Android 15’s first main replace has arrived

New options are on the best way for Android telephones and Pixel gadgets due to Android 15’s first quarterly platform replace. New options for all eligible Android telephones embody extra descriptive video captions, a Gemini-powered replace to the Lookout app, and a Spotify extension for Gemini. Pixel house owners are getting a number of further updates, together with deeper integration of the Pixel Screenshots app for Pixel 9 telephones.

The improved captions — or Expressive Captions as Google calls them — add descriptive phrases to try to seize non-spoken moments in dialogue; assume [gasp] or [applause]. They’ll seem all through the system wherever you’ll be able to entry video captions, together with social media apps and video messages.

One other accessibility-minded replace targets Lookout, an app that gives audio descriptions of photographs and objects for folks with low imaginative and prescient or blindness. Google is bringing its Gemini 1.5 mannequin to the Picture Q&A portion of the app to supply higher descriptions of photographs taken or opened with the app. It’s a continuation of an effort Google highlighted at I/O to convey extra AI options to Lookout.

On the AI entrance, Google is including extra extensions to Gemini Assistant. The Spotify extension permits you to play music from Spotify via Gemini. When Gemini Assistant debuted, it was lacking fundamental options like this one — capabilities that the non-AI Assistant has been providing for the higher a part of a decade. That is another step towards characteristic parity between Gemini and the usual Google Assistant. Gemini may even get entry to the Utilities extension that’s been rolling out, permitting it to take extra actions in your behalf, like making cellphone calls, sending emails, and altering cellphone settings.

Different highlights of this replace embody the flexibility to create stickers with Emoji Kitchen inside Gboard, share photographs with a QR code in Fast Share, and an improved scanning mode for receipts and the like in Google Drive.

Pixel telephones get a bit of extra with the December characteristic drop, with a number of new options particularly for the Pixel 9 sequence. The decision screening characteristic will get a doubtlessly helpful replace with contextual reply solutions. Because the caller speaks to the assistant, you’ll be able to faucet on a response to reply questions with out choosing up the decision.

The Pixel 9’s Screenshots app additionally will get a number of updates. Now, once you use Circle to Search you’ll have an possibility to save lots of that search within the Screenshots app, which seems like a logical place to maintain tabs in your earlier queries. You can even activate a brand new characteristic to indicate instructed search phrases in Gboard based mostly on stuff you save to Screenshots. And in case you’ve added tickets or bank cards to Google Pockets with a screenshot, you’ll be capable of save these within the Screenshots app, too.

There are a handful of different options within the characteristic drop for previous-gen Pixel telephones, together with Id Test, which would require further authentication if the cellphone detects it’s in a brand new location and delicate settings are being accessed. All of it begins rolling out as we speak for telephones on Android 15 and Pixel 6 and newer telephones.