So you got yourself a new Google Pixel 9, 9 pro, Pro XL or Fold 2. In this video, I will show you 17 of the firsts to do that might make your iPhone friends make this face.

Advanced AI

So, the first thing to be mindful of is that you get 1 year free Gemini Advanced with the purchase of your Pixel 9. So you could use it.

To set this up, open Google Gemini and tap your profile icon. At the top, you should see the option to try Gemini Advanced for free.

It is £18.99 a month.

But check this out, you can use Gemini to remind you of the date those payments will kick in.

Your AI PA

Ok, now your Google AI has been levelled up & you've now made a new friend who is a super genius. And you can have a conversation with it at any time. Hold the power key or swipe up diagonally from the bottom right corner. If you've set that up…

Hit this little icon to activate Gemini Live. And have a chat. This is great for coming up with ideas and learning about things, amongst other things. But here's a little side note.

Ask about your emails or other Google services if you want to set calendar events. You need to use Gemini slightly differently.

Swipe up and hit the mic, and this actually uses Google Assistant combined with Gemini Nano.

Video Ai Extracts

Ok, this is such a cool one & very useful too. You've found the perfect tutorial video on YouTube.

It's got all the information you need on whatever topic you're researching. Thanks to Gemini, you can extract all that useful information with minimum effort.

Check this out. Open YouTube, invoke Gemini, and you'll see this.

Ask about the video. Then, you can type in the specific information you're interested in. And Gemini will scam through the video and provide you with that valuable intel.

The Record

Ok, following up on that. Here's a potent tool at your disposal that you should be aware of. It's the recorder app.

This is great because you can record conversations, meetings, and lectures. And it automatically creates transcripts from those.

But also, let's refer back to that handy video you found on YT.

You can do the same thing with audio playing on your device. Once complete, you can summarise the transcripts into bullet points.

READ THIS & GET BACK TO ME

Now, I really love the ability to summarise webpages on Samsung Galaxy phones. However, only if you're in America ( meme ) is there a tool everyone can use.

Open Chrome and go to a webpage you're researching. And hit the three dots in the top right corner.

And here you'll see the option to listen to this page. And this is great because, let's say, you're walking or something, but you really want to read this article.

You can have it play through your speakers or earbuds, and it continues to play with the locked screen.

Ai ARTISTIC INTENT

Alright, now let's talk about art. Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. AI art is a new way for anyone to do it. 

So go to your apps and open Pixel Studio. And this, at its core, is an AI art generator. You can use the generated images however you like. For example, it is used for profile pictures or to convey a message.

I discovered that you can use this image creation tool to create cover art for your playlists on YouTube Music.

You can also add your own images to this to re-imagine them to a certain extent. For example, this photo of Oree the dog… At least, I think she's a Dog. Either that or a minion of Satan. But check this out; you can select areas around your subject and then give it a prompt for what you want it to look like.

Screenshot App AI

Now, here's another new Pixel app with AI baked into it. It is, of course, the screenshots app.

I don't know about you, but when I receive important information or important QR codes, I tend to screenshot them.

So, this app collects all your essential screenshots in one place. You can also use Gemini AI to quickly find the necessary information in those screenshots.

Also, if you've screenshotted from a website, it'll provide you with a link to that website so you can quickly get back there easily.

GOOD ARTISTS COPY, GREAT ARTISTS...

Here's another little screenshot trick that only a few people know about. Have you ever wanted to grab an image from a website?

But the image isn't downloadable, or is it not in the correct format?

Well, you can use this little hidden feature to solve that problem. Open a webpage or any app.

Open up your background, and you will see that the phone detects the images on that page. You can tap the little gallery icon and save that image to your device.

COPY & PASTE TO MAC / PC

And here's a follow on from that. Which is a super well-hidden feature that most people might never find. Until they see this video.

If you've ever used an iPhone. One of the cool features it has & that you might miss is copying some text on your phone and pasting it to your computer.

Well, there is a way to do it on Android. Let me show you. Open the Google Lens app. Open one of your screenshots containing the text you want to copy to your computer.

Now select the text. Hit the three dots, and you should see the available computers. If you don't see any. Just ensure you have Chrome installed and that you're logged in with the Gmail account you use on your phone. As you can see, this works for Pixel and Mac OS computers.

WRITE THE RIGHT WAY

Ok, so sometimes I struggle to find the right words. And quite often, people misinterpret the things that I say or write.

And this is where the Gboards magic compose tool comes in.

At this point, this works in Gmail & only the Gmail account that you signed up to Gemini with. It doesn't work with Google business profiles in the UK, which is frustrating. Google, please fix that.

Anyway, when you begin to compose the body of your email. You'll see this. Help me write. Swipe across this to open the text window. Now, give it an idea of what you're trying to say.

