minute video right now. Make sure to watch the “Best Camera” category all the way through to see the winners of the Blind Smartphone Camera Test.

The Pixel-exclusive AI assistant will use the information on a user’s phone, such as data from Maps and Gmail, to become a more “personalized” version of Google Assistant, according to a report from The Information. The feature could reportedly launch with the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro next year.

Marques Brownlee is once again crowdsourcing opinions on photos. You can head to the voting site where, in three categories (standard, low-light, and portrait mode), you’ll see the same photo taken by 20 different smartphones and judge which one you prefer in side-by-side comparisons.

Google’s new December Pixel software update includes the “experimental” ability to force any app into fullscreen mode on the Pixel Fold or Pixel Tablet — even those that wouldn’t usually support it.

Google’s Magic Editor is already capable of mind-bending photo retouching, but occasionally it’ll refuse to do certain edits. When this happens, it displays a vague message about violating Google’s AI terms.

When Google Keep got the ability to format notes, it only applied to new notes — you couldn’t format pre-update notes. 9to5Google reported today that Google is rolling out the ability to format your older notes as well.

Google Photos on the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro is changing the way it handles RAW files: they’re now stored in the main photos view rather than a separate folder. They’ll be backed up along with your JPEGs, and those big files will eat up your account storage fast. You’ll want to shoot RAW with discretion or turn off automatic backup altogether.

Powerful AI tools are changing how people work and play — and in the future, maybe all our AI editing will leave us with a half-true, picture perfect unreality of our lives.

Google Pixel 8 phones manufactured in India will start to roll out next year. Google’s move is similar to what we’ve seen from Apple, which started producing iPhones there in 2017 as it diversified its production line beyond China. This year, for the first time, it had India-manufactured iPhone 15s for sale at launch.

9to5Google spotted the renamed camera app, which is exclusive to Pixel phones running Android 14, last night.

The new Pixel Watch 2 charges faster than the original, but after a new firmware update, it now charges much, much faster. Google says the original Pixel Watch will now take 45 minutes to reach 50 percent instead of 30, and 75 minutes to reach 80 percent. You can expect a full charge to take 110 minutes.

Did you know the Pixel Watch 2 was going to have UWB? Or that the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro would have higher clockspeeds? How about 8K video recording and 480fps slow-mo?

Not the Vegas one... the photo spheres that Google used to let you capture. They’ve been removed as a feature from the latest Pixels.