News and Updates about Android

Google now confirms that blood-pressure and insulin-resistance trend tracking are free on Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5, while the same two tools require a Google Health Premium subscription on Fitbit Air and the newly announced Fitbit Edge. This Google Health features Pixel Watch Fitbit comparison lays out exactly what Google has confirmed, what its own announcements leave unexplained, and what Fitbit Edge buyers should check before preordering.

Ask Play, Google Play's AI-powered search feature, can now generate a side-by-side comparison between apps alongside its existing conversational recommendations. Google says the new Google Play Ask Play app comparison tool went live in search results starting Oct. 13, 2026, weighing details like subscription models or offline support against each other (Android Developers' Blog, last week).

Google's 120x Pro Res Zoom on the Pixel 11 Pro sounds like a spec-sheet gimmick, and at its most extreme setting, much of what you see can come from generative AI reconstruction rather than detail resolved by the lens.

Google has confirmed that it encrypts and stores a user's enrolled selfie video on its own servers, rather than only on the device used to record it. That server-side storage is intentional. Google says the purpose of selfie video sign-in is to help people recover accounts after losing access to a device that holds their passkeys, so the reference video needs to work across devices.

Google AI Plus is losing Pro model selection. Google has begun emailing subscribers to say the option will disappear from the $4.99-a-month plan starting November 13, 2026, according to 9to5Google.

Reports that Samsung is exiting the Exynos Auto chip business have surfaced in Korean industry media, and they're detailed enough to take seriously even though Samsung itself hasn't confirmed them.

Google has confirmed that Android Auto's squiggly media progress bar is sticking around, closing out months of uncertainty after the design repeatedly appeared and disappeared for some drivers.

Google built Googlebook to run on Android, then quietly defaulted several of its biggest apps away from it. That's the short answer to why Googlebook apps run as web apps instead of native Android experiences: Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Sheets, and YouTube all open as Chrome-based web experiences on these laptops, not the Android apps that ship on phones. Google Keep is the one confirmed exception, running natively on Android Authority's test unit, though a single result doesn't prove every...

Google is testing a new Google Nest speaker firmware update, version 3.79.550760, but for now the rollout is limited to people enrolled in Google's speaker Preview Program. The build currently covers four older speakers, the original Google Home, Home Mini, Nest Mini, and Nest Audio, according to 9to5Google. The supplied reporting does not include a Google announcement describing the update.

The Exynos 2700 story has moved from early chip leaks to reported factory production. Samsung has started front-end mass production of the processor expected to power at least part of its 2027 Galaxy S27 lineup, according to industry sources.

Samsung's stable One UI 9 update, built on Android 17, started reaching US Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 units on Oct. 2 following an earlier stable release in South Korea. The rollout began with select carrier models and has since expanded to unlocked phones and additional US carriers.

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.

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.

Google now documents Gemini Call for Me as a feature that can place and handle certain calls to businesses on a user's behalf. What remains undocumented as a released feature is the reported expansion to personal contacts, including scenarios where Gemini could call a friend or family member to pass along a message or ask a question. Google has published setup, eligibility, disclosure, monitoring, and data-handling details for the existing business-focused Call for Me feature, but not for that...

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.

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.

A fresh APK teardown suggests the Pixel Search app coming to older Pixels might finally go official, though Google still hasn't said a word about it. Code inside Pixel Search version 1.0.983036833 points to support for Pixel 6 and newer, a Gemini-powered suggestions feature, and new privacy controls, Android Authority found. Only one of those three things is actually live right now: the privacy toggles. The rest is still buried in code.