Gadget Hacks: Page 3

Type "use phone as a tape measure" into a search bar and dozens of apps promise to do exactly that. Android Authority decided to test the appetite behind that search: it asked readers which of four sensor-based toolbox jobs they'd actually hand to their phone.

Mozilla added three new features to Firefox Smart Window on Tuesday, its AI-powered browsing mode, aimed at cutting down the friction of juggling tabs, searches and browsing history. The update brings live web answers with cited sources through a new partnership with Exa, smarter tab organization that groups related tabs and kills duplicates, and visual previews of browsing history, according to Mozilla's launch post.

Two reviews of the same phone landed within a day of each other this week, and they read like they're describing different products. MakeUseOf calls the Pixel 11 Pro Fold "the Google foldable I've always wanted", while The Verge says it "feels like the end of an era." Both verdicts hold up. They're just answering different questions, and untangling why is the point of this Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold review.

Google raised the price of its standard Pixel by $100 this year, and Engadget still recommends it without hesitation. In its Google Pixel 11 review, Engadget called the phone "a lot of phone for a little more money" and handed it a 9.2 out of 10, noting it "didn't change a ton, but is still one of the best smartphones on the market."

A newer iPhone can text emergency services from a trailhead with zero bars, but that capability isn't something you switch on in advance. It becomes available when you're off-grid and a normal call or text to emergency services can't connect, as long as you're outdoors with a clear view of the sky and using an iPhone 14 or later.

Disney sues FCC over ABC broadcast licenses in a fight that boils down to one contested question: is an early license review ordinary oversight, or retaliation wearing a bureaucrat's hat?

The Pixel 11 Pro is a genuinely excellent phone. Google just isn't selling it on the reasons why.

Google Messages RCS issues have repeatedly shown up in two well-documented shapes: a "Setting up" screen that never finishes verifying a phone number, or a "carrier not supported" label that replaces RCS chat features outright.

New code buried in a macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate is fueling fresh camera-equipped AirPods rumors, showing in granular detail how Apple's prototype earbuds actually capture and process images, according to MacRumors. The details point to a device built for Visual Intelligence, Apple's visual AI feature, rather than conventional photography.

When researchers swabbed 178 healthcare workers' phones in a Peruvian hospital in 2023, 90.5% turned up some kind of microbial contamination. That number is a clinical-setting data point, not a diagnosis of the phone in your pocket: a hospital ward is a different exposure environment than a coffee shop counter or a train seat. Still, the question of how to clean your phone safely deserves a real answer, and two hospital studies tested the same disinfectant.

iOS 27's Shared Albums update fixes a problem baked into the feature for years: shared photos and videos will no longer get compressed the moment they leave a personal library. The tradeoff is that new Shared Albums now count against the owner's iCloud storage, according to MacRumors and Trusted Reviews, reversing a setup that let people share thousands of images without touching their plan. The change is rolling out now, with iOS 27 in public beta ahead of a full release expected alongside new...

Google's new Search profile looks like the kind of feature every creator should rush to claim: a dedicated, shareable page that puts your work front and center inside Google Search itself. Before spending time hunting for one, it helps to understand Google Search profile eligibility rules, since they set a high follower bar and apply only in the United States for now. This guide walks through who qualifies, how to run a Google Search profile eligibility check on your own name, and what claiming...

YouTube is testing a visual tweak to its double-tap skip gesture on Android that shows, in red, exactly how much time a viewer just jumped, according to Android Authority, which spotted the change recently. The gesture itself, double-tapping either edge of the video to skip forward or back, isn't new. What's changed is that it now surfaces the scrub bar and marks the skipped span on the timeline, instead of leaving viewers to guess where they landed.

A Samsung Galaxy S26 FE hands-on video making the rounds this week appears to show Horizontal Lock, the video stabilization mode Samsung built for its S26 flagships, running inside the camera app of the company's cheaper Fan Edition phone. Two separate clips, posted to TikTok and apparently filmed at what looks like a Samsung retail display in Malaysia, offer the first real-world look at the unannounced device ahead of a launch expected in early September (Android Authority; Tech Advisor,...

An unfamiliar app called Android Developer Verifier has been quietly appearing on Android phones worldwide. The package com.google.android.verifier is a legitimate Google system service, not malware, and for most users it still has no effect on normal app installs.

A Shortcuts setup can get close to sending photos in iMessage with one tap.

Android desktop mode on Android 16 can give a Pixel 9 Pro a PC-like external-display setup, at least for the parts that matter most: a big screen, a keyboard, and a mouse. Plug a Pixel 9 Pro running GrapheneOS into a dock, connect a monitor, and the cursor moves freely between the phone's own screen and the external display, extending it the way a laptop extends to a second monitor. That setup worked in a firsthand test on GrapheneOS build 2026032001, documented four months ago on Corions...

Peacock's Premium Plus plan, the closest thing NBCUniversal offers to ad-free streaming, jumped from $16.99 to $19.99 a month today for new subscribers (The Verge; Android Authority). Existing subscribers won't feel it until their next billing date on or after Sept. 17. It's Peacock's fourth price increase in four years (Android Authority), and it raises an obvious question: what is the actual cost of ad-free streaming services per month for someone who wants to watch the major platforms...

Apple is drawing a hardware line in tvOS 27 for the first time in four years, cutting two older Apple TV models out of the update entirely (TechRadar, 2 months ago). But knowing whether your box makes the cut is only half the story. The more useful question, especially if you own one of the tvOS 27 compatible Apple TV models, is whether upgrading right now would actually get you anything.

