The Latest from Gadget Hacks: Page 7

Kansas City Public Schools is moving toward an "all-Apple district," with KCPS saying in a May 19 update that it has procured more than 4,500 MacBook Neos for students in 8th grade and up. The district says the broader plan is to replace more than 30,000 Windows PCs and Chromebooks over time, while younger grades continue using existing iPads and MacBook Airs.

The Trump administration has directed agency chief information officers across the executive branch to install its official app on all government-furnished mobile phones, with the FAA already notifying employees that the installation will happen automatically on all FAA-issued iPhones and iPads, according to internal communications obtained by Government Executive earlier this month. Current and former federal officials called the move highly unusual. Sonny Hashmi, a former senior government IT...

In March 2025, second-generation Chromecast and Chromecast Audio units stopped working. Owners woke up to an "Untrusted Device" error and a reasonable assumption: Google had simply let discontinued hardware die. Within a week, Google deployed a Chromecast fix, emailed affected users directly, and brought decade-old hardware back online. This week, Google clarified what that intervention actually was.

Nearly 700 ad-free titles are now streamable across 135 countries, but eligibility, scope, and what stays Audible-only are worth understanding before you assume full access.

Samsung's One UI 8.5 quietly dropped a camera feature that users have had for years: native video filters in the stock camera app are gone from Video mode. The update, which brings Samsung's latest Galaxy AI and creative tools to more Galaxy devices, carried no public explanation for the removal, and no changelog entry mentions it. Samsung began the official One UI 8.5 rollout on May 6, 2026, starting in Korea, with additional regions and models following afterward.

Microsoft has made two distinct bets on how Office work should start and progress. The first: users should generate documents, spreadsheets, and presentations from a chat interface before they ever open an app. The second: once inside Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, Copilot should edit files directly rather than queue up suggestions for a person to apply. Both are now live, moving Copilot from a sidebar assistant toward both file creation in chat and direct editing inside apps. Access is broad, but...

Google briefly appeared to mark several older Chromecast models as no longer receiving critical security updates, but the company now says that was a mistake. Google told 9to5Google that the page had incorrectly indicated legacy Chromecast devices were being deprecated, and Google's current Nest security page again lists those models as still receiving critical security updates.

Before diving in, a quick map of which steps apply to you:

Code found in Apple's backend suggests the iOS 27 Apple Wallet Create a Pass feature would let users scan physical cards and tickets to generate digital passes, bypassing the usual requirement for businesses to build native Wallet support. 9to5Mac and MacRumors first reported the backend-code findings on April 16, 2026, after developer Nicolás Alvarez discovered the functions; later reporting in early May added the more specific "Create a Pass" framing.

Microsoft says its agentic capabilities for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint reached general availability on April 22, 2026, after a scheduled PowerPoint rollout that began on the web in mid-March and was expected to finish across Windows and Mac by the end of April. For PowerPoint specifically, the update replaces a static suggestion panel with a conversational editing mode that rewrites, restructures, and translates slides directly through chat.

The HONOR Power2 went on sale in China on January 9, 2026, making it HONOR's latest major entry in the 10,000mAh phone category after the HONOR WIN series, as reported by Gadgets 360. It starts at 2,699 yuan, or about $386, and no global release has been announced.

Apple is closing three retail stores in June. At two of them, workers are getting transfer rights to nearby locations. At the third the Towson, Maryland store that became Apple's first unionized U.S. retail location in 2022 roughly 90 employees were told to reapply through the same open process as outside candidates. As of late April, not one of them had landed a job at another Apple store, Bloomberg Law reported last month. That is the Apple Towson store closure protest in a sentence: the only...

Motorola's 2026 Razr lineup goes on sale today, and US carriers are competing on who can make the sticker prices disappear fastest. Motorola Razr carrier deals hitting stores this week follow a familiar structure: headline "free phone" offers built on 36-month financing agreements that require a premium plan to deliver the credit. Before accepting any of them, the plan math is worth running.

Tipster Debayan Roy has ruled out a June or July launch for the CMF Phone 3 Pro, pushing the expected window to August or September. GSMArena reported the tip yesterday; Gadgets360 followed today. That puts the CMF Phone 3 Pro launch date roughly three to four months later than the April cadence CMF set when the Phone 2 Pro debuted last year.

