The Latest from Gadget Hacks: Page 16

Jennifer Bailey, the Apple vice president who built and ran Apple Pay, Apple Wallet, and Apple Card, is retiring after 23 years at the company, AppleInsider reported today. Bloomberg broke the news first, and Apple's Eddy Cue confirmed the departure in a note to employees, according to AppleInsider. Bailey spent the last 12 years as vice president of Apple Pay and related services, a run that began when she joined Apple in 2003, per AppleInsider.

Search for the best $100 smartphone in 2026 and the results won't cooperate: every phone reviewers have actually tested this year costs more than that. Samsung's Galaxy A17 5G lists at $174.99, and Motorola's cheapest 2026 model, the Moto G Play, runs $169, with the standard Moto G at $199 (Android Authority, 3 months ago). Even PCMag's "cheap phone" roundup skips $100 entirely; its budget category starts under $300 (PCMag, seven weeks ago).

MLB's iPhone app has dropped a longstanding limit on its Live Activity feature: fans can now track any scheduled game, not just a favorite team. The change is part of a broader MLB app CarPlay and Live Activities update that also reworks how the app works behind the wheel. Open Gameday for any matchup, tap the new Track button in the header, and the score follows along on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, 9to5Mac reported today.

A satellite passing overhead has no opinion about a stairwell, a parking garage, or a windowless office. A phone's antenna does. That gap, between where a satellite can technically reach and where a phone can actually use it, sits at the center of Starlink direct-to-cell coverage limitations. Regulatory approvals for the service have piled up steadily over the past two years, but the public record says almost nothing about whether the signal holds up where people actually spend most of their...

Search "my Roku remote won't pair," and most of what comes back isn't a pairing failure at all. If the remote can already move through Roku's menus and pull up voice search, pairing has succeeded, and the real issue is that the TV hasn't been set up for power and volume control yet, which is a separate step handled independently of pairing.

Google's Pixel 11 Pro Fold hands-on landed this week, and Engadget's headline doesn't leave much room for interpretation: "Stagnating Instead of Innovating," delivered in a year when Samsung made two new flagship foldables of its own (Engadget). That contrast is the starting point for this Pixel 11 Pro Fold vs Galaxy Z Fold 8 comparison, and it's worth being precise about which Samsung phone actually belongs in it.

Apple popularized the idea of bringing two phones together to share content. Google is now introducing a similar workflow for some Android devices. The Android Quick Share tap to share feature started rolling out this week, adding a new way for Pixel owners to start sharing files and contact info.

A rubberized, soccer-ball-shaped tracker that costs as little as $14.99 now taps into the same crowdsourced Find My network that powers Apple's $29 AirTag. That's the pitch behind Ugreen's FineTrack 2, and on paper it reads like an easy win for anyone tired of paying Apple prices for a plastic disc with a chip inside. But "half the price" only holds true on sale days, and the real question buried under that marketing line is what a buyer actually gives up at either price point.

Google officially unveiled the Pixel 11 series yesterday, calling the new Tensor G6 chip its "fastest, most powerful" yet. The announcement detailed a long list of performance claims but left out any mention of a manufacturing process node or foundry partner, leaving the pre-launch Pixel 11 2nm chip rumor unresolved on launch day (Google, yesterday).

Google's support documentation appears to extend Pixel 11 FeliCa support, the contactless standard behind Japan's transit gates, e-money terminals, and digital door keys, to some Pixel 11 models sold outside Japan. That's the claim in Android Headlines' reading of that documentation, published yesterday. No other outlet has independently confirmed it, and Google hasn't issued a statement.

The clearest evidence yet for Samsung Galaxy H1 headphones comes from code strings and icons buried inside the Galaxy Wearable app, which indicate Samsung is developing full-size, Bluetooth over-ear headphones under that codename, according to SamMobile.

Apple took away the iPad's old job. It can no longer act as a Home hub; that role now sits strictly with HomePod and Apple TV. A small independent app called HomeDeck bets there's still a use for a spare iPad in a smart home: not as the brain, but as a HomeKit dashboard for iPad that displays an Apple Home someone has already built out. HomeDeck's own pitch is a dedicated screen, not a replacement for the hub sitting underneath it.

References to WhatsApp custom emoji reactions for iPhone have turned up in WhatsApp for iOS beta version 26.32.10.16, hinting that the app may eventually let iPhone owners swap out its six standard reaction icons for their own picks (WABetaInfo, last week). Right now, every iPhone user sees the same fixed lineup, 👍, ❤️, 😂, 😮, 😢, and 🙏, when they long-press a message, with no built-in way to change it (Cult of Mac, today). The reference surfaced in that TestFlight build, though the feature...

Apple shipped the first developer beta of tvOS 27 on June 9, 2026, days after unveiling the software at its WWDC 2026 keynote, MacObserver reported that day. This is the tvOS 27 beta 1 developer release, not a later build, and nothing in the available reporting points to a sixth developer beta anywhere in this cycle.

The available reporting on a watchOS 27 beta 6 developer release doesn't include a build number, changelog, or fix list tied to that specific version. The most detailed independent account of watchOS 27's beta software comes from PCMag, which tested an earlier developer build roughly a month ago, about a week before the watchOS 27 public beta went live in mid-July.

Samsung opened public applications for the Samsung Galaxy Card on July 22, timed to coincide with Galaxy Unpacked, where the company unveiled new foldables and watches. The card is issued by Barclays U.S. Consumer Bank on the Visa network, carries no annual fee, and comes in both virtual and physical form. New cardholders who spend $2,000 within the first 90 days earn a $200 cash bonus.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the world's lightest book-style foldable, at 201g, and among the thinnest, measuring 4.5mm unfolded, which Android Authority confirmed is slimmer than the Galaxy S25 Edge at 5.8mm. Those numbers reflect genuine engineering progress. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 thinner and wider design trade-offs, though, deserve closer examination than the spec sheet provides: the redesign that produced a lighter, more pocketable phone also created an opening for Samsung to move key features up...

When Samsung brought back the flip phone in 2020, the product practically marketed itself. The clamshell form factor carried decades of cultural memory, and Samsung packaged that nostalgia into a premium device that felt genuinely different. For a few years, the Flip was the clear winner in Samsung's foldable lineup, according to SamMobile, a remarkable result for what was, structurally speaking, a phone that folded the wrong way for productivity.

Leaked specifications circulating this week indicate Samsung is splitting its Galaxy Z Fold 8 lineup into two distinct display tiers. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra screen size is reported at 8 inches for the main panel and 6.5 inches for the cover screen, matching the current Fold 7's dimensions. The standard Fold 8, by contrast, drops to a 7.6-inch inner display and a 5.5-inch cover screen. Android Authority, Notebookcheck, SamMobile, The Verge, and Trusted Reviews have all reported on the...

Samsung launched the Samsung Health Assistant beta Tuesday, opening its first fully integrated AI-powered health tool inside Samsung Health to eligible U.S. users. Rather than presenting biometric data as graphs to decode, the assistant lets users ask questions about their health, check their daily Energy Score, and receive personalized health guidance across five wellness pillars: sleep, activity, nutrition, mindfulness, and vitals. The shift Samsung is positioning here is from a dashboard you...