Trending about Android

Samsung has added a One UI 9 network speed indicator to the Galaxy status bar through an updated QuickStar Good Lock module, and both Android Authority and Sammy Fans confirmed the feature today through hands-on testing on Galaxy S26 Ultra hardware. The catch: it requires One UI 9, Samsung's Good Lock app, and the QuickStar plugin, in that order. None of that chain is available to most Galaxy owners yet, and the feature is off by default even for those who qualify.

Google confirmed Wednesday that a Play Store bug causing crashes on Wear OS smartwatches has been fixed, but the Pixel Watch Play Store crash fix has only been confirmed for Pixel Watch devices. Galaxy Watch owners reported identical behavior and have received no equivalent confirmation from Google or Samsung.

Some YouTube Shorts users have opened the app this week to find the dislike button gone from the right-side action rail. No thumbs-down, no error message, no explanation. Recent reporting indicates it's not a bug but a live interface experiment, one that pulls the YouTube Shorts dislike button out of plain sight and routes it through an extra menu tap.

Strava is down today, with the company confirming an outage affecting login, the main website, and the My Routes feature. Investigation is ongoing. No cause or resolution timeline has been provided.

Google began notifying users this week that a new setting called Google Search Services History will govern how the company saves and uses the media submitted through Search. The change affects photos taken with Google Lens, recordings from the real-time Search Live tool, voice queries, spoken phrases entered into Translate, and uploaded files and video, The Verge reported Wednesday.

Samsung Wallet can now store a passport-backed digital ID accepted at more than 250 TSA checkpoints across the U.S. For frequent domestic travelers on Galaxy devices, that's a genuine convenience upgrade. It is not, in any practical sense, a passport replacement. The gap between those two things is exactly what's worth understanding before you set it up.

Google is rolling out a Gemini for Home smart display update in Google Home version 4.18, adding visual hourly weather forecasts, natural-language media browsing, and conversational news to Nest Hub displays. The changes are rolling out to Early Access users and may not be available to everyone immediately. Performance improvements — making responses faster — are included in the same release.

The OnePlus 15 can now transfer files directly to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac using Quick Share, with no cable, no third-party app, and no cloud upload required. Android Authority reported that AirDrop support via Quick Share has reached the OnePlus 15, extending the direct transfer capability that Google first launched for Pixel 10 devices last November.

A new Samsung Galaxy S27 Pro battery leak suggests the rumored flagship could pack a 5,000mAh cell matching the Galaxy S26 Ultra's capacity in a noticeably smaller body. Tipster kro (@kro_itnyang) shared display and battery details via Digital Trends this week, adding to reports suggesting Samsung may expand its Galaxy S27 lineup from three models to four when it launches in early 2027.

Samsung's Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 have cleared China's 3C database, with both devices appearing in an official regulatory filing issued June 3. The Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 3C certification confirms the first concrete hardware spec for either device: 10W charging at 5V/2A, matching their predecessors exactly. Android Police and Android Authority both covered the filings this week under model numbers SM-L3550 and SM-L7150.

Google announced at I/O last month that Search will automatically generate interactive visual tools, including diagrams, graphs, simulations, and custom interfaces, directly inside search results for all users, free of charge, later this summer. This is not a separate app or a paid feature. Search itself will assemble these outputs in response to ordinary queries, according to Google's I/O announcement.

Samsung's stable One UI 8.5 rollout began last week in South Korea, covering the S24 and S25 families, 2024-era foldables, and the Tab S10 and S11 series. The S23 generation and anything older are not on the confirmed stable release list. If headlines describing this as a rollout for "older Galaxy phones" left you checking your S22's software update screen, that's the correction this article exists to make.

Some Pixel 9 and Pixel 10 owners are reporting eSIM failures ranging from activation problems to severe lockouts, and Google is reportedly aware of the issue, but has not confirmed a fix timeline.

Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel 8a owners are finding the Quick Share Extension installed on their devices after recent system updates — the component required for Quick Share–AirDrop interoperability between Android and Apple devices. The feature itself isn't active yet. Google still needs to flip the switch on its end.

Apple is reportedly building a photo reframing tool for iOS 27 that would let users shift the apparent viewpoint of a spatial image after capture, not by filling in synthetic pixels around the edges, but by working with actual stereo depth data recorded at the moment of shooting. That's a materially different operation from anything Google Photos offers today, and it points to a category Google has not yet publicly addressed. If Apple confirms it at WWDC this month, Google's answer to the...

If Gemini has taken over your Google Home or Nest speakers and you want the old Google Assistant experience back, the answer is frustrating: there is no simple "remove Gemini" button for every setup.

A Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra battery leak suggests Samsung may be reusing the identical 11,600mAh pack from its predecessor not just matching the capacity figure, but reportedly carrying over the same physical component. Reports from Android Authority and SamMobile, both citing GalaxyClub, landed today. Samsung has not confirmed any of these figures.

Three separate data trails now point to the same unreleased Samsung product: a clip-style open-ear earbud that, if the Samsung Galaxy Buds Able leak holds up, would be the company's first entry into a form factor where Bose, Sony, and Anker already have established products. It could also be a mechanical answer to a fit problem that has followed the current Buds lineup since launch.

Google is marketing Gemini as "a next step toward a true generalist agent" — a tool that orchestrates complex tasks across Gmail, Calendar, and connected apps on your behalf. Months after that pitch, the Gemini multiple Google accounts problem remains unsolved. Gemini works within a single active account. That's it. Your work life and personal life stay invisible to each other, and Gemini acts as though the other half of your day simply doesn't exist.

