Top Stories

This week’s top stories: Many Pixel 4 leaks, Android 10 release, and more

Kyle Bradshaw | Sep 7 2019 - 8:00 am PT

In this week’s top stories: the Google Pixel 4 gets more hands-on leak videos, we detail two major features coming to the Google Camera app for the Pixel 4, Google releases Android 10 for Pixel phones, and more.

Pixel 4

Both the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL made their way through the FCC on Tuesday, making both of Google’s phones one step closer to release. The days following this were an absolute whirlwind of Pixel 4 news, leaks, and exclusives. A video surfaced online offering a look at the black Pixel 4 from every angle, which was very swiftly followed by another video showing our first glimpse at the Pixel 4 in white.

On Friday, our Stephen Hall shared two exclusive scoops about the Google Pixel 4. Firstly, the Google Camera app will be picking up a new “Motion Mode” for taking professional-looking action shots, along with some major improvements to the already impressive Night Sight mode.

Notably, we’re told that Google will be bragging about Pixel 4’s ability to take photos of the starry sky, a practice known as astrophotography. It’s unclear how much better Pixel 4’s Night Sight will be, but capturing great shots of astronomical objects will apparently be part of the pitch.

Secondly, just as the Pixel 3 launched with the (initially) exclusive “Call Screen” feature to let the Google Assistant deal with spam phone calls, the Pixel 4 will have a new way to make calls more pleasant. Sometime after launch, the Google Assistant will be able to manage your calls whenever you’re put on hold, so you can get on with your life.

You’ll be able to then to take your attention away from the call, and Google Assistant will let you know when there’s an actual human back on the other end of the call.

Exact details of how it works is unclear for now, and we’re told the feature is still relatively early in development, so it’s likely that some aspects could change before launch.

Android 10

While the Google Pixel 4 is still at least a month away from being in our hands, we can at least get a taste for the software it will run on. After six beta releases, Google officially released the stable version of Android 10 along with the September security patch to all Pixel phones on Tuesday, as predicted by some cell carriers. There’s way too many new features to break down here, but our Damien Wilde has done his best to summarize everything you need to know about Android 10.

Android Auto

For the past four months, it’s been known and confirmed that using Android Auto on your phone screen was going to be killed in favor of the Google Assistant’s “Driving Mode” interface. In response to negative feedback toward the move, Google has announced that Android Auto would be getting a dedicated app to launch the phone screen specific UI. However, as our Stephen Hall points out, this walkback is very unusual for Google as of late.

The extreme to which Google takes the ‘fail forward’ mentality has earned it a reputation of being the world’s best product killer, and one of the more recent of those was the Android Auto phone screen experience. In a rare move, it looks like Google is backtracking on that and offering consolation for those perturbed by the move to the new Assistant driving mode…