Google Pixel Phones to Receive Dark Mode Scheduling, Cards & Passes, and More in March: Report

Google is continuing the trend of feature drops where it regularly releases new features in a single update for the Pixel phones. The March feature drop will reportedly bring dark mode scheduling, Cards & Passes, play/pause Motion Sense gesture, and car crash detection. These details were revealed when the Pixel Tips app was decompiled and the month when the drop will happen was found, along with these features. Interestingly, the updated Pixel Tips app which reportedly arrived on some phones is not available on the Play Store any more.

It was noted by 9to5google that a file named ‘tips_sw_201912a.json' found inside the Pixel Tips app contained the features that showed up in the December feature drop. This time, the file named ‘tips_sw_202003a.json' was listed inside the updated Pixel Tips app with four new features.

Coming to the features, dark mode scheduling, which was available on the Android 11 Developer Preview, is present in the upcoming feature drop. It will allow users to schedule exactly when they want dark mode to be turned on. 9to5google also states that Pixel phones with Android 10 will get this feature.

The Cards & Passes feature was found in a string related to ‘tips_powerkey_features'. Cards & Passes is a feature that will make cards in the Google Pay wallet accessible through the power key menu.

Play/pause Motion Sense gesture, as the name suggests, allows users to play and pause content by using an “air tap” gesture. It was found under ‘tips_oslo_music' in the Pixel Tips app.

The final feature spotted in the app was ‘tips_carcrash' which points towards the Personal Safety app coming to older Pixel phones. The Personal Safety app in the Pixel 4 has a feature that can detect car crashes. This comes as good news for people who own older Pixel phones. This was tipped last week when the Personal Safety app in Android 11 Developer Preview could be sideloaded effectively on older Pixel devices. The previous feature drop for Pixel 4 devices, which was also the first drop, was released in December last year. It brought improved facial recognition to both Pixel 4 devices.

The specific Pixel Tips app can be downloaded from APK Mirror, as it is no longer listed on Google Play, as we mentioned.

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