Getting a Pixel phone is difficult enough and I already talked in length about that in this article, where
. In short: I was successful, they are happy, so everything is great, right?
Well, yeah. But I didn’t get to talk about how overwhelmed they were just a few days after getting used to their new Pixels. These phones offer so many features, tucked away in so many different menus that it’s very easy to forget that they even exist. So I didn’t blame them one bit.
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.
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.
Your Pixel as a webcam
We’ve all been there: you need a solid webcam, for screen recording or for an important meeting and you don’t have one. Or, actually, a more likely and somewhat worse scenario: you only have the one on your laptop and it’s not exactly a good one.
Well, Pixel to the rescue: plug it in via USB, set it up as a webcam, then you’re ready to go. And go you shall, in a significantly higher image quality. This is a wonderful Pixel feature that I keep forgetting about time and time again.
Taking your screen beyond dim
But do you know what a lot of people actually do? They lie down at night, grab their phones and start scrolling through their feeds. And if you ask me, people should just stop doing that altogether, because it’s actually bad for your health. But that’s not up to me.
So instead, I’m going to tell you about a way through which you can make that night session a bit safer: a solid Night Mode filter, which most Android phones nowadays offer — Pixels included — combined with tuning that phone brightness all the way down.
And Pixels? They can let you go even lower via a special setting. So the next time you’re having a date with your phone in bed, try to use this one to protect your sight.
A digital magnifier that actually works
This is another case of me going “Hey, Google, why isn’t this in the camera app to begin with, huh?”.
One would think that zooming with a Pixel phone would have the same effect as using this digital Magnifier, exclusive to Pixel phones, but no: there are some additional algorithms here that really help to bring out the detail and contrast of some specific objects.
And here’s my favorite thing about it: it has a shutter button. And that means that you can also use this as a dedicated macro cam! It doesn’t always produce the results you expected, because sometimes the resulting file loses detail as it leaves the app — weird, for sure — but I like to keep it handy just in case.
Faster access to the Pixel camera
One of my favorite things about Sony’s latest Xperia phones is the dedicated shutter button and I really missed having one when I transitioned over to a Pixel phone.
That is, until I discovered that I can double tap the power button in order to open the camera app and then use the one of the volume keys to substitute a shutter button.
That’s about it, really, but I find it to be one of the most impactful features of my phone. Especially now, because the latest Android version lets me change the shortcuts on my lock screen, meaning that I no longer need to have one of those reserved for the camera app. Sweet!
And here’s a cool little bonus for you: did you know that when you open up the camera app, you can twist your Pixel phone twice in order to switch between the regular camera and the selfie snapper? Well, now you do.
Use the Pixel Tips app! Seriously!
This is the most essential tip out of all of these. And yes, I realize how that sounds. I mean, most phones come with some manual-style app that none of us ever bother with, but in the case of Pixels, I seriously advise you to check it out. Why? Well:
- It will only show you the extra features, which your specific model can offer
- It gets updated whenever new features become available on your Pixel phone
- It gives you info on what a given feature is and a shortcut to set it up
And, most importantly: I would’ve never found out for most of these myself if I hadn’t opened the Pixel Tips app myself. And why did I do that in the first place? Well, because it lets you download my favorite Pixel-exclusive app, which is the next entry on the list.
Pocket Operator for Pixel
Some of you might have heard of the company Teenage Engineering, which is probably my favorite tech company in the world right now. These guys are responsible for the Nothing phone’s fantastic design, the PlayDate: my favorite piece of tech from recent years, the design of the AI-fueled Rabbit R1 and a slew of brilliant music tech.
So, what’s a Pocket Operator? This is a series of fun, quirky and pocketable synthesizers, which remove the barriers typically associated with electronic music production.
Wait, where does the Pixel fit into all of this? Well, the Pixel is the only phone series — as of the time of writing — that has access to a Pocket Operator app.
But what does it do? Well, it lets you pick several among almost all videos that you’ve ever recorded, then it chops those up automatically into some recognisable sounds and then lets you use those as samples to create some funky beats.
I made this sick little beat in just a few minutes through sourcing three random clips from my Gallery. I mean, sure: I’ve been making music for 20 years and I’ve been using Pocket Operators for two of those, but still: making something this cool for just under ten minutes, export included, is pretty rad!
Easy fixes for a spazzed-out Pixel
A life-saving bonus round!
I’m going to be honest: I’ve been itching to include these into some sort of Pixel-centric article for a while and I’m just taking this chance to do so. Because, for me, these tips have been life savers.
A lot of Pixel users out there are reporting Pixel phones with odd software behaviours, which isn’t anything new to the tech scene. And while I can’t promise that these will get you out of any sticky situation, I can say that they’ve fixed all major issues on my end:
Force stop the Pixel Launcher
Sometimes, the Pixel Launcher is weird. Don’t ask me why: I didn’t make it. Heck, I’m not even using it as my main launcher and it still finds ways to mess up my day sometimes. But luckily, I found a way to fix it without having to restart my phone all the time:
- Go to Settings
- Open up the Apps menu
- Search for “Pixel Launcher”
- Tap “Force Stop”
- Enter Storage
- Clear the Cache too just in case
And that, in most cases, resolves any issue I might be experiencing. Sometimes, they don’t go away and when that seems to be the case, I just repeat the steps, but do a restart immediately after that as well.
Reboot into Safe Mode
Now, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why this works. I was kind of amazed when a Google rep shared it with me online, but hey: it works. So I’m giving back the love and sharing it with you.
If your Pixel phone is acting very weird in disruptive ways beyond minor inconveniences, doing the following may fix the problem entirely:
- Hold the Power Button on your Pixel
- Tap and hold the Power Off button
- Once the phone asks if you want to reboot in to Safe Mode, tap “Yes”
- Unlock the phone and give it a minute
- Restart your phone and it will automatically get you back into your regular environment
So what just happened? I don’t know, but it works. In most cases when I needed to use this, I found that a certain third party UI element, widget or entire app would stop responding. I take that as my Pixel’s way of telling me “That! That was the culprit!” and guess what?After I remove the thing, the issue disappears. And hopefully, this can do the same for you too.
And there you have it folks: a bunch of Pixel features that aren’t getting enough love from the community. But not because they’re not good — in fact, I find them to be awesome! — but because Google likes to hide things.
Well, I found some of them, so you don’t have to waste any more of your time in searching. Have fun and hit me up with your Pocket Operator jams in the comments!
