Google Photos is rounding out the year with upgraded camera animations for “Cinematic photos,” as well as the wide availability of several Memories-related features.

One of the best features of the new Assistant is Continued Conversation, where your Pixel’s microphone briefly stays open after a response has been given to allow follow-ups. For the past week or so, Continued Conversation on all Google phones, including the Pixel 6, has been broken.

The addition of scrolling screenshots that allow you to capture the entire screen was a big part of Android 12. Google has now quietly added support for Android 12’s scrolling screenshots in Chrome.

In 2020, Google’s streaming service offered a “Year in Review” playlist, while a handful of users got an email with top stats. YouTube Music’s 2021 Recap is much more extensive than previous Google efforts and more on par with other streaming services.

Over the past few days, you might have noticed that Google.com looks slightly different when searching for news. Google’s “Top stories” carousel on the desktop website has been revamped with a new grid-based organization structure.

Back in September, Google previewed how Chat will let you make one-on-one Meet calls without having to use URLs. Similar to classic Hangouts, this feature is now rolling out in the version of Google Chat inside Gmail.

In addition to a bottom field, the Google app is testing a Search bar that appears at the very top of your screen. It matches other first-party apps, but it is a departure from what Google Search has looked like on mobile for the past several years.

Since the start of this year, Google has been testing a new YouTube app/experience for the regular Chromecast. The new YouTube Cast app looks to be widely rolled out for the 3rd-gen Chromecast and Ultra this week.

On Monday, Google made Workspace available “for everyone” with free, personal accounts able to turn on the integrated Gmail experience with Chat and Rooms — soon to be called Spaces. Alongside that, Google Workspace branding now appears on the Gmail web client.

Previewed in October and officially announced yesterday, YouTube Music’s new “Recent Played” widget is now available on Android 12. 

Back in May, YouTube started testing “Listening controls” that looked to bring a dedicated music player to the main app for Premium subscribers. This UI is now widely rolled out for all videos.

Following Gmail last week, Play Books, Google Photos, and YouTube Music are set to get new widgets on Android.

While the YouTube Music web app is undoubtedly more feature-complete than the Android TV experience housed in the main app, it still lacks native Cast integration. That fortunately appears to be changing.

Chrome OS 96 is rolling out today with a number of enhancements focused on the camera and other general app upgrades. Version 95 was skipped as part of the transition to updates every four weeks, while an LTS version for Chromebooks is now offered.

With the Pixel 2, the Pixel Launcher was revamped to place the search field at the bottom of your screen. Four years later, the Google app looks to be readying something similar with a bottom Search bar redesign.

Google Voice is primarily a Workspace service at this point with new features focused on enterprise usage. That said, Google today updated Voice for Android with fairly straightforward app shortcuts.

Assistant Snapshot carries forward the legacy of Google Now, though its prominence is diminished compared to the previous feed. Its standing might be further de-prioritized following a pair of worrisome changes to Snapshot in the Google app and Assistant.

In the second half of next year, a handful of existing smartwatches that run Google’s operating system will get updated to Wear OS 3 based on Android 11. Ahead of that, Google has rolled out a new “System updates” screen for Wear OS.

As teased with the launch of Android 12 last month, Gmail is rolling out a new Material You widget that’s quite powerful.