News and Updates from Gadget Hacks: Page 15

Apple has brought iOS 26.5 beta RCS end-to-end encryption back for a second consecutive testing cycle. The iOS 26.5 developer beta, released this week, includes an "End-to-End Encryption (Beta)" toggle for RCS in the Messages app, enabled by default, after the same feature appeared in iOS 26.4 testing and was pulled before that release shipped, as reported by 9to5Mac and MacRumors this week.

Apple pulled the vibe coding platform Anything from the App Store on March 26, citing Guideline 2.5.2, the rule barring apps from executing code that modifies their features or behavior after review. The move goes further than the update blocks Apple had already imposed on Replit and Vibecode earlier this month, making Anything the first such removal reported so far in this category, according to Techzine and MacRumors.

A PSOne motherboard modified to load games from a microSD card, authorize unsigned code through a memory-card exploit on every boot, and output video over HDMI to any modern display. It works reliably. That last part is what makes this build worth examining.

Families are consolidating around single smartphone brands at a remarkable rate, and the reasons go deeper than simple preference. Some parents reported shifting from standalone parental control apps to integrated family apps like Apple's Family Sharing, according to research published in the Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium.

YouTube's playback controls are now surfacing inside Android Auto's dashboard media widget, letting subscribers play, pause, and skip content from their car's infotainment screen. The rollout appears broad, confirmed across multiple devices, app versions, and both beta and stable tracks, according to 9to5Google this past Sunday. There is no video playback, no browsing interface, and no standalone YouTube app. This is an audio control layer, and it requires a paid subscription to use.

Android desktop mode shipped as a stable feature with the March 2026 Pixel Drop, and the first wave of coverage reflected that. Android Authority reported at launch that after months of beta testing, the feature had arrived ready for real use. Pixel 8 and newer can connect to an external monitor via USB-C, pair a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and get resizable windows, a taskbar and dock, virtual desktops, and title bar controls. Android Police's hands-on from February 2026 published during the...

Two new pieces of visual evidence surfaced this week suggesting the iPhone 18 Pro will ship with a dramatically smaller Dynamic Island: a screen protector image from leaker Ice Universe and a prototype photo from an X account called @earlyappleleaks. Neither is conclusive on its own. But they land on top of independent reporting from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and backing from display analyst Ross Young and that combination is harder to explain away than any single source.

Cross-platform RCS end-to-end encryption is active in the iOS 26.5 beta. iPhone users running the beta can exchange encrypted messages with Android users on the latest Google Messages, and the lock icon to confirm it actually works. What Apple hasn't done is set a public release date, and the feature has now moved through multiple beta cycles without shipping. That's not a red flag; it's how Apple handles security features before they reach hundreds of millions of devices.

Google Maps has quietly become the most widely available EV trip planner in the world. Starting today, it automatically calculates and inserts charging stops for drivers of more than 350 electric vehicle models on Android Auto, covering everything from a Rivian R1T to a Nissan Leaf, across a global rollout with more models promised over time, TechBuzz reports.

The most annoying part of sharing a file via Android isn't the transfer itself wait, no em dashes. The most annoying part of sharing a file via Android isn't the transfer. It's the thirty seconds of hunting for the right device name in a list. New evidence suggests Google and Samsung are building a fix for the Android tap to share feature: hold two phones together, and the handshake happens automatically.

Android 17 Beta 3, released this week for eligible Pixel devices, restores the single-tap Wi-Fi toggle in Quick Settings a behavior Android 12 removed in 2021 and replaced with a pop-up panel that buried the on/off switch users actually wanted. The change has been confirmed by 9to5Google and Android Authority, both reporting earlier this week.

Google has added two new controls to Android 17 Beta 3 that stop notification chimes, ringtones, and alarms from routing directly into hearing aids and cochlear implants. It's a targeted fix for a problem that ranges from mildly irritating to genuinely painful, depending on the user. Android Authority reported the addition three days ago, on March 27.

Apple's own CarPlay App Programming Guide stated in March 2024 that WhatsApp CarPlay support was "right around the corner." That was more than two years ago. WhatsApp still isn't in CarPlay. No beta. No release notes. No announcement from Meta. Just a line in a developer document that neither company has followed up on in any traceable way.

