GoKawiilJoe Maring / Android Authority
A clean Android experience is one of the key selling points of Pixel phones. Unfortunately, this “clean experience” is often misunderstood as barebones. Sure, other flavors of Android (like One UI) take the cake with their extensive feature set and customization options, but the Pixel UI is no slouch either.
If you’ve used a Pixel phone, you know exactly what I’m talking about. In fact, you probably already use some of the signature features like Now Playing, Magic Editor, Call Screen, and Pixel Screenshots every day. However, you’d be surprised to know that there are still plenty of Pixel features you might not be using.
Some of these features are hidden in plain sight, whereas others are tucked away in the Settings app. Let’s go over these lesser-known Pixel features and see how you can use them to improve your Pixel experience.
What's your favorite underrated Pixel feature? 28 votes Quick Tap 29 % Notification history 32 % Rules 4 % Modes 11 % Adaptive vibration 4 % Smart auto-rotate 21 %
Turn your phone’s back into a virtual button with Quick Tap
I’m a huge fan of the iPhone’s Back Tap feature. It lets me double-tap or triple-tap the back of my iPhone to quickly perform certain actions, and I’ve gotten so used to it that it has fundamentally changed how I do some of the things — like capturing screenshots — on my phone.
Thankfully, Google offers a similar feature on Pixel phones. It’s called Quick Tap, and it turns the back of the phone into a virtual button that you can double-tap to trigger your favorite action. I’ve configured Quick Tap to take a screenshot. This lets me take quick screenshots, even when I’m using my phone one-handed. At times, I set it to open Simplenote for quick note-taking.
To set up Quick Tap on your Pixel phone: Open the Settings app. Go to System > Gestures. Tap Quick Tap to start actions and flip the Quick Tap toggle on. Select your preferred action from the list. You can also launch your favorite app with Quick Tap. Choose Open app, tap the gear icon next to it, and select an app. Some apps even let you jump straight to specific screens, like the Camera app, which you can open directly in video or selfie mode.
Enable Notification history to review missed notifications
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