Top Stories: Early Pixel 5 Issues, Google Workspace, More

In this week’s top stories: The Pixel 5 has got off to a rocky start with potential design flaws and an unexpected “blinking dot”. We share our thoughts on the new Chromecast with Google TV, the new Google Workspace icons pop up, and more.

While the Pixel 5 hasn’t reached US buyers for another week, some early adopters of the phone around the world have already experienced issues with the latest Google phone. The first seems to be an issue in the production process that leaves a fairly large gap between the glass touchscreen and the aluminum / resin body.

Given that the Pixel 5 only launched last week and isn’t even for sale everywhere yet, it’s hard to judge how widespread this is. It looks like the Just Black model seems to have the problem, but our unit is the Sorta Sage, so your results may vary.

So far, Google has not commented on this situation.

Similarly, people who copied their settings from an early device to the Pixel 5 have noticed that the phone has a small blinking light under the display. Fortunately, this just seems to be a software problem, and our Damien Wilde found and shared two fixes to prevent that little light from blinking in an undesirable manner.

The death of notification LEDs is one that many of us complain about, but with the Pixel 5 there’s another annoying blinking status bar light or “point” that early adopters are already complaining about. Don’t worry, there is a simple solution to avoid ruining your day.

Elsewhere in Made by Google Hardware, the new Chromecast with Google TV has not been available for a few weeks, and our Ben Schoon took the time to gather his thoughts on the new device. Aside from the various hardware improvements, right now, Google TV is the best way to sensibly manage the ever-growing number of streaming services around the world.

2020 war quite a yearBut aside from the obvious things, it’s also noteworthy that there is a deluge of streaming services that have changed the way we consume TV shows and movies online. While there were advantages, it only made finding our favorite content more confusing. In steps Google with its new watchlist function, a new platform and a brand new hardware on which you can see everything – Chromecast with Google TV.

During the Pixel 5 launch night, Google released a new “Portrait Light” feature for Google Photos among the various camera enhancements for the phone. This week, Portrait Light was showing up in the new Google Photos editor on older Pixel devices, but apparently only on photos of people.

So far it has been confirmed that the feature will appear in Google Photos v5.15.0.337400196 for the Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 3a, Pixel 4a, and Pixel 4 XL models. The server-side rollout doesn’t seem to be complete yet, but there’s a good chance it’s already running on your device. Let us know in the comments if it’s live for you.

A new feature, codenamed Blue Steel, was discovered in the Google Assistant news and demonstrated on the Nest Hub Max. The demo video tells us that the smart display detects the presence of a person – most likely via ultrasound – and triggers the Google assistant without you having to say “Hey Google”.

Another option is the camera on the Nest Hub Max, which today detects when users hold up their palms to pause playback. That theory – where the camera looks for your face before you listen – is also supported by the code name. Blue Steel is a reference to Zoolander where Ben Stiller’s character has an iconic look.

The rest of this week’s top stories will follow:

Android |

Apps & Updates |

Chrome / OS |

Google Assistant |

Google Fi |

OnePlus |

Stages |

Wear OS |

Videos |

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