Android: Page 6

Google holds its Made by Google 2026 event today, expected to unveil the Pixel 11 series, Pixel Watch 5 and possibly a first-ever tracking tag. For anyone searching "Made by Google 2026 what to expect" this week, the honest answer is mostly leaks, with one confirmed detail from Google itself: pricing across the Pixel 11 lineup is going up (GSMArena, 4 days ago). Nearly everything else, from chip specs to camera zoom figures, traces back to a single detailed preview published four days before...

Google's Gemini for Home rollout is easier to understand once you separate what is free from what requires a subscription. The basic Gemini for Home voice assistant costs nothing extra on compatible speakers and displays, while Google Home Premium adds more advanced conversation, automation, and camera features.

Google officially unveiled the Pixel 11 series yesterday, calling the new Tensor G6 chip its "fastest, most powerful" yet. The announcement detailed a long list of performance claims but left out any mention of a manufacturing process node or foundry partner, leaving the pre-launch Pixel 11 2nm chip rumor unresolved on launch day (Google, yesterday).

A guide posted on XDA Forums last year describes a way to run Samsung DeX on a Galaxy Z Fold's internal screen, with no monitor, dock, or book cover attached.

Google's support documentation appears to extend Pixel 11 FeliCa support, the contactless standard behind Japan's transit gates, e-money terminals, and digital door keys, to some Pixel 11 models sold outside Japan. That's the claim in Android Headlines' reading of that documentation, published yesterday. No other outlet has independently confirmed it, and Google hasn't issued a statement.

Google introduced the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro XL on Wednesday, and the camera specs are doing most of the talking. The base Pixel 11 now carries a 30x Super Zoom, while the Pro models jump to a claimed 120x Pro Zoom, Google says. All three phones run on the company's new Tensor G6 chip, which Google links to several of the camera upgrades. The Pixel 11 camera vs iPhone camera comparison isn't a single matchup, though: the base and Pro tiers need to be judged on their own terms.

Anyone searching for Google Pixel football club wallpapers this month will find one club with a named feature and two with vaguer promises. Within eight days in early August, Bayern Munich, FC Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain each signed sponsorship deals making Google Gemini their AI partner and Google Pixel their smartphone partner. Only one of the three announcements names an actual device feature: personalized wallpapers.

Galaxy phones running One UI 9.0 can now fully uninstall Microsoft SwiftKey rather than just disabling it, according to SamMobile's hands-on test on a Galaxy S26 Ultra running Beta 5. Anyone who has wanted to uninstall Microsoft SwiftKey on a Samsung Galaxy One UI 9 phone now has a straightforward path, at least on the device SamMobile checked directly.

OnePlus has already answered the question everyone keeps asking. The company confirmed it will "conclude new product rollouts" in North America and Europe, according to an AndroidPure report from last month, corporate phrasing for a decision that's already made, not a rumor waiting to be denied.

Google's August 2026 System Release Notes list updates for Play services, the Play Store, and several Android components, covering categories the company labels Phone, Tablet, Wear, Auto, and PC, according to 9to5Google, which published the changelog on August 10. They do not identify a Samsung Galaxy model, a One UI build, or a Samsung rollout date.

Gboard Rambler, the keyboard's newest speech-to-text tool, changes what happens the moment you dictate a message on the Pixel 11. By default, it cleans up spoken words into polished text, stripping out the "umms" and false starts. On request, it goes further, adjusting tone, expanding a thought, or tacking on emoji, according to 9to5Google and Android Authority reports published last week.

Between the start of August and today, Android Authority ran three separate reader polls about the Pixel 11. Together, they paint a picture of weak upgrade enthusiasm, and two of the three raise concerns about Pixel 11 overheating and battery life specifically, rather than cameras or design. Google's own pitch for the phone, at least as covered by outside reporting, points somewhere else entirely: toward computational photography tools and creative software, not the hardware fundamentals its...

Samsung opened public applications for the Samsung Galaxy Card on July 22, timed to coincide with Galaxy Unpacked, where the company unveiled new foldables and watches. The card is issued by Barclays U.S. Consumer Bank on the Visa network, carries no annual fee, and comes in both virtual and physical form. New cardholders who spend $2,000 within the first 90 days earn a $200 cash bonus.

