Millions of Android Phones Get Major Update with New Features

Google has announced five new Android tools in its September Android Drop that will be available to millions of Android devices running Android 16 or 17, including some phones as old as Android 9.

The most notable addition is Find Hub's 'remembered items' feature, which allows users to ask Gemini to remember the location of key items without a tracker tag. This can include things like passports, spare keys, and chargers that are frequently misplaced.

Another significant update is Motion Assist, which adds a moving overlay to the Android screen designed to reduce motion sickness when using a phone as a passenger in a car. Users can customize its shape, color, and opacity, or set it to trigger automatically.

The feature is only available on devices running Android 17. Guided vision, another new tool, lets users share their camera with Gemini Live to hear spoken descriptions of what's in front of them. This is designed for the blind and low-vision community, helping with tasks like reading food labels or identifying objects in low light.

Google Messages also gets two updates: shared Google Keep notes can now be created and edited directly within a conversation without switching apps, and chat themes allow users to customize individual conversations with their own backgrounds and color-matched text bubbles.