If you're seeing unusual Audible background data usage on Android, the first thing to do is confirm the app is actually the source before changing any settings. This guide walks through how to check whether the Audible mobile data bug is affecting your device, how to limit the damage with the least disruption to features you actually use, and what to send support if you need to escalate.

Google's Android June 2026 security update patches 124 vulnerabilities across Android 14, 15, 16, and 16 QPR2, including one privilege-escalation flaw that is already being used in targeted attacks, according to Google's official advisory published this week. The exploited bug is CVE-2025-48595, a high-severity elevation-of-privilege flaw in Android's Framework component. The fix exists. Getting it to users is a different problem entirely.

The European Parliament has replaced Google with French search engine Qwant as the default on its staff computers, citing digital sovereignty and privacy. The switch is unlikely to register as a competitive event for Google, which holds roughly 90% of European search market share. What makes it notable is the timing: Parliament made the change a day after the European Commission unveiled its first thorough tech sovereignty strategy, a package that could eventually tie billions in public IT...

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra has a name, a model number, and a place in the regulatory record. A Bluetooth SIG certification filed this week lists the device explicitly as the "Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra," model number SM-F976, with five regional variants, according to Android Authority and Android Headlines, both reporting the filing today. That is what the certification confirms: the retail name Samsung submitted to a regulatory body, and nothing else. The specs, the two-device strategy, and...

A One UI 8.5 roadmap reportedly posted on Samsung's Hong Kong site suggests the Galaxy S22, Galaxy Z Fold 4, and Galaxy Z Flip 4 will not receive the update. The three 2022 flagship families are absent from the schedule entirely, and since Samsung's update strategy has historically been consistent across regions, Android Police concluded that the exclusion is likely global. Security patches are still scheduled for approximately one more year, Android Authority reported, but the reporting...

Samsung didn't remove lockdown protection from One UI 9. It embedded the feature directly into the power menu, making Samsung One UI 9 lockdown mode automatic the moment you open and dismiss the menu without selecting anything. The phone drops to the lock screen, fingerprint and face unlock are disabled, and a PIN or password is now the only way back in. No dedicated button required, no second tap needed.

Google announced today that Google Wallet ID passes will come to select EU member states this summer, with a privacy-preserving age verification feature built alongside German savings bank Sparkasse as the first confirmed use case. Which countries are included, and what credential types will be supported, has not been specified.

Google announced last month that Gboard is getting a Gemini-powered feature called Rambler, which the company says will filter out filler words, self-corrections, pauses, and repetition as you speak, so only cleaned-up text lands in the input field. That's a specific claim, and it matters because Gboard already has tools that correct dictated text after it appears. If Rambler genuinely processes speech before transcription is committed, it addresses a real gap in how voice input works today. If...

Google launched Search profiles today, giving eligible creators and publishers a claimable, customizable page inside Search where they can consolidate their bio, content links, and social presence into a single branded destination. The feature supplements standard search results without altering how links rank in ordinary queries. For creators who qualify, it offers something specific and limited: a managed identity inside Google's own surfaces, connected directly to a follow-based discovery...

Google launched two targeted updates to its payments platform yesterday, and the split between them is worth understanding clearly. Google Pay direct checkout brings saved Google Wallet payment credentials directly into a retailer's checkout page, cutting out the separate Google-hosted flow that currently pulls shoppers away from the merchant's site. The second update, a revamped Secure Payment Authentication (SPA) system, replaces SMS one-time passwords and bank redirects with a biometric...

The Galaxy Z Flip 8 has appeared in the SGS certification database drawing power at 9V and 2.77A, or 25W wired charging the same ceiling every Z Flip has carried since the Flip 4, Android Authority reported today. If confirmed at launch, Samsung will have shipped five consecutive clamshells without touching the Galaxy Z Flip 8 charging speed.

Google Photos is building a dedicated "Copy photo" button that sits directly on the image viewing screen, letting users send a photo to the clipboard without opening the share sheet at all. Code found in version 7.79 of the Android app points to the work being underway, Android Authority reported today. None of it is live yet, but Google could activate the Google Photos copy photo button via a server-side switch at any point without requiring users to install a new build.

Chrome posted record scores on two industry-standard browser benchmarks this week, and the numbers themselves are almost beside the point. What's more interesting is the engineering work behind them a coordinated overhaul spanning three separate subsystems that reveals how much the browser's job has changed.

Samsung's Samsung Health AI redesign begins rolling out today for Android users, with the app shifting its core purpose from displaying raw biometric data to interpreting what that data means. The update lands on Android 10 or later devices running Samsung Health v7.0, with a Samsung account required, per Samsung's Global Newsroom. The headline coaching features, though, are expected to debut first on the Galaxy Watch 9, anticipated in late July, according to 9to5Google.

At MWC 2026 in Barcelona, Samsung Display was on the show floor with a phone that slides upward to reveal more screen. Back home, Samsung's product division was shipping a phone that unfolds twice. Both devices exist. Only one is for sale. That gap between what Samsung's display engineers can demonstrate and what its product team will actually commit to defines the current state of the Samsung rollable phone.

Samsung Galaxy Glasses: What an Accidental App Update Reveals

Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide Leak Explained: Shape, Specs, and Unknowns