The month of June is starting off big for Pixel owners, because Google today released a new Pixel feature drop update.
This new update brings several new features to Pixel phones related to battery life, personal safety, the Recorder app, and the Clock app. First up, Adaptive Battery can now predict when your phone's battery will run out and reduce background activity to keep your phone running longer. This feature is available on Pixel 2 and later.
The Personal Safety app that's already available on the Pixel 4 is now available on all Pixel devices. Pixel 3 owners are getting car crash detection, too, which is another feature that's been exclusive to Pixel 4 until now.
Google is also beefing up the Personal Safety app with new features. The new safety check will schedule a check-in from the app for a later time, making sure that you got home safely from an event or activity. For example, you could have the app check in with you if you're planning on going for a run or hike by yourself.
If you don't respond to the scheduled check-in, the Personal Safety app will alert your emergency contacts. If you need immediate help, this feature can send notify your emergency contacts and share your real-time location in Google Maps so they can send help.
Also coming to the Personal Safety app are notifications about natural disasters and other public emergencies to help you stay safe and alert.
Google's Recorder app is getting better, too. You can now start, stop, and search your voice recordings with Google Assistant by saying things like "Hey Google, start recording my meeting." You can also save a transcript directly to Google Docs to make sharing easier.
Finally, Google is improving its Clock app to help you sleep better. The new Bedtime tab in the Clock app will let you set daily sleep and wake times to help you maintain a consistent sleep schedule. This tab will also show a preview of tomorrow's calendar and the total number of hours of sleep you'd get, and you can adjust your bedtime if necessary.
The app will send you a reminder before your bedtime and give you the option to play calming sounds from Calm, Spotify, YouTube Music, and other apps.
If you're using Digital Wellbeing, you can pair it with Bedtime mode to limit interruptions while you're snoozing. And if you stay up past your bedtime doing things on your phone, you can see how much time you're spending and what apps you're using when you're up late.
Google is also working to make waking up better. The Sunrise Alarm will give you a visual cue that your alarm is about to go off 15 minutes before it does.
This new Bedtime tab and its features are rolling out to Pixel devices today as part of the feature drop update, but they'll also be available in the Clock app for Android later this summer.
In other bedtime news, Google is updating the YouTube app for Android to let you get a reminder that it's time to go to sleep in the YouTube app. You can choose to see the reminder right at your bedtime or after the video you're currently watching is complete. You've also got the option to snooze the reminder for 10 minutes if you want to finish the clip you're watching.
Finally, Google today also released the June 2020 Android security update for Pixel devices. Here are the build numbers you Pixel owners will be getting:
In addition to the new security patches, Google says these updates include additional fixes and improvements related to performance, stability, battery, and more. You can see the full list below.
These updates will roll out in phases starting today. Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 3, and Pixel 3 XL owners on T-Mobile and Google Fi will begin receiving update notifications on June 4. Google also offers factory images and OTA images of these updates if you want to flash them yourself.
