With the launch of Google’s flagship phone, the Pixel 6 in the past week, early adopters have been taking the device through its paces and the general feel is that Google has a solid phone at a fair price.
The demand for the Pixel 6, as a result, has been so high so far, that Google has not been able to keep up with the demand and has resorted to creating waitlists with the next batch of the devices not having a specific date of when they will be available.
The Pixel 6 launched with Google’s own custom processor, the Tensor chip, which they claimed, thanks to its revolutionary AI capabilities, could perform some tasks not many phones available in the market could do. One of those tasks was the removal of photobombers and unwanted objects from pictures taken using the Pixel 6 thanks to the Magic Eraser Tool.
The Magic Eraser Tool then uses AI to fill in the blanks of what you have removed from the picture to make it look like it was never there to begin with. Now, all this has been apparently debunked by a GoogleNews Telegram group.
Users of the Telegram group have been able to use the Magic Eraser tool on non-Pixel phones, proving that the Magic Eraser feature does not need the Tensor chipset to work, as initially claimed by Google. To make matters worse, or better, depending on which side you lean to, the group members have been able to make the feature work on non-Pixel phones and even smartphones running Android 11.
Jules Wang of Android Police confirms that they have been able to side load the Magic Eraser tool into older Pixel devices.
“For clarity, we’ve been able to export a Google Photos APK from a Pixel 6 and have successfully been able to sideload Magic Eraser onto the Pixel 3a, Pixel 4, Pixel 5, and Pixel 5a. In the case of the Pixel 3a, we were not able to receive Magic Eraser by installing the APK Mirror package. And to see if we could, we also tested clean Google Photos installations for both APK versions on a ZenFone 8, neither producing any result,” Jules Wang notes.
The basic gist of how it works on non-Pixel 6 phones is that you install a new version of the Google Photos app, then feed it Google Pixel 6 properties to trick it into thinking that you are using a Pixel 6. Once this is achieved, the Google Magic Eraser tool appears and will work fine without any need for the Tensor chip.
But as with any workaround, the process is not guaranteed to work, as shown by the numerous posts from users in the now famous telegram channel claiming they were unsuccessful. However, all it requires is a sideload of Google Photos with some modifications, which if you are interested, you can find here.
Google has still has not responded to the discovery of a workaround of one of their most pushed features in their new flagship device now basically being available to the majority of other Android devices. When they do, we will definitely update you, but it will certainly leave a sour taste in their mouths.
