Why Did It Go? Pixel Camera 9.9 Update Ditches ‘Social Share’ Feature
Google released the Pixel Camera 9.8 update earlier in March, which brought new capabilities for photography and video recording. The search titan has now updated its Pixel Camera application to version 9.9. The app’s new version arrives soon after the June 2025 Feature Drop rollout. Pixel Camera’s latest update introduces some changes but also removes the “Social Share” functionality. Furthermore, it doesn’t bring the new “Education Hub” feature that’s part of the June 2025 Feature Drop update.
It appears that Google has quietly removed the handy Social Share feature in the Pixel Camera 9.9 update. The functionality allows people to quickly share their captured pictures as Instagram stories or with others via the app of their choice. To do it, users have to swipe up the circular preview that shows up on the left side of the shutter button. This brings up quick shortcuts to share your pictures through the apps that you choose to appear in the menu.
This means that now, if you want to directly share a taken photo to your social media, you’ll have to open captured photos in full to do so. As of now, it’s not clear if this is a software-side issue or if Google intentionally removed the functionality. Since it is quite a handy feature, Google could bring it back via a small software update.
“Education Hub” feature didn’t arrive
The official June 2025 Feature Drop changelog revealed that the Pixel Camera app will introduce a new “Education Hub” feature. It’ll show how-to instructions and “visual inspirations” for every mode after you tap the new question mark icon in the top-right corner of the viewfinder. However, this functionality hasn’t arrived via the Pixel Camera app version 9.9 update. There’s a possibility that Google will release it via a server-side update later this month.
That said, Google is rolling out the version “9.9.106.767010485.16” of the Pixel Camera app through the Play Store. It has rolled out the update in a phased manner, so not everyone will get it at the same time.
