Google Pixel update adds battery-saving maps mode, AI photo remixing, and smarter notifications

Google announced its November software update for Pixel phones, called Pixel Drop — a quarterly feature release that brings new capabilities to existing devices — with features including notification summaries, a power-saving mode for the Maps app, prompt-based edits for Photos, and Gemini Nano-powered photo edits in Messages.

Apple introduced notification summaries with its Apple Intelligence suite of features last year. Now, Google is catching up with its own notification summaries for longer chats and conversations on Pixel 9 and later devices. The company said that in December, it will roll out a feature that would silence low-priority notifications. By comparison, Apple has a Priority Notification feature that highlights important notifications.

Google is introducing a new low-power mode for its Maps app that will darken the screen and only show important information, including the navigation route and details of the next turn. The company said that with this feature, which will be available to Pixel 10 series users, you can save up to four hours of battery life.

The company previously introduced scam detection for phone calls using Gemini Nano and on-device speech detection for users in the U.S. with Pixel 9 and later models. It is now expanding this feature to users in the U.K., Ireland, India, Australia, and Canada.

Google is also adding a way to indicate when a message is potentially a scam, by including a “Likely a scam” button in the notification for the message. This builds on the company’s existing feature that analyzes a message’s content and detects spam or scam.

The company’s Nano Banana image model has been popular among users. It is now adding a feature called Remix, powered by that model along with Gemini in the Messages app, which lets you use a photo and reimagine it using prompts. The feature is being rolled out to users in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, and New Zealand with RCS enabled and support for the English language.

Google added a Pixel VIPs feature in June that let’s you designate eight of your closest contacts and get updates from them through a home screen widget. With the November Pixel Drop, notifications from these contacts will be prioritized. Plus, if an incident like a flood has occurred in area they live in, you would see a crisis badge in the contacts widget.

The company is also adding a new AI-powered editing feature for Google Photos. Users can tap on “Help me edit” and ask Photos to “Remove Riley’s sunglasses, open my eyes, make Engel smile and open her eyes.” The feature will use Google Photo’s face groups feature to recognize people and apply edits.

The November drop also expands support for a call transcription feature, called Call Notes, to Australia, Canada, the U.K., Ireland, and Japan. And it brings a “Wicked: For Good” theme pack with new wallpapers, icons, system sounds, and GIFs based on the movie for Pixel 6 and later devices.