Google Pixel 4 Tips reveal “Pro Sessions” in Google One, Social Share in Google Camera, more

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The. Google. Pixel. 4. Just. Can’t. Stop. Leaking. Yesterday, 9to5Google brought us a huge number of leaked marketing videos and renders. While there wasn’t a lot of new information to learn since the 2019 Pixels have leaked so much already, those marketing images did provide us our highest quality look at the Google Pixel 4 features so far. Today, I’m bringing you new details from the updated version of the “Pixel Tips” app. The Tips app debuted on the Pixel 3 as a way to introduce new Pixel owners to Google’s software features. The two new details in the updated version of the app we’re sharing involve the Google One and Google Camera apps, but the rest of the demos in the Tips app also reveals basically all of the highlights of the new Pixel 4 devices.

First, as you can see in the screenshot to the left, you’ll be able to schedule a “Pro Session” through the Google One app if you’re new to the Pixel and are looking for help getting started with the device. Pro Sessions are only offered in English in the U.S. and Canada, though. That’s disappointing, but ultimately not surprising since a lot of Pixel-exclusive features are limited to North America anyway.

Next, you can see in the screenshot to the right that the Google Camera app is adding a new shortcut to quickly share photos straight from the camera app. Called “social share,” this feature works by swiping up on the thumbnail of your recently captured photo and selecting your favorite social media app from the list that appears on top. In the screenshot, you can see options like Messages, Snapchat, and Instagram, but this list is likely populated by your most commonly used social and messaging apps. The leak of the dogfood Google Camera 7.0 app didn’t have this feature, but we’re assuming that the retail version of the app that launches with the device on October 15th will have it.

Some of the other camera “Tips” shown in the app include mentions of Astrophotography, dual exposure controls, up to 8X zoom, and quick video captures by tapping and holding the shutter button. All of these details have previously leaked before, though we’re finally seeing confirmation that yes, capturing photos of the Milky Way does require putting the Google Pixel 4 on a tripod. As explained by the demo:

If you put the phone on a tripod so it’s very still, you can take stunning photos of the stars. You can even capture the Milky Way!

The demo for dual exposure controls explains what the two sliders do. The top slider adjusts the overall brightness of the scene while the bottom slider adjusts shadows of the darker parts of the image; this top slider has a larger effect on scenes with mixed lighting such as when a person is standing in front of a sunset.

Next, the demo for the tap and hold shutter button shortcut for videos mentions that it’ll also capture up to 10 high-quality photos along with the video.

Other Google Pixel 4 features we can see in the Pixel Tips app include the new Live Caption feature in Android 10 (which we recently activated), car crash detection, Google Podcasts pre-installation, and the new Google Recorder app with built-in transcription and audio search. The “built-in Podcasts” just refers to the already-available Google Podcasts app on the Play Store, which is just a shortcut to the Podcasts service in the Google App.

If you want to see the entire app, I made a screen recording showing off all sections. This will give you a better idea of how each feature works on the Google Pixel 4. Note that there’s a lot of old features shown off in the app, but I quickly skipped over them.

The Google Pixel 4 launches in just 12 days. We’ll be at the event covering the launch, where we are also expecting to see a new Pixelbook, Google Nest Wi-Fi, and other products.

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