Survey reveals which Pixel feature you’d like to return from the grave

Pixel phones have hit a kind of mainstream consistency in the past few years, but Google’s older devices came with some pretty off-the-wall features. From pressure-sensitive frames and radar-enabled gesture controls to the ability to create 360-degree panoramic “Photo Spheres,” Google’s got a long history of tacking on oddball bells and whistles. Last week, we asked which retired Pixel feature you all missed most — and the results are a little surprising.

Our own Zac Kew-Denniss recently wrote up a list of old Pixel features he misses in modern Google phones and asked readers to chime in on their favorites. Of all the features he mentioned, to my surprise, most voters said the one they missed most is Active Edge. Available on Pixel 2, 3, and 4 phones, Active Edge let users squeeze their device to activate a shortcut — kind of like an over-engineered extra button. Voters were pretty evenly split, though.

Coming in second, just about a single percent behind Active Edge, was System UI Tuner. In Android 6.0 through 9.0 on Pixel phones, System UI Tuner let you change some aspects of the status bar to, for example, hide Bluetooth icon or volume indicator. Part of System UI Tuner lives on in the option to add a percentage to your battery icon, but most of what it offered has been lost to updates.

Photo Sphere, a feature that let users create spherical panorama photos that could be viewed in VR using Google’s defunct Cardboard accessories, came in third place. Soli, a system that used radar to read gestures in the air and was only available on Pixel 4, came in fourth. Bringing up the rear was a now-retired notification feature that let you press and hold on an app icon to see a preview of new notifications from that app.

Which Pixel feature from the past would you like to return?

Not every old Pixel feature was an option in the poll, of course. Lots of commenters brought up that older Pixels came with a fingerprint sensor on the back side of the phone rather than under the display glass. That was really more of a hardware design trend than a Pixel hallmark — phones from Samsung, LG, Motorola, and others all featured rear fingerprint sensors, too. At least one person mentioned unlimited free storage in Google Photos, a too-good-to-be-true perk that’s been phased out.

Which old Pixel feature do you miss most? Are you with the majority in wishing Google’s phones still had pressure-sensitive frames? Are you eager for a return to rear fingerprint sensors? Let us know in the comments.