Android

Samsung's rumored open-ear earbuds won't be sharing a stage with the Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Watch 9. ETNews, citing industry sources, reports that the Samsung Galaxy Buds Able launch timeline has shifted to Q4 2026, with October the most probable window, as the company continues to fine-tune the product, per Android Headlines. That rules out Galaxy Unpacked, which had looked like a plausible debut just weeks ago. Samsung has not publicly confirmed any of this.

Samsung has confirmed the cause of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra red screen problem that has been troubling owners since the phone launched earlier this year. The display discoloration is a software optimization failure, not a hardware defect, and affected owners can already get a fix at Samsung service centers while a broader over-the-air update is being prepared, Samsung confirmed Thursday, July 16, according to Chosun and subsequent reports.

One day before Galaxy Unpacked, the picture is about as clear as pre-announcement pictures get. Leaked marketing materials distributed by Evan Blass show the Galaxy Z Fold 8 images in full: a visibly shorter, squatter device that matches the 4:3 "wide Fold" form factor corroborated independently across multiple outlets this week. These images aren't notable because they're polished renders. They're notable because they confirm the shape, and taken together with supply-chain data, the shape...

Code strings buried inside the latest Google Maps beta suggest Google is preparing to connect the app directly to Gmail, Google Photos, Calendar, and other Google services so Maps could surface your dinner reservation or flight details before you even open a search bar. Android Authority reported the findings today after digging through beta version 26.30.00.950492155, where multiple strings explicitly reference Gemini's Google Maps Personal Intelligence feature.

Samsung is reportedly drawing a hard line through the Galaxy S27 lineup, and the selfie camera is where that line lands. According to the latest leaks, the Galaxy S27 Pro and Galaxy S27 Ultra will be the first Samsung flagships in three generations to receive a new front-facing sensor, while the base Galaxy S27 and Galaxy S27 Plus will reportedly stay on the same hardware they've shipped since 2023. The Galaxy S27 selfie camera upgrade exists. Most Galaxy S27 buyers reportedly won't get it,...

Google released Android 17 QPR2 Beta 1 today, and the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro weren't included. The release notes are direct: "Pixel 6 and 6 Pro users will not be getting this OTA since the device will reach End of Life and Android 17 QPR1 beta series will be the last for these devices," Android Police reported today. Android Authority confirmed the exclusion independently.

Samsung is reportedly considering cutting its free double-storage pre-order benefit by half for the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold8, Z Fold8 Ultra, and Z Flip8, according to industry sources cited by Chosun. Buyers who would previously have received the 512GB model at no extra cost when ordering the 256GB variant will now pay roughly half the normal storage premium. If confirmed, it would mark a broader reduction than Samsung's recent region-specific changes to the promotion.

Google has opened a limited Pixel Care+ enrollment window for U.S. owners of eligible Pixel 9 and Pixel 10 series phones who missed the standard 60-day signup period, Google announced on its blog this week. The window closes August 2. Android Police called it a rare second chance for owners who never enrolled and the word "rare" is doing real work there, since Google has not offered a comparable reopening on any announced schedule.

The confirmation is official: eligible existing OnePlus phones will be offered an optional upgrade from OxygenOS to ColorOS 17, with Android Authority reporting that the transition is expected after the official release of ColorOS 17, though OnePlus has not announced a rollout date. Whether that lands as a minor footnote or something more significant depends entirely on why you bought a OnePlus phone in the first place.

Google confirmed this week it is pushing a patch for the Android Auto 17.2 crash fix that users have been waiting on since early July. The fix covers both the stable and beta channels, and the company has published exact build numbers so users can confirm whether their device is protected. The update is in staged rollout now, per Android Authority and Android Headlines.

Leaked renders of what appears to be Samsung's next flagship tablet surfaced this week showing a notch cut into the top edge of the display. No Samsung Galaxy Tab S or Tab A model has previously shipped with a notch, which makes this a genuine departure from the company's established design language. The renders have not been independently verified, and Samsung has not commented.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra has already launched. The Pixel 11 Pro XL is still months away, known mostly through leaks, CAD renders, and a Telegram channel. That asymmetry matters before anything else: comparing the Google Pixel 11 Pro XL vs Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra isn't a traditional head-to-head so much as a weighing of a known quantity against an ambitious pre-launch signal.

