Google Pixels Tipped To Add Seven Competing Features

Google’s Pixel line gets the basics right—and with commonplace features like Call Screen and Now Playing, for example—but there’s more to learn from rivals’ best bits.

Power users have been clamoring for a few tried-and-true features that are already doing well on iPhones and Android skins from Samsung, OnePlus, Motorola, and Xiaomi. If allowed to be incorporated into stock Android and future Pixels by Google, they could polish the experience for millions.

Demand is hardly theoretical. As companies like Counterpoint Research have observed, Pixels have taken off in North America, and people coming from other ecosystems wishing they had access to convenient tools they now miss is becoming more common. Here are seven transplanted components that would provide Pixels with an instantaneous, concrete shot in the arm.

Per-App Volume Controls And Smarter Media Buttons

You can set volume for individual apps separately on Samsung’s One UI, OnePlus’s OxygenOS, and Motorola’s Hello UI. This could mean silencing a loud game or social feed without turning down the volume on your music or podcasts. It’s a simple control that both eliminates daily frustration and keeps us from getting surprised by unpleasant audio spikes.

Just as good is the ability to long-press volume keys in order to skip tracks on a locked screen, a feature that’s standard on Samsung and Motorola phones. Gloved commute? Pocketed phone? No problem. Both should be available as native, toggleable settings in Pixel-land—no third-party apps necessary.

Camera Photographic Styles As Default Looks

Introduced with the iPhone 13, Apple’s Photographic Styles allow you to choose a signature look — rich contrast, warm tones, or a custom profile — and apply it at capture. You can edit later, but the camera always reflects your taste.

Pixels offer superb fidelity, but it’s not possible to assign Google Photos filters as defaults. The Pixel take on Photographic Styles would allow creators a repeatable aesthetic straight from the shutter, but would permit them to dial in tone mapping and color science for each scene. Consider it a “personal film stock” baked into the camera.

Truly Well-Designed Home Screen Widget Stacks

Apple brought popularity to widget stacks back in 2020, and Samsung followed suit with Smart Widgets you can swipe through as well. The payoff is self-evident: more glanceable information and less clutter, with quicker access to the essentials — e.g., calendar, weather, to-dos, and audio controls.

Google’s launcher must enable users to stack and smart-rotate widgets with granular control — priority ordering, time-of-day context awareness, and on-device suggestions. And with most Pixels now boasting fairly large screens, it’s ergonomics that require little effort but deliver big impact.

Live: Dynamic Island-Style Update for Media

On iOS, live persistent notifications that stay close to the camera cutout have become a—wait for it—boon, and they are also increasingly emulated on Android skins. Direction, delivery arrival time, ride status — these small though perceptible markers are more useful than a full dip into the notification shade.

Android Live Updates are a good start, but media controls belong in their native home up top as well: album art, track title, and tap-to-expand playback. Apple, Samsung, and OnePlus already offer this. For a service whose daily usage experience is dominated by streams, a glanceable Now Playing pill would be a huge win.

Advanced In-Built Automation Routines for Pixels

Samsung’s Modes and Routines and Apple’s Shortcuts (formerly Workflow) illustrate what phone automation can look like: dozens of triggers and actions across location, device state, accessories, system toggles. Documentation provided by Samsung details extensive controls over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, battery thresholds, audio profiles, and much more.

The rules on Pixels, on the other hand, are specific. Google should build strong routines directly in the Settings menu, offering templates for travel, workouts, driving, and work focus. Picture that your Pixel automatically switches its earbuds from ANC to ambient mode when you step into a shop, or turns on the hotspot for your tablet, or starts Safety Check when you stay in the office past dinnertime.

Freeform Windows And Pop-Up Apps On Phones

Freeform windows are nothing new in Android (they’ve been a part of the operating system since Nougat), and device manufacturers such as Samsung, Xiaomi, and Motorola have already transformed pop-up apps into something that can be used on an everyday basis. Floating a calculator over a spreadsheet or pinning messages next to browser windows is game-changing on 6.7-inch screens.

Google has embraced windowing on tablets and foldables, but Pixels on traditional phones should receive the experience too. Throw in a brief edge gesture or taskbar shortcut, and simultaneously working with multiple applications becomes second nature.

Consistent Motion Gestures For Torch And Camera

Motorola’s two most notable gestures, the double “chop” to turn on flashlight and wrist twist for camera, go back to the Moto X of 2013 and are beloved for a reason — they’re fast and practically foolproof. Pixel’s Quick Tap comes in handy, but quick motion gestures using the accelerometer and gyroscope are superior when you’re in a hurry or even wearing gloves.

Google might combine on-device machine learning with sensor data to avoid false positives and enable per-gesture sensitivity, something it already introduced for the Pixel 4. Hand-hunting around in the dark isn’t a reliable universal shortcut.

Why These Upgrades Would Matter to Pixel Users

These seven notions are not flashy experiments; they are battle-tested features that would remove daily friction. Small, mental triggers that keep people reaching for their phones are what make mobile platforms sticky. Analysts from IDC to Counterpoint have long observed that it’s the small, habitual conveniences as much as marquee specs that underpin stickiness in mobile platforms.

You may already be sold on Pixels for computational photography and AI-enhanced calling. Throw in per-app audio, default camera settings, widget stacks, live media updating, deep routines support, and proper pop-up windows; chuck in decent motion gestures; then strap all that to a great phone you won’t want to leave. That is the kind of polish that users notice — and return to.