Android: Page 7

Waze points are mainly a visible score: something to check on a profile and compare against other Wazers, not something to spend. Open a Waze profile and progress information shows up in two different places: a point total below the username, and a level plus a set of badges filed under a separate tab called Achievements. It's tempting to assume a formula ties all of it together, so many points per report, a badge every few hundred miles, but the Help pages reviewed for this article don't...

Preliminary settings text and pre-launch reporting describe a narrow trigger for HiLight, the rumored back-of-phone light feature headed to Google's Pixel 11 Pro: calls from favorite contacts, not notifications in general. That distinction separates a revival of the old blinking-LED notification light from something built directly on top of how Google Contacts already organizes your people, specifically its Favorites designation (9to5Google, 5 days ago).

Galaxy Z Fold 8 owners are posting screenshots on Samsung's community forum of a home screen gone sideways: icons overlapping, apps sliding past their assigned grid spots, some landing in the gap between the inner display's two panes. One owner said an icon got stuck there entirely, impossible to select or drag back (Android Authority, today). If you're trying to figure out how to fix Galaxy Z Fold 8 app icon misalignment, there's a specific software update worth checking before you waste time...

Samsung's One UI 9 gives Motion Photos a new place to shine, letting supported Galaxy devices turn them into animated wallpapers for the home screen, lock screen, or both. Android Authority, citing SamMobile, reports that the feature is available on Samsung's latest foldables but has not yet appeared in the One UI 9 beta on the Galaxy S26 series.

The Pixel 11 Pro is a genuinely excellent phone. Google just isn't selling it on the reasons why.

Two reviews of the same phone landed within a day of each other this week, and they read like they're describing different products. MakeUseOf calls the Pixel 11 Pro Fold "the Google foldable I've always wanted", while The Verge says it "feels like the end of an era." Both verdicts hold up. They're just answering different questions, and untangling why is the point of this Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold review.

An unfamiliar app called Android Developer Verifier has been quietly appearing on Android phones worldwide. The package com.google.android.verifier is a legitimate Google system service, not malware, and for most users it still has no effect on normal app installs.

Google Messages RCS issues have repeatedly shown up in two well-documented shapes: a "Setting up" screen that never finishes verifying a phone number, or a "carrier not supported" label that replaces RCS chat features outright.

A Samsung Galaxy S27 charging speed leak suggests Samsung's next standard flagships won't charge any faster than the ones sold today. Two unannounced Samsung model numbers have appeared in China's 3C certification database with charging profiles that top out at approximately 25W and 45W.

Code strings buried inside Samsung's Galaxy Wearable app reference a device called the Galaxy H1, pointing to Samsung's first over-ear headphones in more than a decade (The Verge, this week).

Google calls the Tensor G6 its "fastest, most powerful chip yet" (Google Blog, last week). A leaked Geekbench listing for the Pixel 11 Pro XL tells a less flattering story, showing the chip trailing Samsung's Snapdragon-powered Galaxy S26 Ultra on the same test (Notebookcheck, today). Neither claim is wrong. The benchmark doesn't validate or refute Google's broader pitch; it measures one narrow slice of what the chip does.

Google's Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL launched Wednesday at $1,099 and $1,299, prices Android Authority describes as higher than last year's models (Android Authority, this week). Pre-launch reporting had pegged that increase at $100 over the Pixel 10 Pro line (The Verge, nearly two weeks ago), and the confirmed launch prices match that figure exactly. The base RAM also dropped: 12GB on the entry Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL, down from 16GB across every Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL configuration last...

Google raised the price of its standard Pixel by $100 this year, and Engadget still recommends it without hesitation. In its Google Pixel 11 review, Engadget called the phone "a lot of phone for a little more money" and handed it a 9.2 out of 10, noting it "didn't change a ton, but is still one of the best smartphones on the market."

Samsung has reportedly started development on two wide-format foldables targeting the Galaxy Z9 generation, reportedly planned for 2027, a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 successor story that's already getting oversimplified in the retelling. The claim traces to South Korean outlet ETNews, relayed by Android Central and Android Authority. "Fold8" is Samsung's own shorthand for the phone most reviewers call the Galaxy Z Fold 8. Of the two devices described, only one carries a specific defining trait: an...

Samsung's new Galaxy Z8 lineup set a preorder record in South Korea, and the standard Fold8, not the pricier Ultra, carried most of it. That's the story behind the Samsung Galaxy Z8 preorder record set this week: Samsung said the lineup drew more than 1.44 million preorders in South Korea during the seven-day window that ended Monday, Aug. 3, the highest preorder total for any Galaxy phone the company has ever released, foldable or not, according to The Korea Times.

Google officially announced custom chat themes for Messages on August 27, closing out months of beta testing with a feature that lets you assign a distinct color palette and wallpaper to any individual conversation. If you've been wondering how to use chat themes in Google Messages since spotting the option on a friend's phone, the mechanics are simple. One detail about how the feature actually works, though, is worth understanding before you touch a single setting.

Search "how to get Duolingo hearts back and remove ads" and you'll find posts promising a hidden switch or workaround. There isn't one documented in Duolingo's own materials. Duolingo has been phasing out Hearts in favor of a resource system called Energy, and ad-free access shows up in the company's public consumer materials as a subscription benefit.

A teardown of the second Android 17 QPR2 beta has surfaced a hidden feature called Voicecast, according to Android Authority. The Google Pixel Voicecast feature would let Pixel phones broadcast a user's live voice over Bluetooth, a capability their phones currently lack: existing Pixel audio-sharing tools handle music and video, but not a microphone feed.

A red dotted line on Google Maps combines two separate visual characteristics that may have different explanations, and none of the sources reviewed for this piece document what happens when both appear together on the same stretch of road. If red shows up while Google Maps traffic information is active, it usually means heavy traffic. The dotted pattern is less certain: the evidence here documents dashed styling on at least one hiking and biking path, but it doesn't add up to a universal...