Starting July 22, US Android users will be able to download rival app stores directly from Google Play. Not because Google chose to allow it, but because a court ordered it, Google ran out of ways to delay, and the settlement that would have softened the requirement collapsed this week. Google Play handled 95% of US Android app downloads as of 2020, according to the Ninth Circuit. Putting third-party app stores on Google Play's own shelves is not a symbolic gesture. It's the first time any...

Google has been replacing Google Assistant with Gemini in Android Auto, with the rollout expanding to 45 languages globally, per Google's announcement. If your phone already runs the Gemini app, you likely have access or will soon. The change matters more than a typical assistant update: Assistant frequently failed to register voice input at all, something a Tom's Guide tester called a near-daily occurrence. Gemini also removes the rigid syntax problem, so you can speak naturally and hold a...

Unicode 17.0 is finalized, and the eight new emoji coming in Unicode 17.0 are locked in. Samsung has already shipped all of them to millions of devices. Pixel users are still waiting, and when Google's update does arrive, it won't just add eight new characters it's expected to rebuild how every emoji on the device looks. That second part hasn't been confirmed as a single bundled update, and that distinction matters.

Samsung is set to reveal the Galaxy Z Fold 8, Fold 8 Ultra, and Flip 8 at Galaxy Unpacked in London on July 22. Reporting from multiple outlets points consistently toward a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 price increase across at least some models, with the clearest jumps in the US Fold Ultra, Korean Flip 8 pricing, and high-capacity European tiers. The more complicated part: even where base MSRP appears flat, the effective launch-day cost could still be worse than last year if Samsung reduces the...

Samsung Health is warning users that withdrawing consent for AI training will cut off cloud sync and trigger deletion of previously synced health data, except data Samsung is legally required to retain. The toggle began reaching users this week, and the core question the Samsung Health AI training opt-out raises is one Samsung has not publicly answered: does "deleted" refer to your entire health history, or only the copy Samsung stores through account sync?

A new Google Pixel Watch 5 leak gives the clearest look yet at the smartwatch's four reported finishes, two sizes, and a pricing structure that would mark the first series-wide increase in Pixel Watch history. The renders, attributed to leaker OnLeaks via The Tide Chart and reported this week by multiple outlets, show four reported finishes across the lineup's 41mm and 45mm sizes.

Reviewed by: Y. Garcia

Samsung has pushed the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Flip 6 July 2026 security update to devices across Africa, Asia, and Europe, closing 57 vulnerabilities in a patch that carries no new features and no UI changes. Five of those flaws are rated critical. According to Android Headlines, the rollout is staged, so availability varies by model, region, and carrier.

The Android Auto media player redesign that spent months in limited testing is now rolling out to the platform's most popular apps. At the same time, a separate beta feature lets drivers swipe between active media sessions directly from the dashboard. The two changes are distinct, but Google's latest developer documentation points in the same direction: a media layer where the platform controls more of the experience.

You cannot add an external user to a Google Chat group message. That limit is unchanged. According to Google documentation cited for this article, Google has made generally available: guest accounts that bring non-Google users into Chat spaces, shared Drive files, and Meet calls, all inside your organization's security perimeter and without a full Workspace license.

The Samsung Odyssey OLED G5 (G50SF) has dropped to roughly $340 in the US, a street price that simply didn't exist for QD-OLED gaming monitors until this year. That matters most for PC gamers running DisplayPort, who get the full spec sheet. Console users and anyone locked to HDMI run into a bandwidth ceiling the panel can't clear over that connection. The deal is real; it's just not for everyone.

No July Android Canary build has been confirmed yet, but the program has shipped on a monthly cadence since Google launched it last summer, Android Authority noted. If that rhythm holds, Android Canary 2607 is imminent. The three builds documented in detail since March already tell a coherent story about where Google is taking Pixel's system UI and that story is worth understanding before the next one lands.

High-quality renders of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 leaked this week by Android Headlines offer the clearest look yet at a device that appears designed around a core problem no previous Galaxy Fold solved: making the phone usable when it's shut. The images show a wider, shorter body with a cover screen proportioned more like a normal smartphone than the cramped slabs on prior Fold models. According to Tom's Guide, the leaked images appear to line up with Samsung's own teaser imagery showing a...

Google Photos' floating bottom bar on Android is rolling out broadly this week as a server-side rollout for users on version 7.82, with no separate Play Store update required once the app is current. The docked navigation strip that sat clamped to the screen's lower edge is replaced by a pill-shaped bar hovering above the photo grid. 9to5Google confirmed the wide push this week, noting that availability had been limited until now.

