Abner Li

Dynamic Color was previously Chrome for Android’s primary expression of Material You, but the New Tab Page (NTP) is now seeing a redesign.

Google not being at the forefront of augmented reality is a real shame. With Glass, Cardboard, and Daydream in the mid-2010s, Google seemed well on its way to owning the next form factor. All those efforts are dead.

Wearables round out the Pixel Portfolio – as Google calls it – of phones, tablets, and foldables. In 2023, the Pixel Watch is only in its second generation, while Google’s headphones effort is on solid footing with the Pixel Buds Pro.

Recorder is for transcribing audio, and that singular focus feels rare in modern apps that are packed to the brim with (tangentially) related capabilities. I almost equate it to a single-purpose physical tool, while the only other equivalent piece of software that comes to mind is Calculator. 

Generally speaking, Made by Google has six big software launches over the course of a year. Some of the quarterly Pixel Feature Drops are bigger than others, an observation that continued to be the case in 2023, while the other two moments are tied to the mid-year and fall hardware launches. 

In 2022, Google announced it was killing the Assistant Driving Mode that provided a “Dashboard” homescreen. This left another optimized UI in Google Maps for Android, which was also called “Driving Mode,” but that’s now also facing deprecation in February 2024. 

Google is working on having “Assistant summarize your busy conversations” and messages when you’re using Android Auto. 

In addition to the Diagnostic App and manuals that Google released earlier this month, Pixel 8 and 8 Pro repair parts are also available at iFixit.

Google Arts & Culture released “Say What You See “in November as a fun little game that lets you learn about the “art of image prompting” and makes for good practice.

Google is still rolling out the seven new Messages features announced at the start of December. We now have some more color on Custom Bubbles, including how Google Messages appears to be limiting it to RCS.

Following the unveil over two years ago, Google continues to bring Material You to its various apps. There were many updates and redesigns in 2023, but here are the most notable ones. 

Swiping left on Gboard’s backspace key lets you quickly delete entire words/phrases, while Google will show what you just removed in the suggestions strip for quick restore. To take things a step further, there is a relatively quick way to access a dedicated “undo” key in Gboard for Android.

This app is now officially just “Google Messages” after years of being called “Messages by Google.” It dovetails with how Google, in February, started referring to “RCS” directly after years of “Chat message” in the compose field. A bigger moment in 2023, along with 1 billion monthly active users, was Google enabling RCS by default and launching end-to-end encryption for group conversations.

Announced at I/O 2023, Google started rolling out Magic Compose at the end of May. After initially being limited to the US, Magic Compose in Google Messages is now seeing some international availability.

Google today made official a trio of Chrome 120 features, with the ability to sync Tab Groups being the most notable.

Beeper brought back phone number registration for its iMessage on Android solution that involves having a jailbroken iPhone or access to a Mac. This workaround might be the last for Beeper Mini and Cloud, with the situation ultimately described as “unsustainable.”

Introduced last year, Ambient Mode in YouTube for Android has been updated to be much more vibrant. 

Over the past year, Google has been working to add generative AI to its products. The latest application of that is a new “AI support assistant” live on some Google Help pages.

New safety research from Waymo finds that its driverless cars “led to a significant reduction in the rates of police-reported and injury-causing crashes compared to human drivers.”