Apple shipped iOS 27 public beta 5 on August 24, alongside iPadOS 27 public beta 5, tvOS 27 public beta 5, and macOS Golden Gate public beta 5, making the latest builds available to anyone enrolled with a compatible device, according to MacRumors. Of the four, iOS 27 carries the bigger story: a rebuilt Siri that remains limited by hardware, language, region, and Apple's access waitlist.

If you own an older Pixel, you may have noticed something Pixel owners have not generally expected to see: a promotional notification sitting in the shade next to your texts and calendar reminders. After the Pixel 11 launch, Android Authority reported this week that many users, including one of its own writers, started receiving ads for the new phone on their older Pixel devices.

Google Android sideloading rules take effect on September 30, 2026, but only for apps distributed through seven participating stores and only for users in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand.

The Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 both start at roughly $1,900, putting them in unusually direct competition. At that price, the more useful question isn't which is cheaper, but what each gives you for flagship-foldable money.

A Seoul Economic Daily reported on Aug. 23 that Samsung's unreleased Exynos 2700 outperformed Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 in internal tests covering CPU, GPU, AI performance, and power efficiency. The results reportedly came from Samsung's own Mobile eXperience division, making them an early indicator rather than independent proof that Exynos has overtaken Snapdragon.

One UI 9.5 leaks have been surfacing this month in the form of screenshots, internal builds, and test-server activity, even as Samsung is still mid-rollout on One UI 9.

Oppo is reportedly testing two 200MP rear cameras for the Find X10 Pro, including a 200MP main camera and a 200MP telephoto. A June 2026 leak attributed to Chinese tipster Digital Chat Station identifies the main camera as an unannounced Samsung ISOCELL HPC with a 1/1.3-inch optical format, alongside a 3MP multispectral sensor.

Samsung's next Ultra phone could tackle one of the most annoying parts of going without a screen protector: the tiny scratches that build up through everyday use. A new rumor claims Samsung and Corning are developing a self-healing surface coating that may appear on the Galaxy S27 Ultra.

Is Spotify shuffle actually random? That question is worth asking again because Spotify no longer runs one shuffle algorithm. Ten months ago, Spotify made Fewer Repeats the default shuffle experience for Premium subscribers, moving away from pure randomness because more randomness itself was producing more frequent repeats, Spotify's announcement explains.

Six months into the Galaxy S26's life, price has done something spec sheets never could: it has flipped the whole comparison on its head. SlashGear checked retail listings today and found the Galaxy S26 selling for $774.99 at Amazon and Best Buy, and for just $712.50 at Walmart, undercutting the $799 the Galaxy S25 charged at its own launch (SlashGear). Retail pricing shifts by the week, so treat those numbers as a snapshot rather than a promise, and check current listings before you buy. But...

Google's two launch posts for the Pixel 11 lineup repeat the same unadorned line: Pixel Search on the Pixel 11 devices is "way more powerful than it used to be." Neither post explains why. The phones carrying that claim went on sale Thursday, so buyers now encounter a Google-documented search claim the company has not explained.

Apple's long-rumored Home Hub display is shaping up to be less a single shared screen and more a device that can serve personal content depending on who's using it.

Google has spent several generations narrowing the gap between its base and Pro Pixels, and this year the two phones sit closer together than ever. The Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro share the same Tensor G6 processor, and the Pro's starting RAM dropped from 16GB to 12GB, landing at the same figure as the base model, according to Android Authority.

Notability's calendar meeting recording feature launched on August 25, letting Mac and Windows users start a recording by tapping directly on a calendar event. Tap the event, and Notability opens a note ready for input while recording begins, according to 9to5Mac.

Reviewers largely agree that the Google Pixel 11 undercuts the Pixel 11 Pro by $200 while matching its RAM, storage, and chip, according to The Verge. Whether that's worth it depends almost entirely on what phone is already in your pocket.

Apple quietly previewed a way to switch one phone number between two iPhones at WWDC 2026, but it left the mechanics largely unexplained. What sounded at first like a small continuity feature now looks more substantial: one iPhone can serve as the main device, a second can act as its companion, and the same phone number can move between them without repeatedly transferring the primary eSIM.

Samsung has officially unveiled the Galaxy S26 FE, turning an August 27 launch rumor into a confirmed product with a release date, price, and final specifications.

Apple Maps ads are now live in the US and Canada. Ad delivery began on August 21, and Apple confirmed a few days later that the rollout would keep expanding over the coming weeks, according to 9to5Mac and PPC Land.

An iPhone that keeps losing charge during CarPlay usually gets blamed on the car first: a bad port, a cheap cable, a head unit that can't keep up. Before touching any of that, plug the iPhone into a wall charger with a known-good, compatible cable and see if it charges normally on its own. That single test won't rule out every car-specific variable, but it's the fastest way to tell whether the problem starts with the phone before spending an evening swapping cables in the driver's seat.

Google Pixel Now Playing notifications could be coming back. A teardown of the latest Android System Intelligence build has turned up code suggesting the silent song-ID alerts may return, months after Google removed them and broke some third-party music tools in the process, according to Android Authority.

Xiaomi is taking a different approach to the book-style foldable with the Xiaomi 18 Fold, a shorter, wider flagship that starts at ¥10,999, or roughly $1,640, in mainland China. Xiaomi unveiled the phone and opened preorders on Sept. 7, with general sales scheduled to begin Sept. 10 at 10 a.m. local time.