Google’s June Pixel Drop landed June 16, and it’s the biggest one this year, partly because it brings your Android version up to 17, the latest stable release of Google’s mobile OS. I updated my Pixel 9 and spent some time with the new feature, and some are useful right away, some are still finding their footing, and a few will only roll out to the later Pixel phones. Here’s what’s new for the Pixel lineup.
React to your screen while recording it
Screen Reactions
If you’ve been on TikTok or Reels, you’ve seen those screen recordings where the person talks to the camera in front of their phone screen, pointing at stuff in the background. That used to take at least a couple of different apps, then editing it all together later. Screen Reactions changes that. Swipe down twice to Quick Settings on your phone, tap the screen recording icon, and you’ll see a new “Show selfie camera” toggle before you hit Start. Your front-facing camera becomes a floating window over your screen, with your background automatically cut out, with no green screen needed.
I tried it on my Pixel 9 and it worked well. The background cutout was clean, the selfie window was easy to drag and resize, even while recording, and pointing at various elements on screen felt pretty natural. It’s going to be useful to record tutorials, reaction videos, or whatever kind of output needs your face on top of it. The one catch, though, is that Screen Reactions only works when screen recording is set to capture the entire screen, not a single app. Google calls this a Pixel-first experience, and it requires the new Android 17.
Float any app over whatever you’re doing
The new Bubbles feel a lot like Messenger chat bubbles
Bubbles is Android 17’s new multitasking addition for single screen Pixels. If you long-press most app icons, you’ll see an option to open it as a compact floating bubble that attaches the app window above whatever else is open. These bubbles stay at the top of your screen, and let you tap in and out of specific apps that you’ve placed there. It’s like a floating dock for your most used apps, or ones you want accessible at all times. You can tap the bubble to close the floating window, or tap outside of it as well. When they’re not active, the bubbles shrink down into little icons that you can place anywhere along the left or right side of your screen, and, just like Facebook Messenger chat heads, you can dismiss the whole thing by dragging to the X button that appears in the bottom middle of the screen if you tap and hold on the icons. You can have up to five bubbles active at once.
On my Pixel 9, Bubble worked with Messages, Phone, Settings, Libby, FB Messenger, Facebook, Files, Calculator, and Assistant. However, Google says it works with any app, which I didn’t find to be true. Chrome, Gmail, YouTube, Netflix, Contacts, and Clock didn’t have the Bubble option on long-press. The feature may be opt-in for developers, so the supported list should grow over time, but right now support seems patchy. Android 17 should roll out to all supported Pixels over time, Pixel 6 and newer, so you’ll want to keep an eye on this.
Force dark mode on apps that resist it
Expanded dark theme
Standard dark theme has been on Pixel for years — it flips your system and supported apps into dark mode. Android 17 adds an Expanded option that tries to force dark mode onto apps that don’t natively support it, plus per-app controls to include or exclude specific apps from that treatment.
To find it, head into Settings > Display & touch > Dark theme. With “Use dark theme” toggled on, you’ll see Standard and Expanded options. Select Expanded and then tap the gear icon next to it for a full per-app list of toggles. You can use the Search field at the top so you don’t have to scroll through all of your apps just to find the one you want to toggle. There’s no master switch to turn them all on or all off, though, so you’ll have to do this on a per-app basis.
On my device, the per-app list appeared just fine and showed a solid blue toggle for apps being forced into dark mode and an X-marked toggle for excluded apps. Still, I got some inconsistent results getting Expanded to actually apply visually. The standard dark theme worked just fine, but the forced dark mode in Expanded was less reliable. Google notes at the bottom of the Dark theme pane, “If you experience issues with the expanded option, use the standard option,” which sounds like it’s a feature to watch rather than one to fully depend on yet.
Emergency Sharing in Car Crash Detection
Car Crash Detection has been on Pixel for a while, using your phone’s sensors to detect a severe collision and automatically call emergency services. The June drop integrates Emergency Sharing directly into that detection — your chosen contacts are now notified simultaneously when a crash is detected, along with your location.
On my Pixel, the updated setting sits in Settings > Safety & emergency > Car Crash Detection. The Emergency Sharing option is there, and you can customize which contacts get notified. This same integration covers Fall Detection and Loss of Pulse Detection on the Pixel Watch side as well. It’s a meaningful upgrade to a feature most people hope they never need, but will be glad to have if they ever do.
Create videos with Gemini just by describing them
Gemini Omni video creation
Gemini Omni is now available in the Gemini app on Android 17 Pixels, letting you create and edit videos using natural language prompts. You can start from scratch to blend text, images, and existing video from your camera roll, use a pre-made template, or even build a custom AI avatar that looks and sounds like you. This one needs a Gemini AI Pro subscription and is limited to users 18 and older. I don’t see it on my Pixel 9 at the time of writing, which suggests it’s still in the process of rolling out. Check the Gemini app’s tools menu over the coming weeks to see if and when you receive this new feature.
Generate original music from a text prompt or a photo
Lyria 3 music generation
AI music creation is also new in the Gemini app. Lyria 3 is Google’s music generation model that can turn a text description into an original audio track (or lets you remix specific genres to get something you like). You can follow up with prompts to customize the style, vocals, and tempo, too. To get started, open the Gemini app, tap the + icon in the prompt bar and choose Music. You’ll see a grid where you can type your prompt, and a grid of genre tiles to remix from, including Latin pop, 8-bit, 90s rap, and Folk ballad.
I was able to use this new feature on my Pixel 9 without a paid subscription, running on Gemini Flash-Lite. The songs are predictably basic, but it can be fun to generate a tune about pita bread as an indie tune, a jazz torch song, and then as an 8-bit tune with just a few taps. Fun in a “this is awful” sort of way, that is.
Google’s fine print on the June drop page notes that a Google AI subscription may be required depending on tier and region, so your experience may vary.
Share files with iPhones and Macs on more Pixels
Quick Share + AirDrop on Pixel 8a and 9a
Quick Share’s interoperability with AirDrop — which lets Pixel phones share files directly with iPhones and Macs without any extra apps on either side — has been available on flagship Pixels for a while. The June drop extends it to the Pixel 8a and Pixel 9a. If you have one of those devices, you can now send files to Apple devices over Bluetooth just as easily as to another Android phone.
Checking for the update on your Pixel
Most of these features will likely roll out in phases over the coming weeks. To check for Android 17, hit Settings > System > Software updates > System update > Check for update. You can also update Gemini and your Google apps through the Play Store, as some features will arrive via app updates separately from the system update. The June Android security update is finally showing up on my phone, too, with a date of June 5, 2026.
Not every feature in this drop is available on every Pixel model, either.
Screen Reactions, Bubbles, expanded dark theme, Emergency Sharing in Car Crash Detection, and Lyria 3 music generation all require Android 17, which is rolling out to Pixel 6 and newer. Quick Share’s new AirDrop interoperability is specific to the Pixel 8a and 9a — flagship Pixels already had it. Gemini Omni video creation needs a Gemini AI Pro subscription. Voice Translate and Magic Cue on Snapchat are Pixel 10 series only. Check Google’s June drop community thread for the full device compatibility breakdown.