At the MWC 2023 Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, Google announced a few useful features that will come to your Android smartphone with the next Android 13 update.
As expected, the changes are less than a larger Android 14 revision, but still the gadgets added to the best Android phones have some notable features. These include new Emoji Kitchen compilations, more useful Google Keep notes, and less noise in Google Meet searches.
Updates will be released in the next few days and weeks, so it’s a good idea to check your device’s update settings to see when you can upgrade to the latest version.
Google Keep plugin
If you rely on Google Keep notes to keep your life organized, you’ll be thrilled to hear that the app has received an Android widget that lets you see notes on your phone’s home screen. This could include your shopping list note that you can mark as you browse through the store, an image of a particular item you need to watch out for, or any of your many other reminders.
Set a one-tap Keeps reminder on smartwatches using WearOS
Also, those with a WearOS watch like the Galaxy Watch 5 or Pixel Watch will benefit from two new shortcuts that let you create notes and to-do lists with a few taps on your watch face.
Google Meet noise canceling
This feature was already available on some Android devices, but is finally rolling out to more devices. Thanks to its noise canceling feature, you won’t have to worry too much about the noise around you the next time you have to attend a meeting from your smartphone. These noises will be successfully filtered out. The system can’t hide all the background noise, but it does a pretty solid job of making callers easier to understand.
New Emoji Kitchen icons
Emoji Kitchen is a Gboard feature that automatically combines your Android emojis to create a combination that better reflects your mood. For example, if you want to indicate that you find something both mind-blowing and funny, Gboard can combine exploding head and crying laughing emojis into a single image to capture that emotion. This Android update brings new mixes of possible emojis to help you express an even wider range of emotions.
Better zoom for Chrome
Zooming pages in Google Chrome was like zooming in on a static image; words and icons were growing but disappearing from the screen. The upcoming Android update will allow you to zoom in on a page up to 300% while keeping the layout of the page and keeping everything on the screen. You will also be able to set a preferred content size so that it automatically zooms in every time you load a page.