7 Pixel settings it is best to change this second
Got a Pixel? Any Pixel? These simply missed changes will unlock a few of your telephone’s most spectacular superior powers.
Google/JR Raphael, IDG
Part of the Pixel’s major attraction is the telephone’s phenomenal software program. All Android experiences are usually not created equal, as anybody who’s spent seven seconds with an out-of-the-box Samsung setup can let you know, and Google’s clear and easy method to Android is a big piece of what makes a Pixel so nice to make use of.
Still, whereas a Pixel could also be completely peachy from the second you energy it on, Google’s smartphone software program is stuffed with hidden options and superior choices that may make your expertise much more distinctive.
And whether or not you are establishing a shiny new Pixel 6a proper now or cradling an older Pixel mannequin in your suspiciously sticky paw, taking the time to assume by way of a few of your telephone’s most simply missed settings can take your Pixel journey to an entire new degree.
So seize no matter Pixel you have acquired, seize your self a grape soda for good measure, and let’s unearth a few of your telephone’s best Googley secrets and techniques. And be sure you come try my free Pixel Academy e-course to uncover much more superior intelligence lurking inside your favourite Pixel telephone once you’re finished.
Pixel setting No. 1: Your pleasant phone-holding genie
Some of the Pixel’s most sensible options revolve across the good bits of Googley goodness accessible on the telephone calling entrance — and but, most of these components are off by default and barely emphasised in Google’s advertising. Go determine, eh?
[RELATED: 7 hidden Pixel shortcuts you probably aren’t using]
First and foremost is the Pixel’s impossibly helpful Hold for Me system, which can mechanically acknowledge once you’re positioned on maintain on a name and supply to shoulder the burden for you. The system will truly monitor the decision in your behalf after which audibly provide you with a warning when an actual (alleged) human comes again on the road — so you’ll be able to go about ingesting your grape soda and enjoying your tiddlywinks with out having to fret about lacking a factor.
JR
Hold the telephone, although: It’s as much as you to first discover and activate the factor. Otherwise, that fizzy purple beverage and delightfully odd pastime of yours will saved on maintain indefinitely.
So here is the reply — offered you are palming a Pixel within the US, Australia, or Canada, the place the characteristic is presently accessible:
- Open up your Pixel’s telephone app.
- Tap the three-dot icon within the upper-right nook and choose “Settings.”
- Tap “Hold for Me.”
- Flip the toggle on the display screen that comes up into the on place.
And that is it: Now simply wait in your subsequent rage-inducing customer support name and look in your Pixel’s display screen for the supply to carry in your behalf — and take a look at to not rub your newfound energy in your iPhone-carrying companions’ faces an excessive amount of, all proper?
Pixel setting No. 2: Your name interception assistant
Google’s spam blocking expertise is second to none and actually among the best elements of utilizing a Pixel. (Seriously — simply ask a few of these iPhone-lovin’ amigos of yours.)
But whereas the Pixel’s spam-blocking fundamentals are on by default, your telephone’s most superior annoyance blockers require you to allow ’em as soon as and decide into their magic.
So firstly, hop again into your Pixel Phone app’s settings, and this time:
- Tap the road labeled “Spam and Call Screen,” then faucet “Call Screen.”
- Under “Unknown Call Settings,” faucet “Spam” and alter its setting to “Silently decline.”
- Next, faucet “Possibly faked numbers” and alter its setting to “Automatically display screen; decline robocalls.”
- If you actually need to go all out, contemplate adjusting the screening conduct for personal or hidden callers, too, in order that your Pixel mechanically screens these kinds of calls to search out out who’s calling and what they need earlier than buggin’ you with any buzzing. Just remember that you just may find yourself interfering with legit calls from medical doctors’ places of work and different such venues with that setting enabled, so use your personal finest judgment as as to if it is smart for you.
Call Screen is offered on Pixels within the US in addition to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the UK. If you are not in a kind of areas, do not panic: We’ll get to some much less geographically restricted options in a minute.
Pixel setting No. 3: Your enterprise name IQ booster
Spam calls apart, one of many largest phone-related annoyances in our fashionable lives is the cryptic incoming name from an organization. Are they calling for an actual purpose? Is it truly essential? Or is it simply extra time-wasting, patience-testing poppycock?
Your Pixel will help separate the actual from the garbage. Just march your manner again into these Phone app settings once more, and:
- Once extra, faucet “Spam and Call Screen.”
- Then faucet the toggle subsequent to “Verified Calls” to show it into the on place.
