The Assistant voice typing feature is Google’s attempt to make voice dictation even better for mobile devices. It’s able to detect people’s speech patterns and add in punctuation (though, that could use a little work). What’s most impressive about that is the fact that it’s all done offline. This is thanks to the custom Tensor chip onboard.
Assistant voice typing is coming to more Pixel phones
The previous Pixel phones, unfortunately, don’t have the Tensor chip. This is something that made us doubt this feature trickling down to older devices. The Tensor chip was custom built by Google to be a machine learning champ. Well, it looks like Google was able to find some sort of software solution to bring the functionality to the Snapdragon chips. Pixel 5 and 5a users who have the Android 13 developer preview should be able to access the feature. Just note that you need to have the second developer preview, not the first one. The folks at 9To5Google tested it out with a Pixel 5, and they reported that it was noticeably slower than a Pixel 6’s voice typing, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker. It’s still an impressive feat regardless. We’re not sure if the Pixel 5 needs to have access to the internet or not.
What else is new in the Android 13 developer preview?
We’re seeing a few new features coming to Android 13 with the latest developer preview. So far, we know that the system will tell you when an app is using an excessive amount of battery power. The quick settings will get a little bit of a change. The power options and settings button will move to the bottom of the display. Not only that, but the user profile button will join them down there. Additionally, there will be a new “Active apps” button down there, as well. Tapping on it will show you which apps are currently active. There are more changes coming to Android 13, but we’ll get a lot more information during Google I/O. That event will happen between May 11th and May 12th.
