The March Feature Drop update, based on the brand new Android 12L release, is here for Pixels — excluding the Pixel 6, anyway. The new update brings Live Caption functionality to voice calls, brings Live Translate to Spanish, expands the dynamic notifications displayed by the At a Glance widget, and adds the long-awaited and much-teased battery widget for connected devices, among other changes. As for the Pixel 6, Google tells us it needs some extra time to test and validate fixes for a few bugs. The update is expected to land for the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro later this month.

You may not have used the Live Caption feature on a Pixel before, but it's handy. The short version is that it can basically transcribe subtitles from audio in near-real-time — particularly useful if you have to take a Meet call without headphones in a loud place or have to plug the gap at YouTube when it frequently and inexplicably fails to generate subtitles for a video. Google is now expanding that functionality to voice calls, letting you not just see what the other person is saying but also type a response back that will be read aloud.

Live Caption for calls -anim

In essence, this turns a voice call into a text-based chat for a single party. If you're hard of hearing, this could be a big deal. Semi-relatedly, you'll notice Gboard will be able to create stickers on the fly based on the text you type. This feature we spotted rolling out last week. Availability will be global, but it will only work for English.

The Live Translate feature that Google debuted for the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro is expanding now to support Spanish as well, and it's able to detect the language at places like YouTube to translate automatically.

Gboard dynamic stickers -anim
Source: Google

Widgets are also getting an improvement with the March Feature Drop update. The At a Glance widget at the top of the home screen on Pixels is updating to report battery levels for connected devices, earthquake alerts, offer to turn off alarms if tomorrow is a holiday, and show a safety check countdown from the Personal Safety app.

The widget was also recently spotted testing doorbell camera alerts, bedtime notifications, and even workouts, so there might be a lot more here than Google has highlighted.

March Feature Drop new battery widget -anim
Source: Google

The battery widget Google teased all the way back with Android 12's first widget-related imagery is also finally rolling out. It doesn't look exactly like we expected or Google showed off before, but you'll be able to track the power levels for connected devices much more simply now.

There are a handful of smaller changes in the March Feature Drop update, too:

The March system update will start rolling out today, though some of these changes may also have server-side components or app update requirements, so you may not see all of these features land all at once.

The full table of which devices are getting which features today is just below:

Pixel feature table

Not entirely sure why Google claims Live Translate for Italian is new, it isn't.

There are also plenty of bug-fixes included in this update, including claims of improved performance for the Pixel 6's fingerprint sensor and other even more specific improvements for a wide variety of issues.

Google tells us that the update for the Pixel 6 series has been delayed due to some extra bug fixing, and provided us with the following statement:

Our goal is to provide high quality software updates in a timely manner for all Pixel users. The cadence of these rollouts can be impacted by a number of factors, for example, internal validation testing, bug fixes, and approvals from carrier partners for each software build on each Pixel model.

The Pixel 6 has seen repeated delays and issues for its system updates. I have my own guesses as to why Google's having so much trouble keeping the Pixel 6 up to date and why it has so many problems, but whatever the cause, the trend continues. Unfortunately for anyone (like me) that has run into the awful Wi-Fi bug that randomly cuts you off from data, you'll have a longer wait for that fix.

Since some of these Feature Drop changes may not require a system update to work, Pixel 6 owners might see a few of the announced changes hit separately from the delayed update itself. The March 2022 system update should start rolling out today for the Pixel 3a series, Pixel 4 series, Pixel 4a series, Pixel 5, and Pixel 5a.