Most of the coverage around Google's new flagship is fixated on the Tensor G6 chip. That's fair; it's a real chip with real upgrades.

Google has expanded its Gemini Pixel football club partnerships to five of Europe's biggest teams at once, naming Gemini and Pixel the "Official Consumer AI" and "Official Smartphone" partner of Arsenal FC, FC Barcelona, FC Bayern München, Liverpool FC and Paris Saint-Germain, according to Google's announcement today. Google describes the arrangements as long-term partnerships built around "personal intelligence" and smartphone technology, aimed at putting fans "right at the heart of the...

Samsung's latest foldable lineup has broken a Galaxy preorder record in South Korea that had stood since 2019. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold8, and Galaxy Z Flip8 drew more than 1.44 million preorders during a seven-day reservation period, surpassing the roughly 1.38 million recorded by the Galaxy Note10 series seven years earlier.

Two days after Google's Pixel 11 launch event, buyers are discovering a second Google Play Store Pixel 11 discount tucked inside the Play Points program. 9to5Google describes it as a discount worth up to $175, "hidden just beneath the surface" of the Play Points perks menu (9to5Google, today). Reports describe this as a separate offer from the pre-order codes Google emailed to select buyers before the show, and it covers the entire Pixel 11 family plus the Pixel Watch 5.

Coverage of the Google Pixel 11 launch event will follow the usual script: chip codenames, camera megapixels, a livestream countdown. The more revealing story about how Google actually treats Pixel owners already happened two months ago, when a routine software update quietly did more to define the brand than any keynote slide will.

Pixel owners describing connectivity trouble often lump three different problems into one complaint. Wi-Fi that won't hold a connection, mobile data that switches on without being asked, and weak cellular reception in marginal spots are separate issues with separate causes, and treating them as one blurs what's actually going on with Google Pixel Wi-Fi connectivity issues this year.

Google calls Call Screen "a fan favorite" and says people have "loved" using Call Notes to keep track of what happened on a call (Google, 10 months ago). Ask which are the best Google Pixel features, though, and no independent survey or retention data actually answers that question; the sources reviewed here contain no ranking of what people stick with. What exists instead is a paper trail: a string of releases showing which features Google has kept expanding, and which ones it introduced once...

A sprawling Samsung Galaxy S26 FE leak, made up of renders, spec sheets and apparent hands-on video, has surfaced weeks before Samsung's expected announcement of the phone. The picture emerging is less "all-new phone" and more "known formula, new processor, possibly higher price," according to Android Authority, which published its account of the leak today.

Apple's EU-mandated energy label has settled a question that used to require teardown videos and guesswork: the iPhone 18 Pro battery capacity comes in at 4,056mAh, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max jumps to 5,391mAh. That Pro Max figure now edges past the Galaxy S26 Ultra's official 5,000mAh typical capacity, with a 4,855mAh rated capacity listed in Samsung's specifications and EU energy-label records.

Google Health app version 5.09 started rolling out this week, adding setup for two new Pixel Watch trend features: blood pressure and insulin resistance. A third metric, sleep breathing quality, arrives in the same update.

A small cluster of Pixel owners is dealing with a specific, disruptive glitch: the status bar stops showing new notifications, and the notification shade and Quick Settings tiles go completely unresponsive to touch. The pattern matches several recent reports of Pixel notifications not working, and Google's official PixelCommunity Reddit account has replied to multiple posts describing similar combinations of these symptoms.

Google confirmed Tuesday that actor Henry Cavill is building a video game on a Googlebook, the company's new AI-focused laptop line, as part of a promotional partnership. Google says the collaboration will take place in November, according to Google's announcement.

Google is testing a way to bring Gemini's Daily Brief to the Pixel lock screen, according to a teardown of the latest Android System Intelligence app.

Samsung's Galaxy S26 Ultra was the best-selling Android phone of Q2 2026, finishing fourth among all smartphones sold worldwide, according to Counterpoint Research. It marks the first time an ultra-premium Android device has led Android sales in a June quarter.

Google Photos still has a setting that restores date headers in the grid. On Android, the redesigned Photos view switched those headers off by default and replaced them with a floating date indicator that appears while scrolling.

Samsung and Corning are reportedly developing a new self-healing surface coating for the next generation of Gorilla Armor, and industry watchers have connected it to the Galaxy S27 Ultra.

The Google Pixel 11 price increase lands the phone at $899 to start, essentially the same as Samsung's $899.99 Galaxy S26 and $100 above the iPhone 17's $799 starting price, according to Android Authority. For a phone line that built its reputation on undercutting Apple and Samsung, that's not a minor pricing update. It's the end of an era.

Galaxy owners across Reddit and Samsung's Community forums are hitting the same wall when they try to sign in: "Can't sign in. Account deactivated for security reasons." That message is behind a fresh wave of Samsung account randomly deactivated complaints, and neither the users posting about it nor Samsung itself has explained why it's happening.

Chrome for Android is testing a redesign that finally puts core browsing controls within thumb's reach on today's tall phones, and in the same stroke adds a second persistent toolbar that crowds the screen with more interface than the browser has carried in years. That's the tension at the center of the Chrome Android bottom navigation bar redesign: a legitimate ergonomic fix wrapped around a feature nobody asked to have permanently on screen.

Archival note: this article reflects reporting available through August 10, 2026, two days before Google's Made by Google keynote. It does not cover what was announced at that event. Readers looking for the outcome should consult post-event coverage.

Google released Android 17 QPR2 Beta 1 on July 20, and the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro weren't included. The release notes were direct: "Pixel 6 and 6Pro 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 at the time.