ThePixel 8andPixel 8 Prowere built to showcase Google’s AI advancements over the last year, and exclusive cutting-edge features like Best Shot and Magic Editor are a testament to that. One of the more practical additions is a feature that can seamlessly detect languages when using the Google Assistant for voice typing in Gboard, giving Google’s newest phones a major selling point for multilingual users. However, it appears this feature could soon make its way to older Pixel devices.
After Android 13 addedper-app language settings, it became clear that multilingual users were finally on Google’s radar. The Pixel 7 itself even made someserious advancements in voice typing, adding Spanish, French, and Italian to the list of supported languages for the Assistant’s scary-good dictation feature. However, the Pixel 8 series takes this a step further and allows you to speak freely in any enabled language — Google’s top-notch natural language processing will sort the rest out, seamlessly typing out your dictation in multiple languages.
Now that the Pixel 8 has made its debut,Google’s help pagefor the Assistant voice typing feature has been updated to include the following line. Note the support for “Pixel 8+” — we joked about a potential new model in the subheading above, but this phrasing does seem to indicate Google plans to support the feature well into the future:
If you use multiple languages, Assistant voice typing can now automatically detect your spoken language seamlessly available on Pixel 8+(coming soon to Pixel 7).
That part in parentheses at the very end is what piqued our interest the most:coming soon to Pixel 7. Straight from the horse’s mouth, one of the Pixel 8’s headlining features will be coming to Google’s 2022 flagship series.
Thankfully, this isn’t another one of those artificially limited features that Google says requires the latest hardware to operate, then many months later just magically figures out how to roll it out to older phones. This was the case when the Pixel 7’s Magic Eraser feature was made available to Google One customers using other Android phones, and then ultimately even to iPhone users. Still, the fact that only the Pixel 7 is mentioned here could suggest the feature is reliant on the improved machine learning processing in Google’s Tensor line of SoCs — but if this is the case, we’re not sure why the Pixel 6 wouldn’t be included with its Tensor G1 chip.
There’s no timetable for when this feature will make its way to the Pixel 7 — only the infamous Google “soon,” which could mean weeks, months, or never. But it should be worth the wait — in our testing, multilingual voice typing has been useful if not flawed, one of those classic Google features that gives you a taste of the future while reminding you it’s still early.
Google Pixel 8
Google’s Pixel 8 series is smart — scary smart. With AI-powered features like multilingual voice typing and generative wallpapers, the experience is more about the software than anything. Still, it’s packing solid hardware improvements this year and has started closing the performance gap with competitors like the Galaxy S series.