The European Commission today fined Google roughly $1 billion for manipulating search results to disadvantage rivals and blocking app developers from steering users toward cheaper deals outside its Play Store, then ordered the company to overhaul both products within 60 days, according to Axios.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the world's lightest book-style foldable, at 201g, and among the thinnest, measuring 4.5mm unfolded, which Android Authority confirmed is slimmer than the Galaxy S25 Edge at 5.8mm. Those numbers reflect genuine engineering progress. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 thinner and wider design trade-offs, though, deserve closer examination than the spec sheet provides: the redesign that produced a lighter, more pocketable phone also created an opening for Samsung to move key features up...

When Samsung brought back the flip phone in 2020, the product practically marketed itself. The clamshell form factor carried decades of cultural memory, and Samsung packaged that nostalgia into a premium device that felt genuinely different. For a few years, the Flip was the clear winner in Samsung's foldable lineup, according to SamMobile, a remarkable result for what was, structurally speaking, a phone that folded the wrong way for productivity.

Samsung smart glasses arrived last week at Galaxy Unpacked in London with a notably smaller promise than most of this category has tried to make. No liberation from your phone. No ambient computing revolution. The phone stays essential; the glasses reduce the friction of reaching for it.

Leaked specifications circulating this week indicate Samsung is splitting its Galaxy Z Fold 8 lineup into two distinct display tiers. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra screen size is reported at 8 inches for the main panel and 6.5 inches for the cover screen, matching the current Fold 7's dimensions. The standard Fold 8, by contrast, drops to a 7.6-inch inner display and a 5.5-inch cover screen. Android Authority, Notebookcheck, SamMobile, The Verge, and Trusted Reviews have all reported on the...

Samsung Austria has dropped the free storage upgrade from its Galaxy Z8 preorder promotion, requiring buyers to cover part of the cost of moving to a higher-capacity model.

Samsung launched the Samsung Health Assistant beta Tuesday, opening its first fully integrated AI-powered health tool inside Samsung Health to eligible U.S. users. Rather than presenting biometric data as graphs to decode, the assistant lets users ask questions about their health, check their daily Energy Score, and receive personalized health guidance across five wellness pillars: sleep, activity, nutrition, mindfulness, and vitals. The shift Samsung is positioning here is from a dashboard you...

The Galaxy Z Flip 8 last Samsung foldable rumor is unconfirmed. Samsung hasn't said a word about ending the line. What it has done is allocate 2.8 million display panels to its new Wide Fold, 2 million to the Fold 8 Ultra, and 1.5 million to the Flip 8, dead last in its own lineup, according to industry sources cited by TrendForce this week. Reports from Android Police and SamMobile from earlier this month suggest the Flip 8 could be Samsung's final clamshell. Neither has confirmed it.

Google released Android 17 QPR 2 Beta 1 on July 20, 2026, build CP41.260701.005, and the entire release is structured around repairs. The three headline fixes address Bluetooth accessories silently failing to reconnect after a disconnect, Pixel devices rebooting when invoking Gemini, and notifications randomly going invisible, per Google's official release notes. One notable gap: the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are absent from the supported device list, despite both receiving the stable July...

A new Google Pixel 11a leak claims the budget Pixel will run Tensor G6, the same chip debuting in the flagship Pixel 11 on August 12. That's a meaningful claim: the Pixel 10a shipped with a recycled Tensor G4 because the G5 was reportedly too expensive for the A-series price point. Leaker Mystic Leaks now says the Pixel 11a, codenamed "Formosan," would run that same G6 platform from launch.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra vs Motorola Razr Fold matchup is the most competitive the book-style foldable category has seen. For seven years, Samsung refined this segment largely without a serious large-format rival. The Motorola Razr Fold is Motorola's first attempt at that space, and it comes in swinging on hardware: a 6,000mAh silicon-carbon battery against the Z Fold line's 4,400mAh, and charging speeds of 80W wired and 50W wireless against Samsung's 25W and 15W (PCMag UK reported in...

Samsung confirmed that the Galaxy Z Fold 8, Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip 8 all ship with silicon-carbon batteries, making them the first Galaxy phones to use the chemistry, per Android Authority. The disclosure didn't come from a keynote slide or a press release. It came out in Q&A at a media briefing.

Chrome on Android has added a new layer between websites and your notification tray: an on-device machine learning model that screens incoming notifications for spam and deception after you've already granted permission. When the model flags something, Chrome holds the notification back and presents a choice. This isn't a redesigned permission dialog. It's a content filter operating inside a channel you voluntarily opened, and it represents a meaningful shift in how Chrome thinks about...

