The Latest from Gadget Hacks: Page 20

Apple raised the price of Apple Music today, and in doing so, made Apple One a slightly better deal for the people already on the fence about it. That's not how price hikes are supposed to work, but the arithmetic is clear. Whether Apple One is worth it in 2026 depends almost entirely on which services a subscriber would pay for anyway, and today's pricing moves shifted exactly where that break-even line falls.

Samsung's 2026 smartwatch lineup makes the buying decision unusually clear. The Galaxy Watch9 is the better fit for most buyers because it shares the Galaxy Watch Ultra2's processor, software, core sensors, and announced health features but starts at $320 less in the US. The Ultra2 primarily justifies its premium through longer battery life, stronger water protection, a brighter display, additional storage, and tools designed for trail sports and recreational diving.

For the past several Galaxy S generations, the answer to "should I buy the S or S Plus?" has been some version of "only if the Ultra is too big or too expensive." The cameras were fine. The batteries were adequate. Nothing about them was wrong, exactly they just weren't interesting. A batch of Galaxy S27 camera and battery leaks published today suggests Samsung is aware of that problem and may be doing something about it.

A European pricing leak suggests Samsung will introduce two Galaxy Z Fold 8 models, including a new Ultra version that could cost as much as €2,799 with 1TB of storage.

Some users on the current stable App Store release are already seeing WhatsApp's redesigned message bubbles on iOS, not just beta testers. The corners are significantly rounder, shared media drops its traditional border frame, and the overall shape sits noticeably closer to the bubble geometry iPhone users know from iMessage, WaBetaInfo reported yesterday.

Spider-Man is currently fighting ninjas in Long Island City, Queens, and the image sits inside Google Maps exactly the way any other street-level photograph does. Google confirmed it staged five scenes at real New York City locations as part of a promotion for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, describing them as "custom Spider-Man moments staged and captured as the Street View car happened upon Spider-Man in action," per PCMag. The campaign also includes spideytracker.com, a dedicated microsite built...

The latest Android on-device ADB changes under discussion at Google are not official yet, but they could reshape how Shizuku, LADB, and other local ADB tools work. According to a Kitsumed Blog post published last week summarizing an active Google IssueTracker thread, a core ADB maintainer discussed restricting which network interfaces the ADB daemon listens on a conversation triggered by CVE-2026-0073, a vulnerability that allowed wireless ADB's pairing authentication to be bypassed entirely...

Google's revamped Android 17 iOS migration tool for Pixel phones is live, and two Pixel generations that qualify for the OS can't use it. The updated Android Switch utility is limited to Pixel 8 and newer, plus a handful of Samsung foldables, leaving Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 owners with the OS update but none of the upgraded process's additional transfer capabilities. Pixel 8 owners fare only slightly better: they can access the tool exclusively during initial device setup.

Samsung just shipped silicon-carbon batteries in its new foldables for the first time. Now a credible Korean leaker says the same chemistry is being tested in the Galaxy S27 series, the phones that drive Samsung's actual volume. The Galaxy S27 silicon-carbon battery question isn't whether the technology works. It's whether Samsung puts it in the right phones at the right price.

Google says higher memory costs will force it to adjust prices across the Pixel family, including the upcoming Pixel 11 lineup. In a July 24 interview with 9to5Google, Google Vice President of Devices and Services Shakil Barkat said the company could no longer absorb all the increases coming from suppliers.

In early June 2025, Google Home stopped recognizing one of the most basic thermostat commands its users could issue. Say "turn off the thermostat" and the platform returned an error then suggested trying "turn off the thermostat." Google fixed the Google Home Nest Thermostat hands-free control issue within days, posting a resolution via the GoogleNestCommunity Reddit account on June 10, 2025. No public explanation of what caused it was ever offered.

High-quality renders published July 8 offer the clearest look yet at Samsung's expected Galaxy Z Fold 8. The images show a shorter, wider foldable that departs from the tall smartphone shape used by the Galaxy Z Fold 7, potentially making the new model easier to carry and use for games, media, and everyday apps.