WORD REFINERY

Let's say this looks good, but it needs a bit more work or labouring the point too much.

There is another tool here within Gmail to help you with that.

Just tap the pen with the sparkles at the top, and you can refine your draft in various ways.

Ai WRITER FOR TIMELESS WORK

And here's another way to use AI to get your message across, but this time in some more creative ways.

This works within the Google Messages app.

Just type out what you want to say. And again, you'll see the pen with the sparkles. Tap this, and you will see some fun options, including Shakespeare…so you can Suit The Action To The Word, The Word To The Action.

And, Yes, of course, I know who Shakespeare is… he's that famous pirate.

TEXT ASSISTANT

Now, the autocorrect and spell check is fantastic on the Gboard. Some say it's the best in the business.

You may not need to use this one for your own writing.

But you might find it handy for other reasons. It is a proofreading tool. This pops up on the Gboard as this icon, an A with a tick under it.

So, instead of reading it through yourself to look for mistakes, the proofreading shortcut can do it for you. Nice.

PROOF READER

I want to pause again and thank you for staying this long. If you're going to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm.

On that note, let me show you the new AI in the Pixel weather app. For some reason, the Weather widget still jumps into the old weather app, so you must access this from the app icon. 

At the top, you will see your AI weather report. This is a great way to get an overview of the day.

And while we are here, it's worth knowing that you can, in fact, move the weather stats widgets around into an order that makes more sense to you.  

Ai PREDICT THE WEATHER

Ok, now let's get into some fun photography tips and tricks. And I say some because If you want to see a dedicated pixel camera features video.

Just let me know & I'll make it for you if enough people ask. So, let's start with this one. 

Open a photo in Google Photos, and hit edit. Now, in the bottom left corner, you will see the magic editor. Here, you'll see various tools, and there will be different options depending on the type of photo you're editing.

The Autoframe is cool because it can expand a scene using an AI generative fill technique. And it sometimes will just auto-crop in and level the photo. And it does give you options.

When a sky is detected, this can be replaced, and you can also change the lighting in some scenarios.

JUST LIKE MAGIC

Now, here's another Magic Editor trick, which is just awesome. Open a photo and go to the magic editor.

I'm sure you've seen this before, but you can highlight people and objects you want to remove. And erase them from the photo.

That's one option, but now here's another: You can add things to the image using Gemini AI. For example, If I want to swap out my nachos in this picture for a tasty burger. It can be done…pretty easily.

And, mmm, this looks like a tasty burger…it was real.

RE-IMAGINE EVERYTHING

You know, sometimes the best thing about a picture is the hidden details, and there is a new AI tool in the Pixel camera to help you uncover them.

This time, instead of using the magic editor, we are just going to use the regular tools. If you swipe across, you will see them, & here you have the Zoom & Enhance feature.

This will allow you to crop into small parts of an image & use Ai to fill in the missing detail. And it works surprisingly well.

Thank you so much for making it through to the end. And as a reward for staying, here are a few quick-fire camera tips and settings to test out.

DIVE INTO THE DETAILS

Open the camera and toggle it to video mode. Here, you can switch your camera quality from HD to 4K. And change the frame rate. Set this to 30FPS if you want a consistent cinematic feel.

However, if you set this to auto, you will find that the low-light video performance will be better, and faster-moving objects will be less blurred.

Also, you will see the 10-bit HDR option here. Only enable this when you want to capture the maximum quality possible. For example, will the footage be edited on a computer later on?

The file sizes will be massive, so be mindful of that. The upside is that the file format is ideal for colour grading on Premiere Pro. 

Another quick setting here is the speech enhancement. This is great to use if you're filming in a busy place, as it will use AI algorithms to significantly reduce the noise and only focus on the voice or voices in front of the camera. But, remember you will get a cleaner result with this off if you're in a quiet environment.

Camera / guided frame / familiar faces

Now, let's toggle back to the camera & go to settings. And then go to more settings. Here, there are three more settings that you might like. The guided frame is a great tool, as its sole purpose is to help you level up your camera and compose better shots.

Also, the social share feature is off by default. If you enable it, choose your top 3 social media apps on which you like to share photos. When you take a photo, the 3 apps spring up briefly so you can quickly share them straight from the camera.

Then there's this one. Frequent faces, with this enabled Pixel, will begin to recognise familiar faces and better figure out how their skin tone should be. It is a learning process, but eventually, it will begin to perfect the colours.

And, of course, there are loads more camera features like best take and add me. Which I didn't show off in this one. I'm sure you've seen those 10 thousand times already.

But like I said, deep dive from me if you want more of a camera. Just let me know, and if you missed my Pixel 9, the 'first thing to do' was created to help you unlock your phone's full potential that's on screen right now. So go check it out.