Android: Page 7

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.

Google's Tensor chip program has spent four years running a node behind its rivals. The Pixel 11 TSMC 2nm chip rumor, sourced to an analyst and reported by 9to5Google last month, suggests that could change and not because Google has suddenly become a chip powerhouse, but because of who is now building its chips and where Apple is directing its own 2nm supply.

Here is the tension at the center of Google's foldable strategy: why foldable Pixel phones still matter is a genuinely answerable question, but the Pixel 10 Pro Fold doesn't answer it. The category has a strategic logic. The device doesn't live up to it.

Google has carved out a slot in the Android status bar for AI agents, and right now there is no confirmed way to hide it. Android Halo, announced at Google I/O in May and explained in more detail this week, gives Gemini and other supported agents a fixed, dedicated location at the top of the screen, visible across apps while an agent is active. The Android Halo status bar indicator is designed to stay put. Whether users will have any say over that is the question Google hasn't answered.

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.

The European Commission issued binding rules this week requiring Google to open Android's deepest system controls to competing AI assistants on equal terms with Gemini. The order, published under Digital Markets Act Article 6(7), is not a choice screen or a preference menu. It mandates OS-level infrastructure access, and it sets a compliance clock running toward a July 2027 deadline for EU users to see the results.

Six Pixel 11-series model numbers have appeared in FCC certification records recently, a sign Google is nearing launch ahead of its August 12 event in New York City, 9to5Google reported. The filings arrived after what 9to5Google describes as "a pretty big retail leak," with regulatory certification now adding to a cluster of pre-launch signals. Buried in the band tables is the filing's most durable detail: Google has swapped its modem supplier, replacing Samsung's Exynos parts with a MediaTek...

Samsung's next Galaxy foldable may depart from the tall shape that has defined its book-style phones.

The conventional wisdom used to be that Android users were a restless bunch. More willing to chase a better deal, less attached to any particular brand, generally more open to switching than their iPhone counterparts. A large Android user loyalty survey published earlier this year suggests that picture is increasingly out of date.

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.

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.

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 Galaxy S26 series arrives loaded with third-party apps from Meta, Microsoft, and Spotify, and buyers get no setup screen to opt out of any of them. On a factory-fresh 512GB Galaxy S26 Ultra, system files and pre-installed apps consumed over 40GB of storage before the owner adds a single photo or file, according to Android Authority's hands-on testing earlier this year. That's close to 8% of the drive, gone before the box is fully unpacked.

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.

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.

A growing number of Google Home Speaker owners are hitting a wall before the device ever plays a single note. The Google Home Speaker setup issue surfaced in reports Thursday, with buyers across multiple countries finding that the speaker fails to complete first-time onboarding and then loops through the same error when they try to fix it. Google has confirmed its engineering team is investigating but has no root cause, no working fix, and no timeline for resolution, Android Authority reported...

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.

The Google Store is now selling a Samsung smartwatch. Yesterday, a "Devices from the Google Store" carousel surfaced in the US Play Store app, offering the Galaxy Watch 8 through the standard Google Store checkout flow, financing included, according to 9to5Google. The device sits alongside Google's own Pixel Watch 4 and Fitbit Air all three processed through the same checkout infrastructure Google uses for its Pixel lineup.

Samsung has raised its Galaxy S26 production target for July from 1 million units to 1.5 million, a 50% mid-cycle increase, Android Authority reported today, citing ET News. The revision covers both domestic and global allocations, suggesting the demand signal is broader than any single market or promotion. Two things appear to be driving the Galaxy S26 sales surge: an aggressive promotional campaign that reportedly tripled sales during its active window, and growing consumer conviction that...

Google pushed a significant Google Photos Android redesign this week: a floating pill-style bottom bar that makes the Create tab a top-level destination, plus a new Gemini-powered Video Remix tool that transforms library clips into stylized, shareable video in seconds. The redesign arrives on Android about five months after iOS users got it. The more interesting context, though, isn't the platform gap. It's what Google was apparently willing to do a year ago when it didn't yet have a native...

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.

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.

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.

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.

Reviewed by: Y. Garcia

A dataset collected from 147 Deaf signers using smartphone cameras has produced the largest ASL fingerspelling recognition dataset ever assembled, and the results carry real implications for what Gboard sign language recognition could eventually look like. No such feature has been announced. Nothing in the available evidence connects the research to a Google product plan.

Google this week launched Video Remix, an AI tool powered by Gemini Omni that transforms existing footage into polished clips within seconds, available exclusively to paying subscribers. The launch is the most visible sign yet of where Google Photos is headed.

A documented bug in the Google TV Streamer causes the device to pair itself to a different remote than the one it shipped with, leaving the original unresponsive for no obvious reason. Google acknowledged this specific failure and committed to a software fix, per Android Police. That acknowledgment is now more than a year old, and no public confirmation of a shipped fix has appeared.

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...

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 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...

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.

Google launched Magic Cue as a headline feature of the Pixel 10 last August, describing it as "proactive support, tightly woven across your phone," per the launch announcement. Two months ago, the company introduced Gemini Intelligence as its new label for proactive AI across Android devices, using language that maps closely onto what Magic Cue already does. Google has not announced a rename. But taken together, the product descriptions, the rollout roadmap, and Google's track record with AI...

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.

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.

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,...

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 most reliable signal that Samsung is working on a new SmartTag isn't a leaked spec sheet it's a pattern. Before Samsung announced the SmartTag2, the device appeared first in the Bluetooth SIG database, then in an FCC filing, per The Verge's July 2023 coverage. Neither filing appeared for a successor in the sources reviewed for this article. When one does surface, the hardware specs will be the least interesting thing in it. The field that actually matters is the app requirement buried in...

Samsung launched the Samsung Galaxy Card on Monday, its first-ever credit card in the United States, issued by Barclays US Consumer Bank on the Visa network. Public applications open July 22. A limited early-access window for select eligible customers began Monday, though Samsung has not specified what criteria determine eligibility.

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.