Google Clock v9.0 is rolling out support for Google Clock Live Updates, surfacing active timers and stopwatches in the status bar, on the lock screen, and on the always-on display, Android Authority reported today. The update also fixes a specific bug: timers shown on the always-on display previously appeared frozen mid-count even while running in the background. Both changes arrive together.

iOS 27 adds something Wallet has never had in fourteen years: the ability to build your own pass. Tap the "+" button you use to add credit cards or pass emails, and a new "Create a Pass" option appears alongside the existing options. It lets you digitize a paper ticket, membership card, or loyalty pass directly from your iPhone, with no developer account, no Pass Type ID, and no certificate signing required (Michael Tsai, May 2026). This guide walks you through how to use Create a Pass in Apple...

Google has brought Gemini Live to the original Home Mini and first-generation Nest Hub, the two oldest devices its October 2025 rollout skipped. The July 23 update puts these aging speakers in the same tier as the Nest Mini, Nest Audio, and second-gen Nest Hub. Two things matter before anything else: accessing Gemini Live on any of these devices costs $10 a month, and the underlying assistant has drawn sharp criticism from independent reviewers.

If you only want the key to open something else, PowerToys is enough. If you need it to act like Right Ctrl, skip straight to AutoHotkey. That's the whole decision, and getting it wrong means spending an hour on a remap that half-works.

A teardown of the latest Google Translate APK has surfaced a Google Translate live translate widget that starts real-time speech translation with a single tap and, based on code strings found in the build, keeps running after users leave the app. That combination of one-tap start and persistent background operation describes something meaningfully different from a shortcut.

This guide tells you exactly how to watch the 2026 MLS All-Star Game live online and whether you qualify for the free trial. The game streams exclusively through MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app. No cable broadcast, no over-the-air channel, no alternative platform. "Free" applies only in two specific situations. Figure out which one describes you, then follow the steps below to have a working stream before tomorrow's 8 p.m. ET kickoff.

Google will introduce the Pixel 11 at its Made by Google event on August 12, but early retail listings have already complicated the upgrade decision for Pixel 10 Pro XL owners. The Pixel 11 Pro XL could start at $1,299 while giving its least expensive configuration less RAM than the current model.

The hard part of working in Google Docs has never been writing the first sentence. It's everything that follows: reformatting a draft to match a template someone else built, fixing the voice after four contributors have left their fingerprints on it, finding an image that doesn't require a trip to another tool. Google has been shipping Gemini in Google Docs updates since March 2026 to handle most of that cleanup automatically, inside Docs, without changing the interface most users already know.

Google Play Store's July 2026 update quietly added two search changes to Android phones: the search input box now expands to two lines, and the store will begin showing natural language queries. Both entries appear in the v52.4 release notes covered by 9to5Google this week. What's confirmed is the interface change. What isn't confirmed is whether the underlying search engine can actually do more with a longer, descriptive query than it could with two keywords.

Samsung may be considering one of its most notable Galaxy S camera changes in years. Early Galaxy S27 leaks suggest the standard models are being tested with Sony main sensors, while the rumored Pro and Ultra phones could receive higher-resolution ultrawide, telephoto, and selfie cameras.

Three in four U.S. adults support banning phones during class in middle and high schools. Support for that policy has climbed nine points over two years, from 68% in 2024 to 77% today, with just 18% opposed, according to a Pew Research Center survey published today. The all-day version tells a different story: 48% support, 43% oppose.

An Amazon listing surfaced the Pixel Buds Pro 2 in an unnamed dark green colorway this week before being pulled, and Android Authority reported today that Google also appears to have been showing the same shade on its Play Store rewards page. The Pixel 11 event is confirmed for August 12, two weeks away. The leak points to no hardware changes, only a new colorway.

Pixel 4a owners are reporting that Google's July Play system update has resolved the boot-loop problem that has plagued the phone for weeks. Affected users have posted on Reddit's Pixel 4a community confirming the reported Pixel 4a reboot-glitch fix worked for them, Android Authority reported.

Google's support page now states plainly that QR code pairing for Messages on the web is "no longer available in the US." On the same day that notice appeared, reporters at Android Authority pulled up the QR option in both the Android app and the browser without any trouble. That gap between what Google's documentation says and what users are actually seeing is where this story starts.

