Google has announced several new features and improvements for its Android product line.

Family Bell makes an appearance on Android, along with new widgets and ways to reply to messages and listen to music more easily with Android Auto.

Family Bell, widgets and better security for Android

Google has decided to celebrate the end of the year holidays in its own way, by offering several new features and improvements to its users. Owners of Android phones are seeing the Family Bell feature arrive on their devices, which is already available on the brand's connected gadgets. It allows you to set up reminders of tasks to be carried out for the whole family, so that at the given time notifications are sent to selected smartphones and connected objects. For the holiday season, the company has added suggestions for family activities, such as watching a movie or volunteering with a local association.

Still on Android, new widgets are appearing. You'll be able to access your library and track your progress on your audiobooks right on your home screen with the Google Play Books widget. YouTube Music is also included, with a widget to control the playback of your music and see the last tracks listened to. Finally, the Google Photos People & Pets widget will allow you to select photos and a frame to dress up your home screen with images of your loved ones.

Another feature, less festive but very useful for your security, you can automatically revoke the most sensitive permissions granted to applications that have not been used for some time. It will always be possible to reactivate them by going to the settings or by opening the application. This feature, which was already available on Android 11, will be extended next month to all Android devices running Android 6.0 or higher.

Additional control options for Android Auto

In addition to its widget, Google Photos will be enriched with new memories. Photos and videos corresponding to important moments of the year, such as holidays or birthdays, will be selected and brought together as souvenirs. You can also customize, rename or delete them.

Android Auto has not been forgotten. From now on, you can set it to launch automatically as soon as you connect your Android phone to your car. Other features, planned for the near future, will make it easier for you to reply to received messages thanks to new intelligent reply suggestions and to play music by simply pressing the Play button on the home screen. And to save you from rummaging through your music libraries in the car, you will soon be able to do a voice search to find your favorite artist or song and listen to it.

Finally, to express your emotions more accurately, selecting several emojis on Gboard will allow you to combine them and send this new hybrid emoji as a sticker. The feature is available in beta at the moment and will be rolled out to all Gboard users in the coming weeks.

Source: Google