4 features you need to try on your Pixel

A little over a week ago, Google began rolling out the latest update to the Android 17 Beta — specifically, Android 17 Beta 3.  Beta 1 and Beta 2 both proved to be pretty light on user-facing changes, and Beta 3 has already shown it has a lot more to offer.

I’ve had Android 17 Beta 3 downloaded on one of my Pixels since its release, and after my first week with it, there are four features in particular that I can’t get enough of.

If there’s one hallmark feature of Android 17 Beta 3, it’s app bubbles. Google first announced app bubbles alongside the release of Android 17 Beta 2 back in February, but they weren’t actually available to use until last week in Beta 3. And as it turns out, they were (mostly) worth the wait.

Using app bubbles is simple. From your home screen or app drawer, press and hold on the app you want to bubble, then tap the new app bubble icon (the one that looks like a square with an arrow pointing at a circle). Just like that, the application opens as a floating bubble. Tapping the app icon minimizes the bubble, where it then lives on the side of your screen (and can be moved around as you please).

What I really like about app bubbles is that you can have multiple bubble shortcuts at once. I’ve found this especially handy for having all of my messaging/communication apps in one place. With one tap on my app bubbles shortcut, I have immediate access to Slack, Google Messages, Gmail, and Telegram. It’s great.

I’ve been using Android 17 Beta 3 on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, and while app bubbles are particularly handy on the large inner display, they work great on the cover screen, too. I agree with my colleague Zac that app bubbles aren’t perfect – namely, the limitations around how you open and close bubbles — but Google is off to a great start here.

In Android 16 and previous versions, your Wi-Fi and mobile data toggles are hidden behind the Internet tile in your Quick Settings. As such, toggling either one on/off is a two-step process: tap the Internet tile, then tap the Wi-Fi or data toggle. It’s unnecessarily clunky, and thankfully, Android 17 Beta 3 fixes it.

My Pixel has a tendency of holding onto my home Wi-Fi connection for far longer than it should, meaning if I’m in my car or walking my dog around my apartment complex, I have to fiddle with the Internet tile to manually disable Wi-Fi to use my phone’s data. Now, I can kill my Pixel’s Wi-Fi with one tap instead of two. That may not sound very exciting, but for something I do multiple times per day, this has been a lifesaver.

As I’ve been using Gemini more on my phone, I’ve been running into an annoying issue. I don’t like how loud Gemini reads its responses, so anytime I ask it something, I’m immediately looking for my phone’s volume rocker to turn it down. But then, when I go to watch a YouTube video or something on Instagram, I have to turn the volume back up so I can hear it. Then I ask Gemini something again, have to turn the volume back down — it’s a never-ending cycle.

Thankfully, Android 17 Beta 3 has a solution to this. If you open the Settings app and then tap Sound & vibration, you’ll find a new “Assistant volume” slider. This allows you to set a volume level for your phone’s virtual assistant (like Gemini) that’s completely separate from your phone’s media volume, which Gemini was previously tied to.

This is another feature that sounds relatively small on paper — especially compared to something like app bubbles — but it directly improves how I interact with my phone every single day. I absolutely love it.

The last Android 17 Beta 3 feature I’ve been loving isn’t a particularly practical or functional change like the last two things I’ve talked about, but it does scratch the phone customization itch.

If you press and hold on your Pixel’s home screen, tap Wallpaper & style, and then tap icons, you’ll see a new “Names” option next to Style and Shape. From here, you can now toggle off app names from app icons on your home screen, giving your phone a much cleaner look.

The Pixel Launcher has long lacked proper customization options, but in just the last four months, Google has done a commendable job of correcting that. Being able to hide app icon names is one of those basic customization features that was long overdue, and I’m extremely happy to see it arrive in this latest Android 17 update.

In addition to the above new features, Android 17 Beta 3 also marks Android 17 reaching platform stability for the first time — a significant milestone as we inch closer to the update’s full public release.

We expect Google to talk about Android 17 during Google I/O next month, possibly including an announcement of its official release date. Google has previously hinted at a June 2026 release window for Android 17, and hopefully, I/O will give us a firm date to look forward to.

We’re almost there, Android fans.