The 2026 Motorola Razr lineup is in pre-order now, and carriers are once again marketing clamshell foldables as free. Every free Motorola Razr 2026 offer works the same way: bill credits spread over 24 to 36 months that only pay out in full if you stay on the required plan for the entire term. The 2026 device pricing is confirmed, but carrier-specific promotions for the new lineup have not yet been publicly documented at the same level of detail as the 2025 launch terms. The analysis here draws...

On Saturday, every camera pointed at the pitch for LA Galaxy vs. Houston Dynamo FC will be an iPhone 17 Pro. Apple calls the Apple TV MLS game shot on iPhone 17 Pro a first: "the first time iPhone will be used to capture the entirety of a major professional live sporting event broadcast," according to Apple Newsroom today. That phrasing is specific, and it's the only accurate way to describe what's actually being tested.

Samsung's 32-inch Odyssey G8 (G80HS) went on sale this week as what Samsung calls the industry's first 6K gaming monitor, carrying 6,144 x 3,456 pixels at a native 165Hz on a panel built specifically for gaming, per the Samsung Global Newsroom. The milestone is real. So is the catch.

Google announced this week that Gemini is now broadly available in Android Auto, covering more than 250 million compatible vehicles already on the road. That number is the headline. The more important detail is what it obscures: the version most drivers will get is meaningfully different from the one that enables genuinely new capabilities.

Apple has confirmed that tvOS 27 larger text support is coming to Apple TV, giving users a native control to scale up on-screen text directly from the Settings app. The feature has been standard on iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro for years. Apple TV is only now catching up, according to MacRumors today.

Apple Music introduced a mandatory AI disclosure system in early March, requiring labels and distributors to tag content whenever artificial intelligence played a "material portion" of its creation. The Apple Music AI-generated music policy covers four categories: sound recordings, artwork, lyrics and compositions, and music videos. Here is the tension at the center of it: Apple says the tags are required, but its own technical specification describes them as optional, defaults to assuming none...

Every May, Apple announces accessibility features coming later in the year. Usually these announcements stay in their lane. This one doesn't.

A code teardown of Android 17's QPR1 Beta 3 reveals something more interesting than a status dashboard: a four-step verification process that routes trust through an independent second device and a browser, ending with a side-by-side comparison the user resolves themselves. The Android 17 OS verification system is not yet functional end-to-end, but the UI strings extracted from the current beta are detailed enough to map the workflow, and the checks Android already has in place give the design...

The most useful thing to understand about the rumored MacBook Ultra isn't the OLED display or the touchscreen. It's what those features being somewhere else would mean for the MacBook Pro.

Airbnb released its 2026 summer update for iOS and Android today, adding three app-level features that shift what the platform can actually do: AI tools that surface what matters about a listing before you book, a collaborative itinerary builder designed to replace the group text thread, and a globally expanded support assistant that loads your trip details before the conversation starts. Airbnb is positioning the app as a broader trip-planning and support hub, not just a booking tool.

Personal video has always existed in a captions blind spot. Streaming platforms add subtitle tracks. Broadcasters add them. The footage that reliably doesn't have them is the clip your sibling texted from a wedding, the birthday video shot in a loud backyard, the voice memo your dad recorded in a moving car. That content is everywhere and almost never captioned.

Google's biggest Android Auto overhaul in years landed without much ceremony. Gemini is now widely available across more than 250 million compatible vehicles, bringing genuine back-and-forth conversation to replace the old rigid command syntax for eligible users, according to Google. The Android Auto Gemini update 2026 covers messages, navigation stops, email, music, and calendar tasks, all in natural language, hands-free. For most drivers, this is the practical story.

Nintendo announced Pictonico! on May 19, a mobile game for iOS and Android that pulls faces from your photo library and drops them into rapid-fire minigames. Nintendo lists Pictonico! for release on May 28, 2026, though the US App Store page currently shows an expected date of May 30, 2026. Pre-registration is open now on the App Store and Google Play. The catch is built into the name: the app is "free-to-start," which means some minigames are available as a free demo, while paid volumes unlock...

Google announced at Google I/O yesterday that Wear OS 7 will bring Live Updates to smartwatches, letting status information like package deliveries, navigation, and sports scores surface on your wrist automatically. The update also introduces Wear Widgets, Android 17 design carryover, Gemini developer APIs, and a claimed 10 percent battery life improvement, according to The Verge and Engadget, both reporting yesterday.

