After a flurry of announcements during Google I/O 2024, there's no debating that Google is ahead of its competition when it comes to the AI wars with today's best phones. The Google Pixel 8a is proof of that, and rightly so, it tops our list of best cheap phones.
In my Pixel 8a review, I detail how its AI features make all the tedious tasks I often do on my phone easier. Obviously, it inherits some of the AI features I first got to know on the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro — but it costs a lot less, making it a broader appeal to those who Don't want to spend a fortune on a phone.
apple Can not do it afford to sit tight, which means more pressure on the company to deliver meaningful AI features with iOS 18 — which could potentially be teased at WWDC 2024 and eventually come to the iPhone 16 . Long order to follow given its price.
Magic Editor: A photo editor in my pocket
Anyone who follows me on Instagram knows how seriously I take photography. Getting those perfect compositions is one thing, but refining them in post is another.
Apple doesn't have anything close to Magic Editor right now.
With the Magic Editor on the Pixel 8a, it lets me do things I can't do with my iPhone 15. Naturally, I have the usual set of photo editing tools for my iPhone, such as cropping, exposure adjustments, and applying filters, but this is lacking. Pixel 8a's ability to crop, resize or move subjects in my photos.
Magic Editor lets me do this in one quick motion, while Generative AI covers the areas that come up when I resize or move a subject. For the most part it does a decent job of analyzing the scene and slapping in something appropriate. I often find that Magic Editor can take a boring photo and make it extraordinary.
Apple doesn't have anything close to Magic Editor, so the iPhone 16 desperately needs to come with its own version because it's a time-saver — not to mention making my photos even better.
Best Tech: The picture-perfect group photo
When Google first introduced it, BestTek aimed to get you to snap the perfect group shots by inverting those eyebrows in photos. It's a simple AI feature that lets me choose the best faces for each person in my group photos, but I have more fun mixing up weird expressions.
Regardless of your preference, BestTech uses AI to detect faces and manipulate other expressions. To do this, however, you need to take multiple photos — so Best Take has plenty to choose from.
Again, this is another example of how AI is helpful on my phone. This function will require serious photo editing experience on current iPhones, as it doesn't have the same features as BestTek.
Audio Magic Eraser: Clear audio recording in videos
Nothing kills a video like terrible audio, even if the video quality itself is amazing. Audio Magic Eraser is one of the AI features accessible on the Pixel 8a and it removed annoying background noise from my video. Watch the video above to hear the wind sound in the background while I was shooting, then listen to the clip below after applying the AudioMagic editor.
There is a noticeable difference between before and after, although my voice is a little more muffled. Doing something like this in the past often meant copying the clip to your laptop, then editing the audio with your video editing software. The native AudioMagic Eraser on the Pixel 8a saves me the trouble of doing everything you can't do on an iPhone.
Call Assist: More than just transcribing phone calls
The best smartphone feature I tested last year didn't come from Apple or Samsung, it came from Google. I've been very happy about how the call screen made it feel like I actually had a real-life assistant making phone calls for me when I couldn't, but the Pixel 8a On Call Assist is one of the features.
It does more than just transcribe what callers are saying in real time when leaving a voicemail with my iPhone. Instead, the call screen for the Pixel 8a goes above and beyond by leveraging Google Assistant to provide relevant responses for select me — which are then sent to callers. This comes in handy when I'm in a work meeting and can't take a phone call. The AI on the call screen is smart enough to understand what my callers are calling about, like confirming a car appointment, which Google Assistant proceeds to confirm with them on my behalf.
So, instead of calling them back later, the call screen on the Pixel 8a does it all for me. I'm hoping Siri gets a boost with iOS 18, especially if the voice assistant can take phone calls for you with the iPhone 16.
Apple leans on Google's AI features – for now
The four AI features I listed above are part of the Pixel 8a's package and are available natively. How about an iPhone? Well, as much as Google highlights access to Gemini and Circle for searching on the Pixel 8a, those are two AI-powered services that current iPhones can tap into, but not natively.
For example, Gemini is available through the Google app in a separate tab, giving it the same intelligent search requests as Gemini on the Pixel 8a. But as Google demoed at I/O 2024, Gemini is only getting better at Android with new features like Project Astra, which uses the phone's camera for multimodal understanding and real-time interaction capabilities. increases. It is not known if it will also come to the iPhone.
Meanwhile, Circle to Search isn't technically available on iPhone yet, but it's accessible via the Google Lens app and the circle using the action button on the iPhone 15 Pro/15 Pro Max. While it works in the same capacity, it's not as intuitive as using it on the Pixel 8a.
Apple is currently behind the AI race, so it can't afford to short-change the iPhone 16 when it's tipped to launch later this year. And we should see a wave of AI features with the arrival of iOS 18, which is being unveiled at WWDC 2024 in June and rolling out this fall.
I was disappointed with the AI features in the phone, but after spending a lot of time with them on the Pixel 8a, I think Apple really needs to respond with its own stuff.