revealed a bunch of features and updates for . That digital car key function is in May now available on Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S21 for compatibility BMW car vehicles in some countries. You can use your phone to lock and unlock doors and start the engine. This feature may come to other vehicles later – Google has been working with other unnamed automakers to support digital car keys.
Now there is an option to open automatically when you connect your device to a compatible car. In addition, the home screen will have an always-on play button, so you can trigger your favorite music with a single tap.
Smart reply options (coming out in the coming months) will provide more ways to reply to text messages while you’re driving. You can tap to reply or create a custom message with the help of the Google Assistant. Also coming soon, there will be a faster way to search for music in your media apps. Just tap the search button and say the name of your favorite artist or song.
More media-focused options will appear on the Android 12 home screen. ONE widgets, for example, include playback controls and recently played songs. Two more widgets will launch next week. One for Google Play Books provides access to your book library and can help you keep track of where you are in audiobooks.
Meanwhile, the People & Pets widget of Google Photos provides an easy way to bring your loved ones to the home screen. Choose a few faces and frames, your family, friends and pets can boast a place on the home screen.
Elsewhere in , you’ll start to see Memories in the photo grid. It’s a curated collection of photos and videos from holidays and events like birthdays and graduations, displayed in a story format. Along with renaming, personalizing, and editing them, you’ll have the option to remove Memories from the grid.
Google is bringing from smart home products to mobile devices. You can set up the feature to alert you and your family with a chime and notification when it’s time to do something, like pick your child up from school or go to bed at an appropriate time. Family members can set or customize as many bells as they want on their own devices to stay on schedule. Google will also offer recommended bells, including holiday-themed bells like volunteering for a local cause or watering the plants.
In Gboard’s Emoji Kitchen, you’ll see thousands of . They will be available to Gboard Beta users starting today and to everyone in the coming weeks.
Last, but not least, Google announced another Android security measure. To help protect your privacy, your device automatically turns off runtime permissions (allowing apps to access data or perform actions for you) in apps you haven’t used in a while. time. You can re-enable these permissions in the app or device settings. This feature will be available on Android 12 at first. Starting next month, Google plans to roll out the feature to devices with Google Play services running Android 6.0 or later.