Apple's Eddy Cue will receive the Cannes Lions Entertainment Person of the Year 2026 award at the festival running June 22–26, Deadline and Variety reported today. The institution doing the honoring is not a Hollywood guild or a streaming trade body. Cannes Lions is the advertising and marketing world's biggest annual gathering, and Lions CEO Simon Cook pointed explicitly to Apple's influence on consumer behavior through its devices and platforms when explaining the decision, not just its...

UGREEN on Wednesday announced the Nexode and MagFlow Air Editions, a five-product lineup of pocket-sized chargers for Apple devices priced from $39.99. Two products are confirmed available now in the US: the Nexode Air 65W Charger and the MagFlow Air Magnetic Power Bank 10000mAh 15W, sold through the UGREEN Official Store and Amazon, according to the company's launch release.

Samsung launched what it says is the industry's first 6K gaming monitor today, and the Samsung Odyssey G8 G80HS is built around a single architectural bet: that the most useful gaming display is one that can change what it is. Flip Dual Mode and the monitor drops to 3K resolution and pushes its refresh rate to 330Hz, putting it in the same performance tier as dedicated esports panels. That switch is what separates the G80HS from a resolution showcase with no practical application.

Talks between Samsung Electronics management and its largest union collapsed Wednesday after marathon negotiations that drew South Korea's labor minister into the room for the first time. With no deal reached, an 18-day Samsung Electronics strike is now underway, the second in the company's history. Union chair Choi Seung-ho confirmed the walkout as he left the mediation session at the National Labor Relations Commission office in Sejong: "The union will proceed as planned and lawfully launch a...

Backing up PS1 saves from DuckStation on Android to Google Drive is straightforward in theory and surprisingly fragile in practice. DuckStation, a PS1 emulator available on the Android Play Store, puts save management entirely in the user's hands. There is no automatic cloud sync, no platform-level backup, and no recovery path if a phone dies or gets reset unless the player has already moved those files somewhere else. Google Drive is a practical destination for that kind of manual backup. What...

If you've opened your Android storage settings and found AICore consuming more space than expected, the explanation is straightforward: your phone is deliberately holding two copies of its AI model at the same time. This is intentional, temporary, and usually requires no action on your part. 9to5Google surfaced a Google support explanation on May 2, 2026, confirming that when a Gemini Nano update arrives, AICore keeps both the old and new versions on-device for up to three days while stability...

April 11, 1985. Apple's boardroom. CEO John Sculley, the PepsiCo executive Jobs had personally recruited two years earlier, tells the board he wants Jobs gone. The board sides with him. Jobs walks out, as Vanity Fair reported last week. He will not return for eleven years.

Apple published two significant App Store reports within days of each other earlier this year, and the timing is hard to separate from context. The company faces an active antitrust suit from the U.S. Department of Justice and more than a dozen state attorneys general, who accused Apple of using shifting App Store guidelines to suppress competitive alternatives, according to Bloomberg Law. It also faces ongoing litigation from developers challenging its enforcement decisions. The numbers Apple...

Apple is reportedly building a version of Siri that will remember details from past conversations, read what's on your screen in real time, and pull answers from your texts, emails, and installed apps. That's not a voice assistant upgrade. It's a different product category, with a different set of privacy stakes. Which is exactly why the most telling detail in the pre-WWDC rumor cycle isn't a new AI model or a chatbot interface. It's a retention timer.

Google is plugging the Play Store directly into Gemini, and the Gemini Play Store integration is set to roll out in the coming weeks. The change means Android users can ask Gemini for an app recommendation, get results drawn from Play Store listings and reviews, and install the app without ever leaving the assistant. Google reportedly frames the move as part of a broader effort to improve how users search for software.

Disney announced a new round of Disney+ and Hulu integration features on May 19, 2026, bringing the two apps closer together with Hulu profile linking, Hulu access inside Disney+ for eligible Hulu subscribers, new Hulu profile avatars, and an upcoming Live Guide. Bundle subscribers who primarily watch Hulu on demand can now bring more of their Hulu activity into Disney+, though Hulu Live TV, add-ons, and non-adult profile linking are not fully folded in yet. Disney says there are "no current...

A new analyst note has reframed one of the more persistent Apple rumors of the past year. Rather than marking the iPhone's 20th anniversary with a standalone commemorative device, Apple is reportedly planning to channel that milestone into a radical overhaul of its mainstream Pro and Pro Max lineup. If the reporting holds, the 2027 iPhone Pro redesign would not be something most people admire from a distance — it would become the new baseline for Apple's flagship tier.