No ID scan, no selfie, no document upload. Google's answer to the wave of age-verification laws sweeping U.S. states and international regulators runs entirely on settings parents already control inside their family's Android account. This week, the company announced an expansion of its beta Google Play Age Signals API, moving past an initial test in Brazil into a broader international rollout, Ars Technica reported.

Microsoft is gradually updating some of Windows 11's oldest interface elements with replacements built using WinUI 3, its current native user-interface framework. The latest preview-build discovery suggests that the familiar File Properties window may be next, although the redesign remains hidden and cannot be enabled through normal Windows settings.

Tipster Ice Universe demonstrated Galaxy Z Fold 8 app-level display customization this week on a Chinese Fold 8 unit, showing YouTube's recommendation feed shift from two rows of videos to three after adjusting that single app's display size. Nothing else on the device changed. Samsung appears to be shipping this per-app zoom feature in One UI 9 ahead of the August 7 retail launch, according to Android Headlines, with the caveat that review units are not yet on final firmware and all...

Windows maintains a persistent device identifier on many installations that survives OS updates, cuts through VPN obfuscation, and allows Microsoft to reconnect the same machine across different services, sessions, and IP addresses, according to court filings and PCMag's reporting. Most users have never heard of it. The FBI used it to help build a cybercrime case against an alleged Scattered Spider member, and VPN provider Windscribe's attempt to remove it this week showed just how deeply the...

Google Maps Platform opened a Private Preview yesterday for Google Maps Custom Satellite Embeddings, a service that lets organizations request AI-derived Earth data for specific regions on cycles as tight as every five days, according to Google Maps Platform. That's a sharp break from the annual dataset it builds on, but it is not a new feed of satellite photos.

Samsung posted record companywide results for the second quarter of 2026, but its smartphone business struggled to turn strong Galaxy sales into profit. The company reported KRW 171.5 trillion in consolidated revenue and KRW 89.5 trillion in operating profit, while higher component costs weighed on its mobile division.

Setting up a new Android phone follows the same ritual every time: sign in, wait for the data transfer, redownload the apps you actually use, click through permission prompts, and eventually get around to the security settings you meant to check weeks ago. It's tedious enough that AI-powered Android phone setup sounds like an obvious next step. Google hasn't shown that it's built one, and the gap between ambition and evidence is the story here.

The Galaxy Z Fold7 became Samsung's first book-style foldable to outsell its companion Flip model during a South Korean preorder period. Its share rose from roughly 40% in the previous generation to 60%, giving Samsung fresh evidence that buyers would choose the more expensive Fold when its design addressed the format's biggest usability problems.

Google Maps' live speedometer is reaching more Android Auto users after first appearing in a limited test. The feature shows the vehicle's estimated current speed beside the posted limit on the car's display, closing a gap that remained after Google brought the tool to Android phones and Apple CarPlay.

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Z Fold8, Fold8 Ultra and Flip8 last week, marking the eighth generation of its foldable lineup. The most prominent display claim in Samsung's announcement is Samsung's pitch for the Fold8's new display proportions: the same unfolded panel reads as 4:3 in one orientation and 3:4 when turned 90 degrees. Samsung positions the 4:3 landscape view as suited to movies and games, and the 3:4 portrait view as suited to e-books and web browsing, according to the same...

Google Maps users briefly lost one of the app's most useful visual guides in late July 2026. The green, orange, and red lines that show traffic conditions disappeared for some users, leaving roads gray even when the Traffic layer was turned on.

On July 30, Google marked a months-old bug "Fixed" in its public Issue Tracker. The ticket covers a specific idle-drain bug that Google says it fixed on selected Pixel 9 and Pixel 10 models, and the closure didn't sit well with everyone: more than 50 comments piled up underneath, largely from users saying their phones still drain overnight.

After a month of daily use, MacStories described a visual-identification task that would have taken 20 to 30 seconds in ChatGPT but took roughly five seconds in Siri AI. The difference was workflow friction: Siri mode was built directly into the Camera app, eliminating the steps of taking a photo, opening ChatGPT, and uploading the image.

By the end of this guide, your Mac will be running macOS Tahoe. What you recover beyond the operating system depends on one thing: whether you have a Time Machine backup made before the Golden Gate beta was installed. This guide covers all three realistic scenarios for getting back to stable ground.