The Latest on Android: Page 4

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.

Samsung has officially unveiled the Galaxy S26 FE, turning an August 27 launch rumor into a confirmed product with a release date, price, and final specifications.

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.

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...

Samsung's Memory Manufacturing Technology Center stood up a task force this month to build a commodity DRAM end-fab at its Hwaseong Campus Complex 1. An industry official says the move will lift Samsung DRAM production capacity roughly 15% by December relative to the start of 2026, according to Seoul Economic Daily. The cause is a market running critically short: commodity DRAM prices climbed more than 80% in the first half of this year, a move that makes a capacity investment easy to justify...

Scrolling through your phone from the passenger seat can trigger motion sickness, and Google has quietly added a setting to Android 17 meant to ease that discomfort. Motion Assist overlays small dots around the edge of your screen that move according to your phone's gyroscope and accelerometer, tracking your vehicle's motion (Android Authority today; Google Android Blog earlier this month). This guide explains how to use Motion Assist on Pixel phones, including how to check whether Google has...

Galaxy Z Fold 8 sales in South Korea rose roughly 10% week over week in the seven days after Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo, according to telecommunications industry sources cited by Yonhap News Agency.

Google's Pixel 11 series is set to be unveiled on August 12, continuing a design that looks a lot like last year's Pixel 10, according to a 9to5Google leak from three months ago. What's changing, if that leak holds up, is what's inside: a Tensor G6 chip built around a modem swap aimed at Pixel's most persistent weak spot. Pixel 11 battery life is the question hanging over this launch, and the leaked battery figures suggest Google isn't trying to answer it by simply making the cell bigger.

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.

Google is rolling out a Gemini feature that saves where people stash things they rarely use, so they can ask for the spot back months later. The company's own example: tell Gemini where you put your passport, and Gemini will save the location.

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...

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.

An Android 17-based Pixel Tablet is showing the Quick Share interface for sending files to Apple devices, according to a tip from Joe Lenington that Android Authority reviewed today. It suggests Pixel Tablet Quick Share iPhone transfers may have finally reached Google's 2023 tablet, even though Google's published device list for the feature currently names phones only.

MapQuest, a mapping service some people had assumed was defunct, according to PCMag, is now the No. 1 free app on Apple's US App Store and the top free navigation app on Google Play in the US, per BGR and PCMag. The surge traces back to a dispute over a lake's name: after President Trump signed an August 27 executive order directing federal agencies to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" amid a breakdown in trade talks with Canada, MapQuest publicly refused to make the change, according to BGR.

Several Pixel owners say Recorder has captured audio normally but then failed to show the saved recording afterward, and Google still hasn't explained why.

Type "Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra lowest price" into a search bar right now and the answer hasn't moved: $2,099.99, exactly what Samsung charged when the phone launched. Reviews published last month still list that figure, and none of them point to a retailer markdown, a price-tracker record, or any confirmed Samsung Z Fold 8 Ultra discount (PCMag UK). Anyone hoping for a Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra deal this week will need to keep watching, or decide whether the launch price is worth paying now.

Google confirmed today what happens when a Pixel 11 owner maxes out the Gboard Rambler usage limit, and it's less dramatic than it sounds. The AI dictation tool doesn't shut off. It downgrades (Android Authority).

Google Drive now supports timestamped comments on videos, letting reviewers pin feedback to the exact frame it applies to instead of writing a note and hoping the recipient finds the right spot in the timeline, according to Digital Trends and The Verge. The feature is live now for Google Workspace accounts, Workspace Individual subscriptions, and personal Google accounts, and it arrives switched on by default, according to ThreeVector.

Tom's Guide walked away unimpressed with the Pixel 11 overall, but the outlet singled out one feature it called "genuinely useful": Magic Capture, a camera mode that records a short clip and lets AI pick the best still photos so users stop guessing when to hit the shutter (Tom's Guide, two weeks ago). Anyone figuring out how to use Magic Capture on Pixel 11 will find the basic setup simple, but getting the most out of it means enabling one setting in advance and thinking about your connection...

Samsung has started rolling out the Galaxy S26 One UI 9 Beta 6 update, and it's a maintenance release through and through. The changelog reported so far is almost entirely bug fixes, with no headline features attached to this build.

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.

Google hasn't shipped the Pixel 11 yet, and a leaker has already surfaced the internal codename for the chip that comes after it. The Google Pixel 12 Tensor G7 leak traces back to a single Telegram post: the chip is reportedly called "LaJolla" (Android Authority, earlier this year). That's it. That's the leak.

Google began rolling out the Pixel Watch 5's first software update on September 1, moving the build from CD5A.260611.008 to CP3A.260905.002 while keeping Wear OS 7 based on Android 17. The changelog for this Pixel Watch 5 first update headlines Gemini features like offline AI, Gemini Personalization, and improved GPS route accuracy, but there's a catch worth knowing before you go hunting for something new on your wrist.

