Android: Page 3

Samsung is expected to report Q2 2026 operating profit of around 86 trillion won (approximately $56 billion), roughly 18 times what it earned in the same quarter a year ago, according to an LSEG SmartEstimate drawn from 30 analysts weighted by track record, The Star reported yesterday. That would mark a third consecutive record quarter, driven by what analysts describe as a prolonged shortage across the entire memory market, not just premium AI chips.

The safest way to troubleshoot Gemini Error 1099 is to match the workaround to the specific way the error is appearing, because the same error code has appeared in at least three different patterns reported by users. Reports span multiple Reddit communities, affecting both free and paid users across Android, the web, iOS, macOS, and Chrome. The fix for a single stale conversation is not the same as the fix for an error that fires every time you press the Pixel side button, and neither applies...

Anyone who has moved a spreadsheet from Microsoft Excel into Google Sheets and watched a 3D bar chart collapse into a generic 2D version knows exactly what this fix addresses. Google updated Sheets this week to preserve 3D formatting when importing 3D bar charts from external applications, with Excel cited as the primary example, per the Google Workspace Updates blog.The update requires no admin configuration and is available to all Workspace customers and personal Google accounts, with rollout...

Google has removed 18 AI Chrome extensions tied to chatbot-jailbreak and overbroad-permission risks after Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 reported them to the company. The removals, which happened with no coordinated public announcement, are one part of a two-part story. The other part is a separate vulnerability, CVE-2026-0628, disclosed by Unit 42 around the same period, showing that Chrome's extension permission framework has a structural gap the company hasn't fully resolved. These are related...

Google this week began rolling out Android 17 QPR1 Beta 6 to eligible Pixel devices, with the most notable changes landing in desktop windowing: taskbar icons have moved from bottom-center to bottom-left, and picture-in-picture windows now float freely instead of snapping to screen edges. Neither change is dramatic on its own. Taken together, they continue a visible pattern of iteration on a feature that first appeared in Android 16 QPR3, according to heise.

Android 17 QPR1 Beta 6 adds three features to the built-in Linux Terminal: custom font imports, multi-window support, and per-shortcut keyboard remapping. Two of them, custom fonts and separate windows, were reported this week by Android Authority; the shortcut controls came from a separate Android Authority report published the same day. The additions continue a customization push that started with Alacritty theme imports in Beta 1 earlier this year.

Google is testing a reCAPTCHA system that asks users to turn on their webcam and perform a hand gesture, such as a wave or an open palm, while its machine learning model maps 21 coordinates of their hand to confirm a live human is present. The new Google reCAPTCHA hand gesture verification feature launched as a limited test in mid-June and has already drawn scrutiny: testers bypassed it using a still image of a waving person fed through virtual camera software, raising immediate questions about...

Samsung Messages goes dark for US Galaxy users this month. Secondary coverage places the Samsung Messages shutdown date as July 6, per PhoneArena, but Samsung's official notice confirmed only "July 2026" and directed users to open the app for the exact date. July 6 is the working figure in coverage, not a Samsung-confirmed hard deadline. Open the app now to verify your specific cutoff.

New Pixel connectivity complaints surfaced on Reddit today, and the pattern is becoming hard to ignore. Three separate posts from the past 24 hours describe a Pixel 10 toggling unprompted between Wi-Fi and mobile data, another user losing mobile data entirely, and a Pixel 7a owner who recovered by running a connectivity reset. Commenters across each thread report the same experience, with some saying the problems have persisted for months, Android Authority reported today.

That small green leaf next to an alternate route in Google Maps is not a decoration or a generic eco-branding gesture. It signals one specific thing: this is the most fuel- or energy-efficient route available, calculated for your engine type. If you've ever wondered what does the leaf symbol mean on Google Maps, the short answer is that it's a comparison tool, not a command. It shows up alongside the fastest route so you can weigh both options and choose.

A tipster with a decent track record has told SamMobile today that Samsung plans to announce the Galaxy Tab S12 Plus and Tab S12 Ultra in September 2026, placing the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Plus and Ultra launch date roughly two months out. That claim lands on top of independent projections from Trusted Reviews and Notebookcheck, both of which flagged late summer 2026 five months ago based on Samsung's previous release patterns. Three outlets arriving at the same window by different routes is...

Samsung Messages stops working this month for most US Galaxy phone users on Android 12 or higher. Samsung's US support page cited July 6 as the shutdown date, according to PhoneArena, though Samsung's own end-of-service announcement directs users to check the app itself for their exact device-specific cutoff. Either way, the deadline is here.

When an Android user selects a photo through Google's Photo Picker and shares it with an app, any GPS coordinates embedded in that image are removed. No prompt, no toggle, no acknowledgment that anything was stripped. For most use cases, that's a reasonable default. For apps where geotags are the core functionality — a hiking tracker, a travel journal, a location-aware social platform — it's a capability failure that neither the user nor the developer can fix.

Ice Universe is claiming the wider Galaxy Z Fold 8 will weigh just 201g, undercutting the 215g Fold 7 and the 229g Huawei Pura X Max, Android Authority reported four weeks ago. That Galaxy Z Fold 8 specs leak would make Samsung's wide model dramatically lighter than anything the company has shipped in the foldable category. A second leaker who reportedly handled the hardware called the weight "unbelievable" and said the device "feels like a new beginning," 9to5Google reported last week.

Google has confirmed a new foldable gaming mode for Android 17 that splits a foldable's inner display into gameplay on top and a virtual gamepad on the bottom. The catch: It was not included in the stable Android 17 release that began rolling out to Pixel devices on June 16, 2026.

Google is rolling out a stable Android 17 OTA to Beta 4 and Beta 4.1 users, designed to move them off the beta program without wiping their data. Some Beta 4.1 devices still haven't received it, and the Android 17 Beta 4.1 stable OTA delay now carries a concrete hazard: Android Authority warned this week that Beta 4.1 users should avoid the latest Google Play System update because it can cause a bootloop, a failure state where the phone cycles through restarts and never fully loads the OS. The...

Survey data suggests most mobile users reading this on a phone are doing so against a dark background though the more interesting question is why. A 2026 mixed-method study surveying 215 mobile users found that roughly 68% reported an overall dark mode preference, with the sample skewing young (mean age 24.3) and recruited in Vietnam, so treat the figures as directional rather than universal (Hazadi & Kamaruzaman, Journal of Mobile Studies). What gives them weight is the contextual breakdown:...

Google has begun notifying users that Fitbit app versions older than 5.0 will stop being supported on Android and iOS on July 15, 2026, ending a workaround some holdouts used to avoid the Google Health redesign.

Samsung is ending free access to its SmartThings API in October, and the users who will feel it are not the millions running the standard SmartThings app. They're the technically engaged users who built custom setups on top of the free API, and some of them have no practical way around the new Samsung SmartThings API fees. Android Authority confirmed this week that paid tiers take effect in October, including a $4.99-per-month personal plan for non-commercial individual developers, with free...

LibrePods for Android v0.2.3: Easier Install, Root Still Required