Now, every time a “collaborating enterprise” dares to interrupt your life with an unsolicited name, your Pixel will present the corporate’s title and emblem so it is legit and likewise present you the explanation it is calling (e.g. “to harass the dwelling daylights out of you”) proper in your display screen.
Not unhealthy, eh?
Pixel setting No. 4: Your telephone menu magician
Maybe my favourite Pixel telephone characteristic of all is a comparatively current addition referred to as Direct My Call. It’s accessible solely within the US and with English in the meanwhile — grumble, grumble, sorry, worldwide Pixel comrades! — however in the event you’re within the States and talking one thing vaguely harking back to the English language, it may be a large hassle-saver and one of many best benefits to having a Pixel in your pocket.
Plain and easy, Direct My Call senses once you’ve entered the hellscape of an organization telephone maze and reveals you all of the accessible choices as tap-ready buttons in your display screen. That manner, you’ll be able to skip over the everyday check of your sanity and keep away from having to hear to each flippin’ choice at each level alongside the way in which.
And all you have gotta do is allow it as soon as:
- Make your manner again to your Phone app’s settings and faucet “Direct My Call.”
- Now flip the toggle subsequent to “Direct My Call” into the on place.
- Do a joyous little jig of celebration after which be sure you take a look at your display screen the subsequent time you end up in telephone menu hell.*
JR
*Joyous jig non-obligatory however extremely really useful.
Pixel setting No. 5: Your business-finding BFF
All proper — one final phone-specific setting in your favourite Pixel product.
When you could dial a close-by enterprise, your Pixel can prevent the step of trying to find its title, discovering the quantity, then tapping that or copying it to get again into your Phone app and prepared make the decision.
Yeesh — overlook that mess. Save your self steps and pointless brain-aches by merely trying to find the enterprise you need immediately in your Pixel’s Phone app after which putting the decision proper then and there, in a single streamlined spot.
First, you could activate all the associated choices:
- Gallop your manner again into these Phone app settings one ultimate time.
- Tap the road labeled “Nearby locations.”
- Make positive the primary “Nearby locations” toggle is on — which it most likely can be.
- Next, faucet the toggle subsequent to “Personalized search outcomes” to flip it into the on place. That’ll let the Phone app reference your common ol’ search historical past when on the lookout for enterprise outcomes to extend the percentages of providing up the place you need immediately.
- And lastly, faucet the “Location permission” line to grant the Phone app the permission it must function intelligently.
Another one down. And now we’re prepared to consider a few broader, non-calling-specific Pixel options price discovering.
Pixel setting No. 6: Your tune superbrain
You know that feeling when a tune is enjoying and you may’t for the lifetime of you determine what it’s? (FYI, there’s not less than a 70% likelihood it is one thing by Michael Bolton.)
Your Pixel will help — by proactively figuring out any tune enjoying in your neighborhood and placing its title and the artist chargeable for it proper in your lock display screen.
JR
To get the characteristic going:
- Head into your Pixel system settings (by swiping down twice from the highest of the display screen after which tapping the gear-shaped icon on the panel that seems).
- Tap “Display” adopted by “Lock display screen” and “Now Playing.”
- Flip the toggle subsequent to “Identify songs enjoying close by” into the on place.
Go forward and flip the toggle subsequent to “Show search button on lock display screen” into the on place whilst you’re there, too. That’ll provide you with a handbook button on the lock display screen to begin up a sound search when a tune is enjoying and your telephone cannot (or perhaps simply chooses to not, as a consequence of an comprehensible second of Bolton overload) establish it for you.
Pixel setting No. 7: Your on-demand tune reminiscence
Speaking of your Pixel’s song-identifying prowess, you would be forgiven for forgetting, however your telephone truly maintains an ongoing checklist of each single tune it identifies all through your day.
Make it extra-easy to entry that treasure trove of Bolton ballads by putting a one-tap shortcut immediately in your Pixel’s house display screen:
- Head again into that very same space of your Pixel settings we have been simply spelunkin’ round — the “Now Playing” part inside “Display” after which “Lock display screen.”
- See the road labeled “Now Playing historical past”? Tap it. Tap it with gusto, garsh dern it!
- Look for the choice on the high of the display screen that comes up subsequent so as to add a shortcut onto your own home display screen.
One extra faucet there, and ta-da: Every tune your Pixel picks up in the course of the day will all the time be a single press away.
JR
And with that, we have made it by way of our first set of good Pixel settings price altering. Stay tuned for a second set of stellar Pixel settings quickly — and do not forget to return be part of my free Pixel Academy e-course to unearth oodles of excellent hidden options and time-saving methods within the meantime.