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.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 crease is far less visible than on earlier Fold models, according to hands-on reviews published last week, and that alone has helped tip a head-to-head reader poll decisively in the phone's favor. In a survey of more than 1,000 readers, Android Authority found the standard Fold 8 took 59% of the vote to the pricier Fold 8 Ultra's roughly 26% (Android Authority, last week). But a redesigned hinge and a flatter screen don't automatically answer the question that has...

Search for a "Samsung Galaxy S26 $200 Amazon gift card" and you'll find a description that pairs that credit with what it calls Samsung's newest midrange phone. Samsung's supplied launch materials list the Galaxy S26 at $899.99, the S26+ at $1,099.99, and the S26 Ultra at $1,299.99, according to Samsung Newsroom. Those releases don't identify the lineup as a midrange series, so that framing doesn't trace back to Samsung's own announcements.

T-Mobile and Verizon opened preorders for the Pixel 11 lineup on the same day, and both are advertising offers that sound like a free phone. Not all of them actually are. T-Mobile's top Google Pixel 11 carrier deals are device discounts tied to which plan a customer is on and whether they trade in a phone. Verizon's flagship switcher offer bundles a device credit into a specific 48-month plan structure. Read the fine print carelessly and the two "free phone" headlines start to look...

Samsung has reportedly ordered motherboards for a Galaxy S27 Ultra Exynos 2700 variant, according to MoneyToday. If that plan survives to launch, it would mark the first time an Exynos chip has powered Samsung's Ultra flagship since the Galaxy S22 Ultra in 2022, a stretch covering four straight years of Snapdragon-only Ultra models (SamMobile).

Samsung's One UI 9 rollout is moving beyond its newest Galaxy phones, giving owners of last year's flagships a better idea of where they stand. The stable update began expanding to the Galaxy S26 series on Sept. 16 after debuting on the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Z Fold8, and Z Flip8.

A Google Play Store listing for an app called Desktop Camera now describes a finished interface built for tablets, laptops, and desktop-style screens, naming touch, mouse, and keyboard input directly, Squaredtech reported this week. That update is the latest development in the Googlebook Desktop Camera app leak, and it marks a real shift from the placeholder version of the app that surfaced earlier this year. It's evidence that Google is preparing a camera app for larger, desktop-style screens,...

Six months into the Galaxy S26's life, price has done something spec sheets never could: it has flipped the whole comparison on its head. SlashGear checked retail listings today and found the Galaxy S26 selling for $774.99 at Amazon and Best Buy, and for just $712.50 at Walmart, undercutting the $799 the Galaxy S25 charged at its own launch (SlashGear). Retail pricing shifts by the week, so treat those numbers as a snapshot rather than a promise, and check current listings before you buy. But...

The Pixel 11 Pro Fold cracked along both antenna lines next to its hinge during a bend test, and its outer display popped clean off the frame, Trusted Reviews and Android Authority reported. The test comes from Zack Nelson, who runs the YouTube channel JerryRigEverything and put the phone through a series of scratch, flame, dust and bend tests, according to Trusted Reviews.

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,...

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.

A newly reported One UI 9 Call Brief time zone feature shows the other person's local time before an international call even connects, according to Android Authority's hands-on report published yesterday. The outlet tested the feature directly on a Galaxy Z Fold 8, watching the recipient's local time appear while dialing an international number, before the call went through.

Google-backed researchers at the University of California, San Diego are building a 2,000-device computing cluster from retired Pixel smartphones, with the full system due to launch this fall. The target workload is narrow and specific: giving university students affordable access to compute resources for coursework in parallel programming and systems classes. A 20-device pilot has already produced benchmark results, and the architecture is set. This has moved past the whiteboard.

Android users spotted something unfamiliar in their Play Store update queues last Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026: an app called "Android Pulse," often showing up as a blank square with no icon at all. So what is the Android Pulse app doing on millions of phones? According to 9to5Google, it's a first-party Google tool built for diagnostics rather than anything malicious, and its Play Store listing shows more than 10 million downloads.

Google is expected to unveil its first Bluetooth item tracker, the Google Pixel Tag tracker, at today's Made by Google event in New York, according to TechSpot. Google has not confirmed the device as of this writing, so everything below reflects reporting published ahead of the keynote. If the tracker arrives as leaked, it closes a gap that's looked increasingly strange: Google has run a crowdsourced device-finding network since 2024 without ever selling a tag of its own (9to5Google).

If you're weighing Waze vs Google Maps on Android Auto, one detailed month-long comparison offers a useful starting point: a reviewer who ran both apps side by side on a Galaxy S25 Ultra and an 8-inch Android Auto head unit found Waze more proactive about rerouting and easier to read on a dashboard display, but still reached for Google Maps on longer or unfamiliar trips. The comparison is really about how these two apps behave once you're actually driving with them, not whether either one works...

Google hasn't even released the Pixel 11 yet, and already four codenames and a chip nickname for the phone after it have leaked online. That's where Google Pixel 12 rumors stand right now: reports about reports, built on a single leaker's Telegram posts rather than anything resembling a product announcement (Android Authority, 3 months ago).