The Latest on Android

A One UI 9.5 leak surfaced this week in the form of screenshots and test-server activity, even as Samsung is still mid-rollout on One UI 9. Samsung is currently busy preparing to roll out the stable version of One UI 9.0 to older Galaxy devices, according to Android Authority. Android Authority describes the overlap as Samsung multitasking while it finishes that rollout, not as evidence the current One UI 9 push has been dropped.

Google added four phones to its lineup yesterday: the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and the foldable Pixel 11 Pro Fold (The Verge). The Google Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro new features fall into five main groups: a faster chip paired with more proactive Gemini, a camera mode that shoots on its own timing, an overhauled voice and writing toolkit, camera-based search and translation, and a set of Pro-only imaging and video upgrades, according to Google's own announcement (Google Blog).

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.

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.

Ask ten people how the iPhone Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 matchup plays out this fall, and most will predict a rout: Apple's foldable debut does to this category what the original iPhone did to BlackBerry. That prediction needs a clearer definition of "win" before it holds up. Total foldable-market share is a different question than launch-week hype, and once you separate the two, the case for an Apple rout looks a lot thinner.

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.

A One UI 9 Watch test build for the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic has reportedly appeared on Samsung's servers, according to Android Central. It's model-specific evidence that a Galaxy Watch 8 Classic One UI 9 Watch beta is on the way, carrying the same software already running on the Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 out of the box. The reports reviewed here don't identify an enrollment date, a region list, or a feature changelog.

Google's Made by Google 2026 event lands this Wednesday, August 12, in New York, where the company is expected to unveil a new Pixel lineup that ZDNET describes as four phones: the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and a Pixel 11 Pro Fold. CNET's coverage of the same Google Pixel 11 launch event corroborates three of those four models and adds a Pixel Watch 5 to the guest list, though its reporting doesn't specifically name the Pro XL.

Galaxy S26 owners testing One UI 9 finally have a new build to install after nearly a month without a major beta release. Reports of One UI 9 Beta 5 began appearing on August 12, with the update reaching Galaxy S26-series testers in India.

Samsung has stopped delivering Google Play System updates to devices running beta versions of One UI, including the Galaxy S26's One UI 9.0 (Android 17) beta. The company says the move happened "in coordination with Google."

Galaxy Watch owners are flooding Reddit with the same complaint for the third time this year: their watches are hemorrhaging battery life for no obvious reason. The latest wave of Galaxy Watch battery drain reports surfaced today, according to Android Authority, hitting Galaxy Watch 6, 7, and 8 owners just as Samsung launched the Galaxy Watch 9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2. Samsung has not publicly acknowledged the problem at any point during this cycle.

Google's own product page for the Pixel 11 shows a short video of a color-shifting orb glowing on the side of the camera bar, The Verge reported last month. That single detail is confirmed, straight from Google's store, not a leak. The rest of the Google Pixel 11 Pro teaser story, including the feature's name, whether it's limited to the Pro model, and whether it replaces an existing sensor, comes from one outlet's reading of leaked information rather than any spec sheet Google has published,...

A full set of press renders for the Lenovo Googlebook 15 surfaced this week, giving the clearest look yet at Google's new Android-based laptop category before either company has said a word about it. The images, first shared by Digital Citizen, show a 15-inch laptop built for Google's Gemini-first computing push, complete with a new Google 'G' key that leak reports identify as a Gemini shortcut.

This guide covers how to disable AI Mode in Chrome on desktop: the shortcuts that show up in the address bar, the New Tab Page search box, and the right-click context menu on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It doesn't touch Google Search's own AI Mode tab, which lives outside the browser entirely and gets a short, separate note near the end.

Days before Google's Pixel 11 launch event, code teardowns show the company finalizing onboarding screens for a feature called Proactive Assistance, currently gated to Pixel 11 hardware only, according to Android Authority. The discovery gives the clearest look yet at a feature that could become one of the more visible AI additions on Google's next flagship, and at how far the company is willing to let Gemini reach into a user's inbox, calendar, and text messages before being asked.

As of this week, a Samsung Messages alternative app called Messages by OzarksMade is undergoing closed testing through Google Play, with a public launch set for 14 days after its testing Google Group hits 12 members and a post-launch price of $0.99. Treat that as a snapshot, not a finished product. Betas shift, thresholds get hit or missed, and pricing plans change before launch.

A poll of 6,310 Pixel readers published earlier this year found that 62.7% say Google Tensor's performance gap doesn't affect their purchase decision. That sounds like a comfortable majority. It isn't a mandate and more importantly, it's the wrong number to focus on.

Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is now on sale across 106 markets at $2,099.99. Within Samsung's lineup, the Ultra name is supposed to mean the company's highest performance tier, and Samsung frames this phone as bringing that standard to foldables for the first time. In its review, PCMag called it Samsung's most capable foldable yet, citing faster performance, a longer-lasting battery and sharper cameras than any other Z Fold.

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 is currently dormant. Android Authority reported today that the rollout is underway and advises leaving the app installed.

Ask readers interested in Pixel foldables whether Google's hardware still measures up, and the results are divided. In a poll of 2,825 voters, 39% named hardware as the thing that "doesn't keep up," the single largest response, while 24% still credited software as Google's advantage, 28% said they'd wait for the Pixel 11 Pro Fold before deciding, and a smaller 9% said they're waiting for Apple's foldable instead. That's not a verdict on whether Google Pixel foldable phones are worth buying....

