Pixel 4 gets first dibs on Live Caption, will come to Pixel 3 and 3a in December

When the Pixel 4 series launches this month, the phones will be the first to get Google's Live Caption feature. It's designed to run subtitles through videos you watch on your phone, making sure you don't miss anything even if you're watching the clip in noisy environments. According to MobileSyrup, Canadian users will be getting the feature on their Pixel 4 phones, too. Soon after the Pixel 3 and 3a will be getting the feature (sometime in December, to be exact). 

Night Sight might get more attention in the new version of Google Camera

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The teardown of the Google Camera app didn’t just reveal what we can expect from the next Pixel phone. It also shows us what current Pixel users can expect, like Pixel 3’s Night Sight mode. It looks like version 6.3 will make this feature more prominent. Instead of it being kept in the More panel, it’ll take the place of the Panorama option in the main camera interface.

One other feature that might come to Google Camera is McFly mode, which is a nod to the famous Back To The Future movies. The mode appears alongside a reference to the word rewind. This could mean you can record video clips and play these in reverse, which could be similar to one of the filters Snapchat has. For now, we don’t have word yet when Google will roll out this version of the app.

Source: Tech Radar

Google’s Digital Wellbeing feature might be causing the slowdown in Pixel phones

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The intention behind Google’s Digital Wellbeing feature was to get people off their phones more and curb potential smartphone addiction. It lets you track how much time you spend on your phone and what apps you use frequently. But it seems an unwanted side effect is it seems to be slowing down Pixel phones. One Pixel 3 user posted on Reddit that when they turned off Digital Wellbeing, the difference was like “night and day.” The user went as far to recommend to other Pixel 3 users to turn the feature off even if you don’t have any performance issues. 

Now, if you want to see if Digital Wellbeing affects your Pixel device, you can turn off the feature by heading into the Settings of your Pixel phone. Choose Digital Wellbeing and then tap on the three-dot icon at the top right corner and select “Turn off usage access.” You can confirm this decision on the next “Usage access” screen. Choose Digital Wellbeing and toggle the “permit usage access” option to off. Google hasn’t responded yet to this The Verge report. 

Google quietly takes out Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL from its store

While the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL might be available through third-party retailers, Google is no longer offering the two phones in its store. It no longer shows up in the Phones section of the site. And when you try to compare the three Pixel phones, only the Pixel 3 has a Buy button. Google did the same thing with the original Pixel at around the same time last year. The company’s strategy for its smartphones seems to be taking out the phones after it’s been out on the market for 18 months. So, if you’ve been waiting on getting the Pixel 3, at least you have some sort of timeline to think about until you might not have access to the device anymore.

Source: Engadget