My Pixel Phone’s Best App Is The One I Wasn’t Using

I’ve been using Pixels for years now, but despite spending most of my time with Google’s flagships in between reviews, I just know I’ve missed one or two of the phones’ most handy features. This is especially true when new tricks and tools land with every feature drop, which arrive regularly throughout the year. Even for tech enthusiasts, keeping track of everything is virtually impossible, which is why Google includes its Pixel Tips app onboard all of its smartphones, and it’ll occasionally pop up after an upgrade to help rejig our memory. You could even go so far as to say it’s one of the Pixel’s most useful apps.

I’m not embarrassed to admit it; I recently checked out the Pixel Tips app for the first time to see if I’ve missed anything cool. Unsurprisingly, there are some brilliant features I had no idea existed (or had simply forgotten about). So, I thought I’d share a few of the more interesting ones that you should almost certainly make sure you’re using.

It’s as easy as clicking on any recent call, answered or not, and hitting the “lookup” button. Honestly, how simple is that? The result opens up the number in your browser’s search, so it doesn’t find everything, and a lot of numbers will simply return nothing of use. Still, it’s a handy way to see if a number matches a common scammer or if a call originates from where it claims to be. Thanks for this one, Pixel Tips.

Find the best times to call a business

Robert Triggs / Android Authority

We all hate being put on hold for hours, but Google has a solution: just call at the right time. Duh. To aid with that, the Pixel’s dialler app will show you the estimated wait time when you type in a toll-free number. If the wait looks too long, you can tap on a different day of the week to find the best time to call back. What a time saver.

In my defense, this is a US-only feature, so obviously, I’d never had a chance to use it. Still, I thought it’s worth sharing with y’all so you won’t be stuck on hold next time you need to get through a human to sort something out.

Create cinematic wallpapers from your photos

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

I’m lazy when it comes to wallpapers; I tend to just pick one that ships with the phone and leave it there for a few months before I inevitably change phones. The explosion of generic AI wallpapers has only made me less interested in sifting through settings menus to pick a picture I have to squint through my icons to see anyway.

But if you like cool wallpapers or want a nice-looking one for your beloved pets or children, then you should check out Pixel’s cinematic wallpapers, which imbues them with a sort of 3D panning effect. After a long press on your homescreen, pick one of your photos to be the wallpaper, click the little Gemini-star logo at the bottom, toggle the Create Cinematic wallpaper toggle, and wait a little bit. Voila.

I went back and picked an old picture I had taken of the Seattle Space Needle. To be honest, seeing it wobble around is pretty weird. Maybe it works better with pets.

Quickly share any image on your screen

Robert Triggs / Android Authority

I love a good meme, and so do my friends. It’s how we communicate through the good and the bad. But it seems I’ve been doing it all wrong, long-pressing and hitting “share image” from my browser like a caveman. Not that this is particularly inconvenient, but it requires you to be in a browser for one, and sharing images between apps is often much more of a headache.

Thanks to Pixel Tips, I’ve remembered that I can copy, search, or share any snippet of text or an image that’s on my screen via the “overview” screen, aka the Recents screen. Best of all, I can search for a higher-res version of the often overly compressed images I regularly come across and share those instead. Brilliant. It’s a shame this feature isn’t available on every phone.

Honestly, it’s all too easy to miss those little dots under the standard volume control, and unless you’re curious, you’d have no idea that these break out to give you a wide range of control across various audio devices. Definitely a good one to remember. Thanks, Pixel Tips.

Use your Pixel as a USB webcam or mini-PC

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority

I knew this one, but I’d forgotten because, well, my laptop has a webcam. But your Pixel’s superb cameras can pitch in if you’re using an older laptop with a poor-quality camera, for instance.

Connect your Pixel to your laptop, desktop PC, or even a smart TV that can support generic webcams via USB. Switch that “charging this device” notification over to “webcam,” and from there, you can select the front or rear camera to put your lovely face into view and even hit a high-quality option if you’re running Android 15. There is no driver or installation faffing — it’s as simple as that.

Having explored Pixel Tips for the first time, I think a hub to help find core and obscure smartphone features is a must for every brand, and not just as a part of the setup process. Notably, Google does a great job organizing tips into categories to help explore features that speak to you, explanations are well illustrated and to the point, Google updates the app with the latest applicable features, and, perhaps most importantly, gently encourages you to engage with Tips after an update. My colleague Rita has a far more frustrating experience getting to grips with One UI 7 because even the Samsung Tips app fails to surface many of the phone’s newest and most interesting capabilities. While Pixel Tips might not be a traditional app to recommend, it’s a great way to discover new things about your Pixel and keep the experience feeling fresh.

Do you regularly check out Pixel Tips? Have you found anything valuable there that you can’t believe you ever did without? Let me know in the comments below.