Good morning! Today I’m watching this epic discussion between Thom Yorke and Harry Styles, reading everything I can about the new Ocarina of Time remake, playing MMO Solitaire with 400 other people, and jamming to Remi Wolf’s new album, Mud.
As a reminder, Inbox is the tech newsletter that goes beyond the news cycle. We cover the most important 9to5Google stories from the last couple of days along with a few highlights from around the web. We publish every Tuesday and Thursday, and if you like what you read, please subscribe.
Inbox is written by Daniel Bader. Read previous issues here, and then catch up with Ben Schoon’s excellent Weekender column published every Sunday.
⭐️ Starred
What’s clear to me from Apple’s bevy of announcements this week is that no one knows how to solve the smart home. The HomeView is the opposite of a home run; the new Apple TV 4K is more than twice the price of its predecessor with little to show for it; the HomePod Mini 2 won’t even ship with Siri AI; and the Apple Home Collection is a collective snore whose products do little to justify their existence.
Apple now finds itself pushing the same boulder uphill that Google and Amazon have repeatedly let roll over them for a decade. That is, the smart home is not a singular thing, and even reduced to cameras, light bulbs, locks, and a cavalcade of sensors, its complexity is, for the average person, insurmountable. Some houses may have a couple of Hue lights and a security camera or a water sensor and a smart lock, but the unification of its myriad standards and platforms, even with Matter claiming to solve many of them, still poses many hurdles.
To its credit, Google seems to be righting its own smart home ship at just the right time. While Ben pointed out this week that the Nest Hub hasn’t had a hardware refresh in half a decade, the Gemini-powered platform on which it runs is constantly being improved, and just this week added support to control Hue lights locally over the Matter protocol.
The move to an LLM-powered smart home hasn’t been smooth for any of the platform owners. Amazon, arguably the early leader in the space, has struggled to gain adoption for its Alexa+ platform. According to The Verge, it “has the memory of a goldfish” and “lacks the personal context a personal assistant needs,” an advantage that Apple and Google share thanks to owning smartphone platforms.
I’d also argue that Google’s first-party Nest hardware isn’t in a bad place, despite its glacial pace of change. The $100 Google Home Speaker is pretty good for the price, and the fourth-generation Nest Learning Thermostat is among the best products the company’s ever made.
With the HomeView, Apple may be going for simplicity over functionality, but in a smart home environment I’m not really sure that’s possible. And even if it does end up selling a boatload of tiny kitchen displays, Google’s in no less strong a position than it was last week. In fact, it may even make the inevitable Google Home Display more compelling.
- Old Google Home and Nest speakers getting big firmware update
- Google Home bug turns your smart home device list into a mess
✉️ Inbox
- LineageOS 24 launches based on Android 17 with app redesigns and simple flash tool
- Google releases officially refurbished Pixel 9 devices starting at $499 with an extra perk
- Google announces $179 Fitbit Edge tracker with display, GPS
- Nothing starts rolling out stable Android 17 update to Phone (3) – here’s the schedule
- Samsung is now rolling out Android 17 to these older Galaxy devices in the US
- Google’s Fitbit Air is getting a shiny new Metal Mesh band and better automatic tracking
- Chromecast with Google TV gets first update of 2026
- Gemini ‘Task’ redesign integrates Spark into the main chat app
- Oppo confirms list of devices getting its Android 17 update, rollout starts this month
- Samsung’s first Android XR glasses leak in 25 styles alongside 9-hour battery, specs [Gallery]
- Nothing’s CMF launches new wireless speakers that look like milk cartons
- YouTube’s contextual AI search rolls out to all users on Android and iOS in US
- Smartphone shipments dropped by 20%, lowest point in 14 years amid memory crisis
- YouTube bringing automatic background play to Android Automotive cars
- Hey Google, where is the next Nest Hub?
- Android Auto 18.0 update starts rolling out, continues to gear up for redesign
- OnePlus 16 goes official with 9,000 mAh battery, and it just makes me sad
- Chrome 155 for Googlebook brings expanded web app installs, integration
- Google’s new ‘Shop devices’ tab sells Pixel and Samsung Galaxy devices side by side
- Nothing reportedly launching two pairs of smart glasses, one with barely any AI
- Pocket Casts app now available on Android TV
- Samsung’s most useful Galaxy AI features are expanding with support for more languages
- Google Messages adding ‘enhanced protection mode’ as Android works to combat phone scam
- Samsung rolling out major Health update with Sleep & Running coach, meal scanning
- You can now join a WhatsApp call without an account
- Google Fitbit Edge hands-on: Pixel Watch Lite, take two
- YouTube Music rolling out AI labels in the Now Playing screen
- Google Home update rolling out with improved Favorites, more app & Gemini fixes
- Google Home app gets local Matter control over Philips Hue lights
- YouTube begins rolling out GIF support for comments very slowly; it’s for a reason
This week in ‘Googlebook is a clusterfuck’
- Googlebook OS review: A post-smartphone PC, if Google can keep it
- If a Chromebook wasn’t for you, Googlebook isn’t either
- Googlebook will improve support for Linux apps eventually, but it’s all about AI for now
This week in Google AI shenanigans
- Gemini app rolling out Gemini 4 Argon to AI Pro and AI Ultra
- Google Antigravity is now built into Gemini app for macOS
- Gemini AI Plus subscribers will lose access to Pro models next month
- Google Play adding ‘personal library’ to access your vibe-coded Android apps
➡️ FWD:
This section has some of our favorite stuff from around the internet. Great videos, weird memes, fun reads, recommended apps, whatever. Send us your recommendations!
The Sideload this week sees Android Authority’s Joe Maring return to the show to discuss the Pixel at 10. It’s a wonderful retrospective show that’s also a perfect complement to Pixelated’s Definitive Pixel Tier List.
🗑️ Trash
Ever wanted to know what pure disgust looks like? Take a gander at Mark Zuckerberg drinking his first sip of Guinness on John Collison’s “The Cheeky Pint” podcast, and then marvel at the hubris evident in the conversation around Muse and its conquest of the AI assistant space.
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Thanks for reading, and have a great day. I’ll talk to you on Tuesday.
-Daniel
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