Pixels get improved "OK Google" and music detection with July security update

It's the first Monday of the month, and you know what that means - Google is releasing a new monthly security update for its Pixel smartphones. Oh, and Essential is doing exactly the same for its one and only device. Despite not launching a follow-up to the PH-1 and firing a lot of its staff, it still manages to impress, month after month, by delivering security patches exactly at the same time as Google.

Anyway, the search giant has also packed some functional updates for its Pixels this time around, alongside the security fixes. "OK Google" detection should be improved, as well as music detection and the performance of the dedicated Titan M security chip. Unicode Japanese language support is improved too, and a couple of bootloader issues have been fixed - one that made devices stuck during boot, the other that saw devices being stuck in EDL mode with a blank screen.

All good news, then. The factory images and full OTA zip files are already available to download from Google's servers if you're so inclined. But if you're like most people, you're best off waiting for the over-the-air rollout to hit your particular device. That may take days or even weeks, because that's the way Google's software rollouts go.

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