Gadget Hacks

A developer has published an open-source tool that lets you pair Apple Watch with Android and skip the iPhone step entirely, at least on one specific device combination.

Both Microsoft's new Magnetic Connect charging cable and Apple's MagSafe are designed to detach instead of pulling a laptop off a desk if someone trips over the cord. That part is simple enough. The more important difference is how each system affects the laptop's available ports while charging, and that detail changes how useful magnetic charging actually is.

Android has a setting that quietly attaches your phone number to every Google account signed in on that device, including personal, work, and secondary profiles, without asking first (Android Authority, 9 days ago). If you want to stop Google from linking your phone number to accounts you've deliberately kept separate, you need to do two things: turn off the setting so it stops happening going forward, and manually remove the number from any account where it doesn't belong. This applies if your...

Apple's Made for iPhone Duo badge is going live on App Store product pages today, as the company's new editorial collections for Duo apps launch alongside the device itself (Apple, yesterday). Apple's public developer guidance identifies Duo screenshot submission as the trigger for the badge, but it does not explain whether any additional Duo-specific review happens before a product page can display it (Apple Developer, earlier this month).

Motorola has started pushing stable Android 17 to the Razr Ultra 2025, but only a narrow slice of owners can actually grab it today. So far, the update is confirmed only on unlocked units sold in the United States, according to TuttoAndroid and a separate report from Android Authority published yesterday.

Every launch Googlebook keyboard turns F1, F2, and F3 into dedicated Android navigation keys, giving the Googlebook physical navigation buttons a permanent spot on the hardware instead of leaving them as onscreen taps.

Microsoft held a rare live hardware event on Oct. 7, 2026, unveiling the Surface Laptop Ultra on Nvidia's RTX Spark platform, along with new AI features for Windows 11. The Microsoft Surface event 2026 stood out partly because of its format: Tom's Guide noted that Microsoft rarely holds live hardware events of this scale.

Google began rolling out its October 2026 Pixel update on Oct. 6, and for anyone still carrying a Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro, this is likely the final update those phones will receive, according to Notebookcheck. The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro launched in October 2021, and Google's extended five-year support window for the pair closes this month.

Google has confirmed that Find Hub will add left-behind reminders, letting users receive notifications when they move away from tracked items.

The idea that high school students oppose full-day cellphone bans gets repeated as settled fact, but the national data behind it cover a broader group than high schoolers alone.

No changelog text, version number, release date, or archived listing confirms that Tesla's Android app has picked up a dedicated tablet or foldable layout. No Apple App Store listing or changelog confirms anything new for iPad either. That gap matters for anyone running the Tesla app on a Galaxy Tab, Z Fold, Pixel Tablet, or iPad who's seen chatter about a redesigned large-screen interface and wants to know if it's already live.

A new Android app called Foldy turns the prop-and-fold trick on book-style foldables into a genuine lock-screen dashboard. The moment a phone like the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is locked and set down in tent or laptop mode, it launches a Foldy Android StandBy display showing the time, a calendar, or Android widgets, all without unlocking the device (9to5Google, yesterday). The app is modeled on the StandBy mode Apple already ships on the iPhone Duo and recent iPhones. Every hands-on report so far comes...

No 2026 Pokémon Night Out event has surfaced on Pokémon's official channels as of this week. A check of Pokémon's event and press announcements, along with its official Twitch and YouTube accounts, turned up nothing under that name: no date, no start time, no host platform, no published lineup.

If the question is where is the YouTube subscriptions tab, the short answer is that it hasn't disappeared. YouTube relocated it. On iPhone and Android, the tab is now labeled "Subs" and lives inside the Home tab's new top bar, according to 9to5Google and AndroidPure.

Apple market share growth amid industry decline: what the Mac and iPhone numbers actually show

Hidden code for a "Focus Peaking" toggle has turned up inside Snapseed's Android app, but the Snapseed focus peaking feature doesn't actually work yet, even when testers force it on.

Google Photos code suggests its 2026 Recap could let people replace or remove individual photos and swap out the background music track, rather than relying only on the current hide-and-regenerate workflow.

Xiaomi's next premium phones could come with a hefty price tag in Europe — and potentially smaller batteries than their Chinese counterparts. A new leak puts the Xiaomi 18 Pro at €1,449 (approximately $1,629), just €50 ($56) below the Xiaomi 17 Ultra's European launch price, while the larger 18 Pro Max could reach €1,849 (about $2,079).

A missing Wi-Fi icon can make it look as though your Galaxy phone has lost its connection, even when the internet is working perfectly. For some users who updated to Samsung's One UI 9, however, the problem isn't Wi-Fi itself. It's how the phone displays its status bar indicators.

Apple's next iPhone update is approaching public release, and Siri AI is about to become useful to a much wider audience. After launching in English in September, Apple's redesigned assistant is expanding to French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish, bringing its conversational features to users who prefer those languages.