With Apple's hardware designers apparently sitting this cycle out, software has to carry the entire story for Apple Watch this year. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said during a live Q&A on the Bloomberg website last Thursday that the next Apple Watch will look essentially unchanged from the current lineup. A separate rumor places any significant physical redesign at least two years out, according to MacRumors, which covered Gurman's comments four days ago. When the chassis stays the same, watchOS...

Android 17 Beta 3, released this week, introduces two privacy changes that together redefine what Android treats as a location problem. The first is a system-rendered button that gives apps precise location access for the current session only, no permission dialog required. The second makes it mandatory for apps targeting SDK 37 or higher to get explicit runtime permission before exchanging any traffic with devices on the local network. Android 17 Beta 3 location privacy, in other words, now...

The Trump Organization's T1 smartphone will likely be made in China, not the United States, according to analysts who assessed the device's $499 price point and advertised specs within days of the announcement. The phone is real enough. The "built in the United States" claim is where the story falls apart.

Samsung's default UI is getting more accessible faster than its screen-reader stack is reaching parity. That's the clearest way to read what early One UI 9 development signals are showing: consistent interface improvements baked into everyday surfaces, with no corresponding progress on the assistive technology problems that One UI 8 left open for blind users.

Verizon's Netflix and Max perk bundles Netflix Standard with Ads and HBO Max Basic with Ads for $10 a month. Purchased separately, those two services cost $18.98 a month a genuine saving of nearly $9. It is also a saving that Verizon controls, not Netflix. In an environment where 56% of subscribers already expect Netflix to raise prices again, that distinction deserves more attention than the marketing materials give it.

The first detailed look at Motorola's next clamshell flagship arrived this week via leaked CAD renders, and the company appears to have changed almost nothing. That's not an oversight. It's a calculated move from a manufacturer that currently holds roughly half the US foldable market.

Apple's first foldable iPhone is increasingly unlikely to reach buyers on the standard September timeline and anyone planning to skip this fall's iPhone 18 to wait for the foldable iPhone shipping date should factor that in now.

On Feb. 11, 2026, Bloomberg reported that iOS 26.5 is planned for a May release and that Apple engineers working on upgraded Siri capabilities have been redirected to continue that work through iOS 26.5 after problems emerged during iOS 26.4 testing. Run Apple's typical four-to-six-week beta window backward from a May public release, and the iOS 26.5 beta release date lands in April or early May. Here's why that window makes sense.

Apple turned 50 this year. It will almost certainly keep selling iPhones. The more interesting question is whether the integration advantages that made the iPhone the most valuable product in consumer technology, not the hardware but the controlled architecture surrounding it, can survive a sustained regulatory effort to force the Apple ecosystem open up to rivals.

Apple is turning Siri into a platform. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, confirmed by Reuters this week, iOS 27 will let third-party AI assistants including Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Grok, and Perplexity plug directly into Siri through a new Extensions system, ending the exclusive arrangement with ChatGPT that has been in place since iOS 18. The announcement is expected at WWDC on June 8.

Google released Android 17 Beta 3 on Thursday, and the headline feature is one the company technically announced a month ago: a floating windowed mode called Bubbles that never shipped in Beta 2. It's live now. So is Desktop Interactive Picture-in-Picture for external displays. Both land at Platform Stability, meaning the API surface is locked and the Android Developers release notes confirm stable Android 17 is on track for June 2026.

Split tunneling is one of those VPN features that technically works on Android but practically drives users crazy. Your banking app keeps flagging the connection. Your casting app can't find the TV. You dig through three menus to exclude a single app, only to discover your selections reset the next time the VPN reconnects. Android 17 fixes this not by inventing new functionality, but by pulling the controls into the OS itself.

The world of rugged smartphones just got a whole lot more interesting. While most of us worry about our phones surviving a simple drop, there's a new breed of Android device that's designed to literally help you survive in the wilderness—complete with fire-starting capabilities and enough juice to charge other devices, including some laptops when you're miles from civilization.

