The Latest on Android: Page 2

Google has announced YouTube background playback for cars with Google built-in, allowing users to watch YouTube videos while parked and continue listening to the audio when they shift into drive. The feature needs an active YouTube Premium subscription.

A small shield sitting next to your battery percentage looks exactly like the kind of alert you shouldn't ignore. It isn't one. If you're wondering what the shield icon means on Samsung Galaxy phones, the answer is simple: Battery Protection is active. Samsung says a Battery Protection indicator may appear in the status bar while the feature is limiting charging.

A new Wear OS app called Now On Wrist takes Pixel's ambient song-recognition feature and puts the result on your wrist instead of your lock screen. The Now On Wrist Wear OS app is live now on Google Play and works with any Wear OS 3.0 or newer smartwatch, not just the Pixel Watch.

Samsung announced a new SmartThings platform update on October 5, 2026, built around a feature called SmartThings Now that moves automation suggestions to the top of the Home tab instead of leaving them buried in menus and submenus. The Samsung SmartThings Now update also redesigns the Home tab layout, adds a Floating Bar for one-handed use, and expands local hub-to-phone control.

Search for "Google Antigravity" from a Pixel or Galaxy phone, and nothing shows up in the Play Store. That's because Google Play marks ordinary Android phones as incompatible with the app, a restriction Android Authority confirmed last week by testing the listing directly. If the search result is confusing, that will probably explain why Google Antigravity isn't available on Android the way most Play Store apps are.

Amazon's October Prime Day sale is underway, and some of the strongest Google Pixel discounts of the fall have already arrived. Prime Big Deal Days runs Oct. 6 through Oct. 7, with Amazon releasing additional limited-time deals three times daily during the 48-hour event.

If your texts are going through fine but photos, videos, GIFs, or other media sit there unsent, you're not alone. Google has confirmed a bug causing disrupted RCS message delivery for a subset of Google Messages users and says a fix is rolling out now.

Google's Pixel 12 lineup is still a long way from launch, but an early leak may have revealed the first concrete clues about the screens coming to all four expected models. The reported specifications show only small resolution changes for Google's three conventional phones, while the next Pixel Fold could be in line for a considerably larger jump.

Fantastical, the calendar app that spent 13 years as an Apple exclusive before reaching Windows two years ago, is reportedly rolling out to early Googlebook users today. Techritual reports that access is already live for a limited group, while Android Authority describes the broader Fantastical Googlebook launch as an announced plan rather than a finished release (Techritual, today; Android Authority, today).

Two rows on a spec sheet, two names with "Android" in them, and a lot of shoppers who assume they're the same feature wearing different labels. They're not.

Google Photos' Wardrobe feature may be getting fixes for two of its biggest gaps: a way to add new clothes without wiping the digital closet, and a way to redo item images that come out looking wrong. Android Authority found both controls in an unreleased Google Photos build, version 7.95, enabled through manual tinkering rather than any Google announcement, according to its regeneration report and refresh report. Neither control is public, and the cited reports don't describe either as a live...

Samsung just introduced the Galaxy Tab S12 series, a new tablet lineup built around Galaxy AI, a bundled S Pen, and a new MediaTek chip. The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra and Galaxy Tab S12+ go on sale October 7 in select and major markets.

Samsung recently unveiled the Galaxy SmartTag3, and for the first time in the SmartTag lineup, the tracker supports iPhone finding and sharing alongside Galaxy devices. T

Samsung budget Galaxy phone price hikes in the US have landed on four models that are already on sale, not a new generation revealed at launch. The Galaxy A17 5G, A27 5G, A37 5G, and A57 5G all carry higher Samsung.com prices this week than they did before, according to SamMobile and Engadget, which both reported the new figures.

Samsung's stable One UI 9 update is now reaching the Galaxy S25 series, Galaxy Z Fold 7, and Galaxy Z Flip 7, with the rollout confirmed live in South Korea, according to Android Authority. It's the next phase of a staged rollout that started with the Galaxy S26 family, and it puts Samsung's 2025 flagship lineup on the same Android 17 build already running on the newer S26 and Z8 devices.

YouTube freezing on Samsung Galaxy phones is turning into a recurring complaint, and the reports cluster around three recent models: the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, the standard Galaxy Z Fold 8, and the Galaxy S26 Ultra.

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.

Samsung is boosting compensation as engineers weigh offers from rival SK hynix, but the gap between its memory and foundry businesses remains wide.

Google has filed a legal challenge against two European Commission orders that would force it to open Android and Search to AI competitors, taking the case to the EU General Court in Luxembourg. The move targets July 2026 decisions requiring Google to give rival AI assistants access to Android features comparable to what its own services receive, plus a separate mandate to share search data with competing search engines, according to The Irish Times and The News International.

Google closed its Pixel 11 launch event in New York on August 12 the way it opened: with Trevor Noah on stage. Near the end, Rick Osterloh, Google's hardware chief, joined him, apparently to wrap things up, after a lineup expected to include Alex Cooper, Steph Curry, PinkPantheress and Ayami Nakajo, according to Engadget's live coverage of the show. It made for solid television. It made for a thinner night of proof.

