Gadget Hacks: Page 13

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.

Google last week announced a feature that changes what happens after you open a link on your phone. Starting late June, Gemini in Chrome on Android will place an AI icon in the browser toolbar. Tap it, and a panel slides up over the page you're already on, ready to summarize, explain, or answer questions about that specific content, without opening a new tab or leaving the page.

Apple is preparing to let iPhone, iPad, and Mac users choose from competing AI providers, including Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini, to handle tasks across Siri, Writing Tools, and Image Playground. The feature, internally called "Extensions," is reportedly slated for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 in Fall 2026, with a formal announcement expected at WWDC on June 8, 2026, according to Bloomberg reporting summarized by 9to5Mac.

Apple's chief hardware officer Johny Srouji is restructuring the company's hardware organization into a single unified group, The Verge reported today, citing Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The change folds two previously separate divisions, hardware engineering and hardware technologies, under one roof and splits the combined group into five focused teams. According to Bloomberg's framing, the goal is to help chip teams work more closely with product teams as Apple faces mounting pressure on its AI...

Apple is reportedly preparing to open its AI infrastructure to outside competition. iOS 27 would let users choose from multiple third-party AI models, including Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude, to power system features like Siri, Writing Tools, and Image Playground, 9to5Mac reported on May 5, 2026, citing Bloomberg. Visible additions like the reported iOS 27 AI wallpaper generator and natural-language Shortcuts sit on top of something more structural: Apple reportedly loosening its...

In November 1997, Steve Jobs stood before an audience at Cupertino's Flint Center and admitted something most executives would never say publicly: more than a thousand customers had written to tell him how bad it was to buy an Apple product. Not the product itself, but the experience of acquiring it. That candid acknowledgment, 9to5Mac reported, came as Jobs was explaining a new partnership with electronics chain CompUSA. The problem was a distribution failure dressed up as a brand problem, and...

Fortnite is back on iPhone globally, and the legal fight that made it possible isn't over. Apple is currently barred from collecting any commission on purchases routed through external payment links in iOS apps, a condition that remains in effect after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to pause the Epic Games case earlier this month, sending it back to the district court to determine what Apple can lawfully charge on transactions it no longer processes. The outcome will affect every developer...

This guide covers three ways to disable Apple Intelligence notification summaries on your iPhone: a global off switch that stops them across every app, a category-level setting that targets news apps specifically, and how to turn off AI notification summaries on iPhone before you've ever opted in. All three paths run through Settings > Notifications > Summarize Notifications.

If you want to know how to set up always-on display (AOD) on your phone without killing your battery, the short answer is: strip it down. Clock, notification count, dark background. That's most of what you need, and it's the configuration that keeps power draw low enough that the feature earns its place.

With WWDC 2026 opening this week, Apple is under pressure to answer a question its 2025 accessibility release left open: which users can actually access the tools Apple built? Last September, Apple shipped its most extensive accessibility update across iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and visionOS 26, per Apple's release announcement. The features include Personal Voice, Braille Access, Magnifier on Mac, Accessibility Reader, and new developer APIs. What Apple's public...

Microsoft today launched the Surface Laptop for Business with two features new to the Surface lineup: an integrated privacy screen on select 13.8-inch configurations, and an OS-level haptic touchpad tied to Windows 11 interactions. The Surface Laptop for Business privacy screen is the more immediately useful of the two. Neither feature is an AI story, and both carry a price that Windows Central described as "outrageously expensive."

Two settings changes are all it takes. Set the lid-close action to Do Nothing and disable the inactivity sleep timer. Both live in Settings > System > Power & Battery and take about three minutes to configure.

A phone can receive every Android update Google promised and still lose the features that made it worth buying. That's not a hypothetical. The Google Pixel 7-year update promise covers OS versions and security patches. It has never covered AI feature parity. As Gemini Intelligence becomes the defining value of the Pixel experience, those two things are no longer close to the same.

A dormant interface inside Google Password Manager on Android has been activated by researchers, exposing new settings that extend import and export options to cover passkeys alongside passwords. The discovery is the most concrete evidence yet that Google passkey transfer on Android is in active development. Android Authority reported last week that the mechanism has not been switched on for users, and Google has not confirmed the feature in public.

Apple effectively conceded earlier this year that Google's model was the stronger foundation for the next Siri push. After evaluating its options, the company said "Google's technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models," according to 9to5Mac. For a company that spent years selling on-device intelligence as a point of superiority, that statement lands differently than a typical partnership announcement.