Google’s latest Android Feature Drop for February 2024 is here, bringing you 9 new features to help you stay productive. These include:
- You can now chat with Gemini right in the Google Messages app on Android! You can ask Gemini to do things like draft messages, come up with a joke, and more. This is available for beta users in English.
- Android Auto can now use AI to summarize notifications. AI will also suggest relevant replies and actions, so you can just tap a button to send a message, share your ETA, or start a call. (This was announced at Galaxy Unpacked last month but should be rolling out now.)
- Lookout’s Image Q&A feature is now rolling out globally in English! This feature left closed beta last September and was available in the US, UK, and Canada. Image Q&A uses AI to auto-generate descriptions of images.
- Last October, Google launched Lens in Maps (formerly Search with Live View). This feature uses AI and augmented reality to help you find information about nearby stores. Now, this feature has been upgraded with screen reader support, so you can point your phone’s camera at your surroundings and have TalkBack read the place’s information out loud.
- You can now add handwritten annotations to documents in Google Docs from your phone or tablet using your finger or stylus. You can choose from a selection of markup tools like different pen colors and highlighters.
- Spotify Connect devices will finally appear in Android’s media output switcher! Google announced this way back at CES 2023, but it’s finally going to roll out starting this week.
- The Fitbit app now pulls in your health and fitness data from other apps that support Android’s Health Connect platform. This means you can see your data from services like AllTrails, Oura Ring, and MyFitnessPal, all within the Fitbit app. In the “You” tab, you can see data from connected apps next to your Fitbit data. In the “Today” tab, you can see data like exercise, steps, calories burned, and more from Health Connect-compatible apps.
- Passes from Google Wallet can now appear on your Wear OS smartwatch. This means you can access boarding passes, gym memberships, loyalty cards, and more from your watch. You can choose which passes to hide or display. (This has already started rolling out over the past month, as I first reported, but should now be available more widely.)
- Google Maps for Wear OS now supports public transit directions, meaning you can use your smartwatch to look up departure times for buses, trains, or ferries and then get compass-guided navigation directions to your destination. You can also mirror directions from your phone to your watch if you prefer looking things up on your phone.
