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Summary

• Google’s Pixel devices are packed with unique software features.
• Quick Tap allows instant access to phone features, almost like an invisible shortcut button.
• Now Playing can passively identify songs on your Pixel phone, like a built-in Shazam.
• Live Captions, Screen Attention, can radically change how you watch and listen to things.

On some level, the Pixel is supposed to represent Google’s idealized version of an Android phone. Every Pixel is supposed to be the Google-iest version of a smartphone that can exist. The company has spent years developing the hardware and general look of the Pixel line, leading it down the unconventional design path that produced the camera bar, but it’s also done the same thing with software.

If anything, software is the standout reason people use Pixels in the first place. The phones leverage Google software — particularly the company’s work with AI — to enable unique skills you can’t quite get anywhere else. Pixel phones just feel a bit smarter than the average Android phone, and that’s all thanks to what Google’s able to pull off on the software-side of things. Unfortunately, the company isn’t always the best at filling people in on all the things that Pixels can do, though, so here’s a recap of the great Pixel features you might now know about.

1 Quick Tap gives you instant access to phone features

It’s like an invisible shortcut button

Like the iPhone, you can enable a special tap gesture on your Pixel phone that gives you quick access to specific functions of your phone. It’s easier than hunting through menus, and it offers a potentially more accessible way to control your Pixel if you have a hard time pressing small on-screen buttons.

Pixel phones have gestures for other features like opening the camera, switching to the selfie camera, and more.

I have Quick Tap set to take a screenshot on my Pixel 9 — all the better for remembering things for later with Pixel Screenshots — but you can also head into the Settings app and set Quick Tap to functions like playing or pausing media on your phone, opening an app of your choice, or pulling down the notification shade.

Quick Tap has been available for a while on Pixel devices, but it’s oddly a feature Google doesn’t really promote, even though it could clearly be useful for a lot of people. To enable it for yourself, head to Settings > System > Gesture > Use Quick Tap. You can select the specific thing you want Quick Tap to do from the menu.

2 Now Playing Shazams songs for you

Fun and useful passive information

One of the Pixel’s earliest and best special skills is a built-in music recognition tool called Now Playing. If you’ve used Shazam, or you’ve asked Google Assistant to identify a song for you before, Now Playing is similar — it’s just always running in the background. With Now Playing enabled, you can look at your lockscreen or notification shade and see the name and artist of whatever song is playing near you. You can also tap on that small widget / notification to start playing the song in your chosen music app or share it with someone else.

You can enable Now Playing in Settings > Sound & vibration > Identify songs playing nearby. If you happen to tap on the “heart” icon next to the songs, you can also build a list of favorite songs that’s viewable directly from the “Sound & vibration” menu in Settings. It’s less convenient than those favorites ending up in your default music app, but it’s better than nothing.

3 Notification history lets you never miss a message

Don’t worry about accidentally deleting things

The notification shade in Android makes it easy to manage notifications on your Pixel, but it gets pretty easy to fill it with alerts and messages you don’t necessarily need to see. Being able to clear all of your notifications at once helps, but what happens to the messages you accidentally delete? If you have notification history enabled, you’ll be able to get to them again.

You can enable and view notification history in Settings and get access to every recent notification you’ve received, even if it was deleted. Turn on the feature by going to Settings > Notifications > Notification history > Use notification history. If you don’t want to wade through Settings every time you want to look for an old notification, you can tap on “No notifications” in the notification shade to immediately jump to notification history.

4 Live Captions converts spoken audio into text

Add subtitles to audio across the Android operating system

The Pixel feature Live Captions can automatically add captions to speech across your phone. It works on things like videos, podcasts, phone calls, video calls, and audio messages, though it won’t caption anything other than spoken dialogue unless you toggle a separate option in Settings.

It might primarily seem like an accessibility feature, but in our video-driven world, there are actually a lot of situations where you might need to watch a clip with the sound off.

You can enable Live Captions by pressing the volume controls on the side of your Pixel and tapping on the caption icon to turn Live Captions on. The caption box can be repositioned just by tapping on it and dragging it around the screen, and you can technically view them in multiple different fashions. It might primarily seem like an accessibility feature, but in our video-driven world, there are actually a lot of situations where you might need to watch a clip with the sound off. Now you can do it while still knowing what’s going on.

5 Screen attention keeps your display on and unlocked

Tapping your phone awake is a thing of the part

If you’ve ever had your phone fall asleep while looking at something, you know how annoying it can be. Pixel phones have a built-in feature that can keep you from ever having that happen again. It’s called “Screen attention” and it keeps your phone active as long as you’re looking at it. That way your screen doesn’t fall asleep while you’re watching or reading something and not touching your screen.

You can turn on the feature on your own phone by going to Settings > Display & touch > Screen timeout > Screen attention. The feature could have a negative impact on your phone’s battery life in the sense that your screen is going to spend a lot more time powered on, but that’s a small negative to remove a real annoyance.

6 Add Me lets your Pixel create group photos for you

You don’t have to prop up your phone and hope for the best

Some of the Pixel’s best camera features deal with eliminating edge-cases, situations that might not be universal, but can ruin your photo if they happen. Add Me, a new feature added with the launch of the Pixel 9, does just that for taking group photos. When you don’t have to take a photo for you, your only options are to prop up your phone and set a timer or leave someone out of your photo. Add Me lets you include everyone by essentially combining two photos into one. One photo without the photographer and another with the photographer posed next to where the rest of the group was standing.

You can access Add Me directly from the Pixel Camera app. The feature will guide you through taking each photo and even includes onscreen silhouettes so you know how to pose for your second photo. After a bit of loading, you’ll get a photo that wasn’t possible without Add Me. That’s a pretty great magic trick.

The Pixel is packed with skills that make it stand out

Google’s Pixel phones have great features that other Android phones don’t have. The six features above are some of the best and underappreciated things a Pixel can pull off, but there are other features worth looking at, too. The Pixel 9 is capable of some pretty wild AI-generated photo edits, and there’s a whole list of Pixel Tablet features to peruse if you have one of your own. The point is, Google’s Pixel devices have a lot going for them, and with a Pixel 9a on the way, you don’t have to pay flagship prices to appreciate everything they can do.