A Samsung device with model number SM-X848U appeared in the FCC database today, with Notebookcheck reporting that the identifier reportedly corresponds to the US 5G variant of the Galaxy Tab S12+, citing 91mobiles. That mapping comes from third-party leak reporting, not from the FCC filing itself. The listing arrived eighteen days after two related variants cleared Safety Korea certification, and together the three filings across two regulatory bodies point toward a fall 2026 release that...

Android apps that ship with home screen widgets do not always make that feature easy to discover. No signal on the Play Store listing page, no prompt after install. For apps that do not promote widgets elsewhere, the launcher's widget picker may be the only obvious confirmation, and that requires you to already own the app and know to check.

A trial-production leak claims the OnePlus 16 packs a dual-cell battery described as having roughly 9,000mAh-equivalent capacity alongside a 200MP camera, but the picture is messier than the headline numbers suggest. Android Authority and My Mobile India both published details on the OnePlus 16 200MP camera and 9000mAh battery leak within a day of each other. The two reports describe the same trial-production claims, so treat them as one leak chain repeated twice, not independent confirmation.

A developer known as busung has released an open-source tool called the Root My Galaxy app, which claims to grant temporary root access to select Snapdragon-powered Galaxy flagships without unlocking the bootloader or tripping Samsung's Knox e-fuse, according to an Android Authority report published today. The developer describes the process as one-click and says it leaves user data untouched, per the same report. The conventional route to persistent Samsung root involves bootloader changes,...

Some Pixel owners are still waiting for the Google Wallet fix that should have landed automatically. If your phone is showing a "Device doesn't meet security requirements" warning every time you open Google Wallet, it hasn't been compromised and your cards are fine. A stalled update rollout left a specific group of beta opt-outs stranded on a software build that Wallet's security checks no longer recognize as certified.

Google has spent the past several months steadily expanding what the Gemini overlay can do, and the latest round of Gemini overlay new features makes the strategic intent hard to miss. The overlay the assistant panel you pull up from any Android screen is gaining video generation, music creation, Canvas, and Guided Learning directly on its surface. Taken together with a persistent floating bubble still in testing and a Gemini Live redesign that eliminates its own dedicated screen, the changes...

New European pricing figures suggest the S26 FE could cost meaningfully more than its predecessor, while confirmed upgrades still fall short of justifying the gap

Samsung Electronics' phone business lost money in the same quarter its chip division posted the most profitable quarter in company history. The MX and Networks unit, which sells Galaxy phones, tablets, wearables and networking gear, reported an operating loss of KRW 0.7 trillion for the second quarter of 2026, even as the company's chip division posted KRW 89.2 trillion in operating profit and companywide operating profit hit an all-time high of KRW 89.5 trillion, according to Samsung's...

Google Photos has added a floating camera button inside its AI editing tools, letting people snap a fresh photo without leaving the app and feed it straight into an edit. The new Google Photos AI camera button shows up inside Photo Remix and Photo to Video, part of a wider push to add camera access to tools in the app's Create tab.

The Google Pixel 11 hasn't launched yet, and leaked details about it are already complicating the case for buying one. Google has confirmed that portions of the lineup will cost more, and says the increase comes from higher memory costs, not tariffs (TechRepublic, last week). At the same time, leaked battery figures suggest the Pro and Pro XL models may actually pack smaller batteries than the Pixel 10 phones they replace (PhoneArena, last week). That's the real tension behind the question of...

Google is testing a redesigned Android voice search button that turns the familiar mic icon into a swipeable toolbar with four modes: Search, AI Mode, Search Live, and Song Search, replacing what used to be a single-purpose transcription tool (9to5Google, reported this week; corroborated by Android Headlines).

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE leaked images posted this week give the public a new unofficial look at the company's next Fan Edition phone. A Telegram account called "The Cipher Project" shared three photos showing the device in black, light green, and dark purple, according to 9to5Google.

Some Pixel owners are reporting laggy, stuttering gameplay in lightweight titles like Clash Royale and Brawl Stars after installing Android 17, with the slowdowns seemingly tied to restricted GPU performance (9to5Google, last month). It's a small story on its own, and the report doesn't pin the blame on any specific Pixel generation. But it's a useful reminder that Pixel 10 GPU performance issues never fully went away, despite months of driver updates aimed at fixing them.

A December 2025 Chromium commit adds support for chrome.tabGroups.get(), an extension method that lets developers query tab-group data, on a surface the commit itself calls "desktop Android." That term doesn't appear defined anywhere else in the supplied commit, so every claim in this piece about where it applies stays tied to that exact phrase (Chromium commit). It's a narrow addition to the list of Chrome for Android features extension developers might want, and it's worth being precise about...

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.

New code inside the Android Canary 2608 build suggests Google is considering a narrower set of Android lock screen Quick Settings restrictions than what its earlier work pointed toward. Rather than locking down nearly every tile, the strings now single out four: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Mobile Data, and Airplane Mode, according to an Android Authority code teardown. Flashlight and auto-rotate would stay usable without unlocking the phone, based on the same code.