The iPhone 17e represents Apple's latest attempt to balance affordability with performance, but early impressions suggest the company may have prioritized the wrong elements. While the device brings meaningful hardware improvements like added MagSafe support and faster wireless charging and increased base storage, its design language feels surprisingly outdated for a 2024 release. This creates an interesting paradox: a phone that's genuinely better on paper but somehow feels like it's already...

Apple's privacy-first approach has always been a cornerstone of its brand identity, but recent developments suggest the company might be preparing for a significant strategic shift. Reports from The Information and other tech industry sources indicate that Apple has reportedly asked Google to explore hosting a future Gemini-powered Siri on Google-run servers, potentially marking one of the most surprising partnerships in Big Tech history.

The display technology landscape is shifting in fascinating ways, and TCL's latest announcement at MWC represents one of the most intriguing developments we've seen in recent years. The company has taken its NXTPAPER technology—originally designed to reduce eye strain and glare—and merged it with AMOLED capabilities, creating what could become a game-changing hybrid approach.

AdHoc Studio's Dispatch is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, supported gaming handhelds, and Xbox Cloud this summer as a full Xbox Play Anywhere title, Xbox Wire confirmed today. The Dispatch Xbox release date is summer 2026, though no specific date within that window has been announced. One purchase covers both console and PC, with save progress shared across devices.

Premium Apple Watch buyers are upgrading for blood pressure monitoring and satellite connectivity, not a new look. That shift, confirmed by Counterpoint Research data from last month, explains why the absence of a major Apple Watch redesign in 2026 is less notable than it first appears. The more interesting question is whether the capability additions arriving this fall will be as compelling as the ones that drove Apple's first shipment growth since 2022.

Netflix has raised prices across all its U.S. subscription plans, including a first-ever increase to its ad-supported tier. The Netflix price increase 2026 takes effect immediately for new customers and at the next billing cycle for existing subscribers, covering the U.S., Canada, Portugal, and Argentina.

Barclays analyst Tim Long set off a wave of headlines this week by predicting Apple's first foldable iPhone won't reach customers until December 2026, roughly three months after the company's usual September launch window. Long cited supply chain concerns as the likely cause, according to CNET. But the foldable iPhone release date question has a more nuanced answer than the headlines suggest.

What many headlines call "RCS 4.0 video calls" refers to something more specific: GSMA Universal Profile 3.0, finalized in February 2025, which formally defines IP video call capability as part of the RCS standard for the first time. Android already has the platform infrastructure to execute those calls. What does not exist, as of March 2026, is any app that has shipped it.

Apple launched nine products this month, including the iPhone 17e and the MacBook Neo. Two more are finished and waiting. The new HomePod mini and Apple TV 4K release delay has nothing to do with manufacturing, supply chains, or design problems. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman confirmed this week that both devices have been "ready" since last year, held back by one variable: Apple's next-generation Siri still isn't stable enough to ship, MacRumors reported last week.

A new iPhone design leak describing glass wrapping all four edges of the device circulated this week, and the underlying concept is genuine. Apple is researching it. Multiple high-confidence sources have been reporting on it for nearly a year. But there's a significant difference between credible research and near-term product, and this new iPhone design leak conflates the two in ways worth unpacking.

iOS 26.4: Navigating Apple's Vision for Tomorrow's Mobile Experience

Apple still plans to ship a 20th anniversary iPhone all-screen display with no visible cutouts, no Dynamic Island, and every front-facing sensor buried beneath uninterrupted glass. What changed this week is how much confidence anyone should have in the path to get there.

Siri has been underperforming for so long that critiquing it feels like a ritual. But something different is happening with the iOS 27 overhaul. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, reported through MacRumors two days ago, the new iOS 27 Siri chatbot is designed to collapse web search, personal data retrieval, cross-app actions, and conversational AI into a single interface, with no app switching, no re-establishing context, no accepting that your phone has no idea who you are. That's the...

The AirPods Max 2 announcement has arrived, and if you're wondering whether Apple's latest premium headphones justify another look at your wallet, you're not alone. After years of waiting for a meaningful update to the original AirPods Max, Apple has finally revealed what's next for their flagship over-ear headphones. But here's the thing—this isn't the dramatic overhaul many were hoping for.