News and Updates about Android

The YouTube Music Library tab has disappeared for some Android Auto users, replaced by a blank screen showing a "No Items" message where saved playlists, albums, and liked songs should be. If you're seeing that message where your YouTube Music Library used to be on Android Auto, you're not alone. Both Android Authority and 9to5Google reported the YouTube Music Android Auto bug earlier today, and a thread in r/AndroidAuto has drawn enough matching complaints to suggest this is wider than...

Samsung Messages goes dark for US Galaxy users this month. Secondary coverage places the Samsung Messages shutdown date as July 6, per PhoneArena, but Samsung's official notice confirmed only "July 2026" and directed users to open the app for the exact date. July 6 is the working figure in coverage, not a Samsung-confirmed hard deadline. Open the app now to verify your specific cutoff.

New Pixel connectivity complaints surfaced on Reddit today, and the pattern is becoming hard to ignore. Three separate posts from the past 24 hours describe a Pixel 10 toggling unprompted between Wi-Fi and mobile data, another user losing mobile data entirely, and a Pixel 7a owner who recovered by running a connectivity reset. Commenters across each thread report the same experience, with some saying the problems have persisted for months, Android Authority reported today.

That small green leaf next to an alternate route in Google Maps is not a decoration or a generic eco-branding gesture. It signals one specific thing: this is the most fuel- or energy-efficient route available, calculated for your engine type. If you've ever wondered what does the leaf symbol mean on Google Maps, the short answer is that it's a comparison tool, not a command. It shows up alongside the fastest route so you can weigh both options and choose.

A tipster with a decent track record has told SamMobile today that Samsung plans to announce the Galaxy Tab S12 Plus and Tab S12 Ultra in September 2026, placing the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Plus and Ultra launch date roughly two months out. That claim lands on top of independent projections from Trusted Reviews and Notebookcheck, both of which flagged late summer 2026 five months ago based on Samsung's previous release patterns. Three outlets arriving at the same window by different routes is...

Samsung Messages stops working this month for most US Galaxy phone users on Android 12 or higher. Samsung's US support page cited July 6 as the shutdown date, according to PhoneArena, though Samsung's own end-of-service announcement directs users to check the app itself for their exact device-specific cutoff. Either way, the deadline is here.

When an Android user selects a photo through Google's Photo Picker and shares it with an app, any GPS coordinates embedded in that image are removed. No prompt, no toggle, no acknowledgment that anything was stripped. For most use cases, that's a reasonable default. For apps where geotags are the core functionality — a hiking tracker, a travel journal, a location-aware social platform — it's a capability failure that neither the user nor the developer can fix.

Ice Universe is claiming the wider Galaxy Z Fold 8 will weigh just 201g, undercutting the 215g Fold 7 and the 229g Huawei Pura X Max, Android Authority reported four weeks ago. That Galaxy Z Fold 8 specs leak would make Samsung's wide model dramatically lighter than anything the company has shipped in the foldable category. A second leaker who reportedly handled the hardware called the weight "unbelievable" and said the device "feels like a new beginning," 9to5Google reported last week.

Google has confirmed a new foldable gaming mode for Android 17 that splits a foldable's inner display into gameplay on top and a virtual gamepad on the bottom. The catch: It was not included in the stable Android 17 release that began rolling out to Pixel devices on June 16, 2026.

Google is rolling out a stable Android 17 OTA to Beta 4 and Beta 4.1 users, designed to move them off the beta program without wiping their data. Some Beta 4.1 devices still haven't received it, and the Android 17 Beta 4.1 stable OTA delay now carries a concrete hazard: Android Authority warned this week that Beta 4.1 users should avoid the latest Google Play System update because it can cause a bootloop, a failure state where the phone cycles through restarts and never fully loads the OS. The...

Survey data suggests most mobile users reading this on a phone are doing so against a dark background though the more interesting question is why. A 2026 mixed-method study surveying 215 mobile users found that roughly 68% reported an overall dark mode preference, with the sample skewing young (mean age 24.3) and recruited in Vietnam, so treat the figures as directional rather than universal (Hazadi & Kamaruzaman, Journal of Mobile Studies). What gives them weight is the contextual breakdown:...

Google has begun notifying users that Fitbit app versions older than 5.0 will stop being supported on Android and iOS on July 15, 2026, ending a workaround some holdouts used to avoid the Google Health redesign.

Samsung is ending free access to its SmartThings API in October, and the users who will feel it are not the millions running the standard SmartThings app. They're the technically engaged users who built custom setups on top of the free API, and some of them have no practical way around the new Samsung SmartThings API fees. Android Authority confirmed this week that paid tiers take effect in October, including a $4.99-per-month personal plan for non-commercial individual developers, with free...

LibrePods for Android v0.2.3: Easier Install, Root Still Required

A Google Play System update currently available to Pixel devices can render phones running Android 17 beta 4.1 completely unusable, trapping them in a reboot loop with no clean way out. The Android 17 beta 4.1 Play System update bootloop issue was flagged today by Android Authority, after multiple Pixel owners reported their devices never recovered after the update completed.

Google's new Home Speaker is finally here, and the first reviews point to a clear trade-off: this is a Gemini-first smart home device, not a straightforward Nest Audio replacement.

Making a polished YouTube Short used to mean leaving the app. Record, export to CapCut, cut to the beat by hand, add text and stickers, import back to YouTube. The native tools weren't built for that kind of precision. YouTube has spent the past year pushing a sequence of changes aimed at eliminating that round trip, and the updates are substantive enough to map carefully.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE Plus is currently on sale for $434, down $216 from its $649.99 list price. That discount matters because the FE line's value proposition has always depended on price and at $649.99, the case for buying was genuinely mixed.