Early 2024 was a rough stretch for anyone who watches smartphone keynotes. Samsung couldn't run an S24 ad without saying Galaxy AI.

Google was no better. Gemini here, Pixel AI there, all of it everywhere at once. At the time, I called it a software cover for hardware that hadn't changed much over the last few generations.

What I didn't expect was how many of those features would end up in my routine two years later. Not all, but enough that I owe Samsung and Google an apology.

I treated Circle to Search as Google Lens with a PR budget

Lens never made me circle things by reflex

When Circle to Search launched on the Samsung Galaxy S24 and Google Pixel 8 in January 2024, I saw it as Google Lens with better marketing.

Drawing on screen wasn't solving anything Lens hadn't already solved years earlier.

Then the September 2024 feature drop added more features like song identification, so I gave it another go, and boy, was I missing out.

I didn't realize how much friction a five-step process was adding until it was gone. Screenshot, leave the app, open Lens, upload, wait, and by then I'd usually lost interest. Circle to Search skips the queue

Since then, I've habitually circled stuff I'd never have bothered looking up before, to the point that it's a reflex now. That's the highest praise I can give a feature.

My phone screens calls better than I ever did

It only took Samsung two attempts

Handing my calls to a robot always struck me as rude. Bixby Text Call was Samsung's first attempt at it.

You had to be holding the phone when it rang, tap through to the right mode, then either pick a canned reply or type one, which took more effort than answering it.

The synthetic voice was the other problem. It was awkward enough that legitimate callers like couriers or a doctor's office would occasionally hang up on it.

Enough spam and enough time, and I was ready to give it another go. Pixel's Call Screen had already shown what a properly hands-off version looked like, and Samsung finally got there in One UI 8.5 with Auto screen calls.

My phone now takes a message like a receptionist would. Unknown numbers get answered, questioned, and written down, all before I've registered that anything happened.

I still don't like the voice. It's obviously synthetic, but at least it's closer to Gemini Live than to the flat text-to-speech era Bixby Text Call came from.

Live translation is finally usable in the real world

Earbuds made it usable at my price

Live translation was the feature every keynote speaker reached for, and nobody ever really used it. One screen meant handing over the phone. Wait. Taking it back. Repeat.

Foldables solved this, at least for the people who could afford one. Folding the phone into Flex Mode lets it sit tented on the table like an interpreter booth.

From there, the Interpreter app throws the translation onto the cover screen for the person across from you while you read your side on the inner display.

Foldable money was never going to happen, so earbuds closed the loop for me instead. The Pixel Buds Pro 2 got me through many trips without any awkward interactions.

Real-time translation isn't science fiction anymore. The only frontier left is working out what my cat is saying.

AI photo editing went from smears to invisible

The jump happened in a matter of months

AI photo editing had the worst starting position of anything here.

Magic Eraser arrived on the Pixel 6 in 2021 and did roughly what you'd expect from 2021. Remove a stranger from a beach shot, and you'd get a smear.

Then came the party trick years. Your phone could turn your selfie into a watercolor or a comic, which nobody asked for.

Then came conversational editing on the Pixel 10 in August 2025, which spread to other Android phones within weeks. Nano Banana arrived in Google Photos in November.

Two years ago, I could spot an AI edit instantly. These days, my eyes are no help at all.

Not every AI feature earned its redemption arc

Not everything I mocked has come back to embarrass me.

Sketch to Image arrived with a lot of fanfare. Pixel's generative wallpapers were the same. Both front and center in marketing, and both were effectively dead on my phone within a week.

I used Sketch to Image maybe twice. The wallpaper generator got a similar three-day run before I went back to a photo of my cat.

These need an occasion, and the occasion never comes. Looking at the arc from 2024 to now, there's a pattern in it.

Galaxy AI and Gemini were staged as magic because magic impresses and sells phones. But the AI features I use daily won me over by getting out of the way.