Google's September Android Feature Drop brings Gemini enhancements, Messages upgrades, and Motion Assist expansion

Let’s be frank: Some of Google’s recent Android feature Drops have been duds, offering little more than an expansion of Gemini summaries and chat functions. The new September Drop does have some Gemini flavor, but there are non-AI goodies, too. Your messaging threads are getting prettier and more useful, and those nifty Motion Assist dots that began appearing last week are rolling out widely. And even the Gemini expansion is not without utility.

Since this is an Android Drop rather than a Pixel Drop, these features are coming to a wider range of devices. The OS version does matter, though. If you’re on Android 16 or higher, you can now tell Gemini to log the location of items that don’t have a tracker tag attached. Just tell the AI where you put something, and include a photo if you like.

This information will be logged in Find Hub, which has thus far been used for locating phones, earbuds, and tracker tags. You can ask Gemini to recall that information or simply check Find Hub yourself the next time you forget where you put that item.

Gemini Live is also getting a new feature called Guided Vision that could be a boon for accessibility. Guided Vision can help you locate objects in the camera frame or extract information that you can’t make out, like the text on a menu in a dimly lit restaurant. Gemini interprets the camera feed to help you find things, and it can even tell you how far away your hand is from whatever you’re trying to find.

Guided Vision will be available in the system Accessibility shortcuts and can also be activated from the TalkBack menu. This feature will work on virtually all Android phones, from Android 9 Pie onward.

Google Messages has taken over as the default texting app on most Android phones, and it’s getting a couple of useful additions in the Feature Drop. You can now access Google Keep from a conversation to instantly create a shared note. Keep will be accessible from the “+” menu alongside images, location, and stickers. Messages may also suggest Keep as an action on Gemini Intelligence devices. Keep appears as an overlay so you don’t have to leave Messages, and the resulting Note is shared with others in the conversation.

Message threads will also get prettier if you choose to set a chat theme. Each Messages thread can have its own theme, allowing you to choose either a system wallpaper or a photo from your camera roll. The app will theme the text bubbles based on the colors in the image, or you can manually set a color. This feature and the Google Keep integration will be available on any Android phone with the Messages app.

The last element of the Android Drop is something we’ve already seen. Motion Assist, which can help alleviate motion sickness in a moving vehicle, began appearing on some phones last week. Now it’s an official feature of Android 17. So while Motion Assist is not limited to Pixels, the selection of devices with the feature is still going to be rather narrow.

The floating dots (see below) move in response to vehicle motion, which can help disrupt the sensory mismatch that causes motion sickness. Motion Assist is available in the Google Services settings menu, but you can also activate it with a Quick Settings tile or configure it to turn on automatically when your phone detects that you’re in a moving vehicle.

Google says these features are coming to phones “soon,” which can mean anything from days to weeks for full visibility.