Screenshots from an internal One UI 9 build for the Galaxy S25 Plus, shared on X today, show a feature called Samsung My FanCam, a Galaxy AI tool that reportedly lets you tap a subject in footage you've already recorded and generate a reframed clip that keeps them centered throughout, Android Authority reported this morning. Samsung has not confirmed the feature exists. The One UI 9 public beta remains limited to the Galaxy S26 series; Samsung has not officially opened it to S25 devices at all,...

Google is preparing to move "Your info" from a buried settings menu to the top of the main contacts list in Google Contacts, with a share icon permanently alongside it. The Google Contacts Your info rollout doesn't add new functionality; it makes existing functionality findable. Based on code evidence in the same app build, it also appears to be laying groundwork for Tap to Share, Google's in-development proximity sharing feature that still hasn't shipped.

Two days before Samsung's scheduled July 22 Unpacked event, prominent leaker Evan Blass published what appears to be official promotional material for the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2, including an exploded internal diagram with a visible "Powered by Snapdragon Wear Elite" badge. The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 leak covers the watch's full spec sheet: an 800mAh battery, a 5,000-nit display, a 12% thinner titanium chassis, and Qualcomm's 3nm Snapdragon Wear Elite chip, according to Notebookcheck and...

Google shared new Pixel 11 teaser images this week, giving the first real look at Pixel Glow, and the confirmed Pixel 11 problems have nothing to do with the lighting feature itself. Pixel Glow is real, it's genuinely clever, and it deserves more than a reflexive dismissal. The trouble is that it arrived at exactly the moment Google needs to answer harder questions.

Google is adding a dedicated back button to the Chrome for Android three-dot menu as Chrome 150 rolls out, bringing the Android browser in line with what Chrome on iPhone has offered for some time. The Chrome for Android dedicated back button sits alongside the existing forward arrow in the menu's top row, but it arrives as part of a broader reorganization that touches more controls than the headline feature suggests.

Samsung has filed a patent for a clamshell phone with a double-jointed hinge that can fold both inward and outward, eliminating the cover screen in favor of a single flexible panel that serves both purposes. Android Authority reported the filing today. It's at least the second Samsung foldable phone patent staking out this concept: Tech Advisor covered a related WIPO design patent earlier this year.

A Dealabs leak reported this week by both Android Authority and 9to5Google has put what appear to be final retail names on the Pixel 11 color lineup. The standard model gets Light Sterling, Midnight Haze, Fuchsia, and Moss. The Pro and Pro XL share Light Fog, Midnight Haze, Dune, and Pine. The Pro Fold gets just two options: Midnight Haze and Pine. With the Pixel 11 colors leak now surfacing polished retail-ready names rather than placeholder descriptors, the picture is coming into focus and...

A Fitbit update has knocked out SpO2 blood oxygen tracking and skin temperature monitoring on Pixel Watch devices, and Google has confirmed it is working on a fix for the permissions error. What the company has not said is when that fix will arrive, which software version caused the reset, or how many users are affected.

Google released Android 17 QPR1 Beta 7 for Pixel this week, pushing build CP31.260623.005 with the July 2026 security patch to all supported devices in the Android Beta Program. Every fix in the changelog targets Quick Settings. No new features ship with this release.

A code teardown of Google Photos v7.83.0 has surfaced a "Save as photo" button that appears directly when a user pauses a video, bypassing the multi-step editing sequence the app currently requires to pull a still from a clip. Android Authority activated and tested the feature last week, describing it as "a much better experience than what the app offers right now."

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Plus has surfaced in a new certification leak, and the more consequential detail isn't the device itself. It's what the broader pre-launch record suggests about Samsung's 2026 tablet strategy. Based on GSMA IMEI filings and follow-on reporting, Samsung appears set to launch just two models in the Tab S12 range: the Plus and the Ultra. No standard Tab S12 has appeared in any credible sourced material.

Google Search AI Mode connected apps began rolling out in the U.S. this week, letting users link services like Instacart, Canva, and YouTube Music directly inside AI Mode and push tasks into those apps without leaving Search, per Google's announcement. The practical result: a grocery list assembled through conversation can land straight in an Instacart cart; a playlist AI Mode curates can be saved to YouTube Music with a single tap.

A certification image has provided an early look at Samsung's unannounced Galaxy Tab S12 Plus. The photo shows a familiar Galaxy Tab design, while separate software findings suggest Samsung is preparing support for MediaTek's flagship Dimensity 9500 processor and several AI-powered image tools.

Google Maps Immersive Navigation has appeared on Android Auto for at least one U.S. user, with screenshots published showing the new 3D interface running on a car display. Four months after Google said Android Auto would receive the feature "over the coming months," Android Authority reported the first publicly documented evidence that it's arriving.