Strings pulled from Android Canary build 2607 suggest Google is planning a toggle to turn off the Android Halo status bar icon, buried inside a new "Status bar" section in Android Settings, according to a teardown published by Android Authority this week. Neither the section nor the toggle is live. No working UI exists, and Google has not confirmed any of this.

Google removed a long-standing exemption from its cloud storage rules this week. Starting July 7, Android backups count toward Google Account storage: SMS messages, call history, and device settings now draw from the same shared quota as Gmail, Drive, Google Photos, and WhatsApp backups.

A new leak suggests the cheapest Pixel 11 in Europe will cost €100 more than last year's cheapest Pixel 10, and the Google Pixel 11 price increase story may have less to do with a new MSRP than with the quiet removal of the 128GB model.

Google Fi's promotion for the Pixel 10a offers the full $499 device cost back over 24 months in bill credits, stacked with $10 off Unlimited Premium service each month for the same period a total of $739 in credits, per the Google Fi promo terms. The Google Fi Pixel 10a deal is listed as available to "all new lines." That phrase is doing more work than it appears.

Samsung is pitching the Galaxy S26 Ultra as more than a faster flagship. Its biggest selling point is Galaxy AI: tools that can suggest actions, summarize context, edit images, screen calls, and hand off limited tasks across apps. Some of those features are useful now. Others still need the right apps, accounts, permissions, and real-world reliability to be worth the Ultra price.

Amazon has been discounting the Galaxy S26 lineup in the week after Prime Day, keeping promotional pressure alive on Samsung's newest flagship series. Whether any given Amazon Galaxy S26 deal represents genuine savings depends on which Samsung product you're looking at and on a broader pricing pattern that has made discount labels across much of Samsung's catalog harder to trust.

A Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold FCC listing has surfaced, and if the regulatory milestone is accurate, an August announcement sits roughly four to six weeks out. The hardware picture comes from a single leak published two months ago by Lowyat.NET; the FCC filing itself has been reported but not independently verified with model numbers or filing documents. What follows is the clearest available read on this device before an official reveal, not a confirmed spec sheet.

Gemini for Home will no longer stop mid-conversation to ask who you are. This week's Google Home Gemini update, reported by Android Authority and Android Police, removes voice verification prompts during Continued Conversation sessions and makes chained commands more consistent. It lands eight days after Google Home devices were reported taking up to a minute to respond, or timing out entirely, with no confirmed fix deployed as of that report.

Duolingo overhauled its Korean course this week, adding new content, restructuring existing lessons, and extending the course's proficiency ceiling from roughly A2 to B2 on the CEFR scale, according to the company's blog. The Duolingo Korean course update affects one of the platform's largest learner communities. For new students, it's a more ambitious course than before. For the 1.9 million active learners already mid-path, it's the same destination with a rearranged route.

Samsung and Qualcomm announced this week that both the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Z Fold 8 Ultra will run the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, the same custom-binned chip already shipping in the Galaxy S26 Ultra worldwide, GSMArena reported. The two companies posted the confirmation to Instagram earlier this week, getting ahead of what is expected to be a Galaxy Unpacked event in London on July 22, though Samsung has not officially confirmed that date.

Google appears to be rolling out a Play Store redesign that changes the look and navigation of the Apps and Games tabs. The update adds pill-shaped sub-tabs, moves Top charts and Categories into separate pages, and makes personalized recommendations the default view when you open either section, Android Authority reported July 8.

Code surfaced inside the Google Home iOS app this week suggests the upcoming Home Display may be less a Nest Hub successor than a Google smart display with camera features borrowed directly from Nest Cam. The latest Google Home Display Nest Hub Max camera findings, analyzed by Android Authority, describe recording tiers that mirror existing Nest Cam subscriptions exactly: a free event-history window, with longer event history and continuous recording tied to Google Home Premium tiers.

Samsung's Bixby assistant has reportedly been speaking in voices users never selected since a recent update, and the company's response so far stops well short of confirming a bug or offering a fix. The reports, first surfacing in the Samsung Members community forum four months ago, drew wider attention this week when Android Authority covered Samsung's reply to affected users.

Samsung published its July 2026 security maintenance release on July 7, listing 57 vulnerability fixes for Galaxy phones and tablets, including five critical Android flaws.