Samsung's own documentation confirms that specific Galaxy S24 Ultra zoom shots and Motion Photo frame extractions can save as 12MP files, not the 50MP or 200MP number printed on the spec sheet. What the company's public materials don't confirm is what happens to an ordinary photo shot at 1x, when Samsung's "24MP fusion" processing is doing its work in the background. Those are two different claims, and mixing them up is where the confusion starts.

Some Nest Doorbell owners outside the US are hearing their doorbell announcements delivered in an American accent even though other Google Home interactions on the same account still match their configured language or dialect.

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.

Samsung raised prices across the Galaxy S26 lineup in the US, UK, Canada, and Europe this week, pushing the base Galaxy S26 from $899 to $999 and the top-tier 1TB Galaxy S26 Ultra to $1,999 (9to5Google, 4 days ago). The Galaxy S26 price increase took effect October 1 and followed earlier increases in India and South Korea (SamMobile, 3 days ago).

Google Messages has changed where several familiar actions live. Swipe left on a conversation now reveals timestamps and RCS encryption status, and swiping right on an individual message opens a direct reply that quotes the original text above your response. Learning these Google Messages gestures now will save you from hunting around for options that used to sit in plain sight.

Ireland's Data Protection Commission fined Google €403 million, about $463 million, over how it processed location data through three features: Web & App Activity, Location History, and Location Accuracy. The regulator also ordered Google to bring its processing into compliance with GDPR within six months.

A hidden screen tucked inside a Google Messages beta build caps pinned chats at six, well below the 20 conversations the app currently lets most users pin. The find points to a broader Google Messages pinned chats redesign that would show pinned chats as large contact icons in a row at the top of the inbox, replacing today's smaller pin treatment.

TechRadar reported recently that Google is rolling out a batch of Google Home updates addressing errors with Nest cameras and doorbells, Matter device status, Find My Phone, and Automations, based on September 30 release notes from Google. The Gemini voice-assistant changes are labeled Early Access. Google does not apply that label to the separate Google Home app fixes.

Start with one question: did tap-to-pay ever work right on this phone, or did it work fine for weeks and then suddenly quit? That answer determines whether you're dealing with a setup problem you can fix yourself or a newly reported bug that no amount of settings-tweaking will touch. Working through that distinction first is the fastest way to fix Google Wallet not working on Pixel without wasting time on steps that don't apply to you.

Google confirmed on Monday, the same day its five new Googlebook laptops went on sale, that a small handful of complex apps and games may not perform at their best on three of the five models. That statement is the first official acknowledgment of Intel Googlebook Android app performance issues, with Google telling Android Authority that the vast majority of Android apps still run smoothly on both Intel and Qualcomm Googlebooks right out of the box, according to reports from APH Networks and...

On one Android phone, apps, texts, call history, and settings combined added up to less than 132MB, while photos and videos on the same device totaled 76GB (Android Police, 15 months ago). That's a striking example, not a universal rule, but it points toward the real question behind how to reduce Android backup storage in Google Drive: check what's actually filling the account before touching a single setting.

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.

The Google Pixel 10a price increase is already showing up at checkout. The phone's U.S. price jumped from $499 to $599 at the Google Store, and that new figure has spread to Amazon and Best Buy too.

Samsung is going bigger again with the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra, a 14.6-inch Android flagship built around a massive OLED display, an included S Pen, expandable storage, and desktop-style multitasking. Samsung will release the tablet in the US on Oct. 7, 2026, putting it directly against Apple's 13-inch iPad Pro M5 at the top of the premium tablet market.

If the Google Maps speedometer on your Android Auto display is missing and you haven't touched a single setting, you're not alone, and you're not stuck. The most consistently reported fix is to set a destination and start navigating, a workaround several affected drivers say brings the speedometer right back (SlashGear, yesterday). That fix addresses one specific version of the feature, though. It won't help if what's actually missing for you is the newer, always-on display that works without a...

Google may be testing location as a new signal for Pixel Launcher app suggestions. Android Authority spotted interface text yesterday that swaps "routines" for "location" in the wording Pixel Launcher uses to describe why certain apps surface on the home screen or in the app drawer. Nothing beyond that text has turned up, so this reads as an early signal, not a confirmed feature.

Google's support page for the Play Store wishlist tells users to "use the filters at the top to sort by Games, Apps, Books, or Play Pass." Android Authority reported that the filters weren't available through normal use on any of its test devices, even when running Play Store version 53.5.48-34.

Chrome is building a Save Video Frame feature for its desktop Global Media Controls panel, a button meant to grab the active video frame as a clean image rather than a standard screenshot. Digital Citizen first reported the feature in April 2026. Chromium subsequently implemented it in July and enabled it by default in September. The feature has also been observed working in Chrome 155 builds, although availability across the stable channel remains unconfirmed.

Google's new Android sideloading restrictions took effect on September 30, 2026, bringing developer verification requirements to four countries. But Android users can still install apps outside Google Play, and the first round of enforcement is more limited than the broader policy might suggest.

Samsung's Galaxy S27 lineup is reportedly expanding from three phones to four, and that expansion is tangled up with a chip decision Samsung hasn't made yet. Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra rumors have picked up through industry reporting out of Korea rather than leaked spec sheets this time, covering a new display material, a camera shake-up, and an unresolved fight over which processor powers the phone. Samsung's next top-tier device is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2027.