Kyle Bradshaw joined 9to5Google in 2018 with a special interest in Google’s Fuchsia OS, rooted in his experience of being the first to offer a visual preview of the revolutionary design of the in-development operating system. Since then, his attention has broadened to include the secrets hidden within other areas of Google’s public codebases.
By reading the public Fuchsia code, Kyle was able to prove the existence of the Nest Mini and the Nest Hub Max months ahead of their respective announcements. With evidence from Chromium, he reported on Google’s since-canceled efforts to create an offshoot of Android designed for “touchless” feature phones.
In 2018, Kyle reported on three distinct Made by Google Chromebooks in development, the Pixel Slate, the Pixelbook Go — a full year before its release — and “Meowth,” the original version of the Pixel Slate that was canceled due to Intel’s delays that year. For ChromeOS itself, Kyle was the first to demonstrate the upcoming light theme redesign in action.
Looking at the early evidence of the Pixel 5’s specs, Kyle accurately predicted in February 2020 that the Pixel 5 might not be a traditional “flagship” phone. In 2021, he reported that Google’s next headset would be the “Pixel Buds A.”
Kyle was the first to report that the Pixel 6 would mark the debut of Google’s in-house processors, later revealed to be the Tensor chips.
Kyle contributes to the APK Insight column at 9to5Google, discovering the hidden changes in Google’s apps. These efforts have revealed hotly anticipated features, details about upcoming devices, and unexpected connections between companies.
He can be reached for tips or just friendly chat by Threads, Mastodon, Bluesky, or email. If you’re looking for his other works or side projects, head over to Kyle’s personal portfolio.
As part of ongoing Black History Month celebrations, Google has replaced their homepage logo with an animated slideshow honoring Audre Lorde for her work as a poet, feminist, and civil rights activist.
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After successfully opening Waymo One as a public driverless ride-hailing service in Phoenix, Waymo is beginning to test autonomous vehicles with riders in San Francisco.
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For over a year now, Google has been hard at work on Nearby Sharing, a handy way to share things like files, contacts, and more with nearby Android devices — and Chrome. Today, the Google Play Store now offers the best example of Nearby Sharing, allowing you to share apps and updates between devices.
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Ahead of the launch of Android 12 Developer Preview, which may be around the corner, here’s a recap of all of the Android 12 leaks we’ve seen so far.
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Square Enix has announced that Outriders, the latest game from People Can Fly, will release on Stadia on April 1, the same date as other platforms.
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Over the last few years, phones have steadily grown larger and more unwieldy, with the recent Galaxy S21 Ultra being a great example. To help make your oversized phone a bit more manageable, Android 12 could be bringing a dedicated “one-handed mode” that shrinks your phone screen’s contents.
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With the launch of the Android 12 Developer Preview seemingly around the corner, we’ve learned that Pixel phones may be gaining a new face-based option for Auto-Rotate.
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In this week’s top stories: Android 12 leak reveals a radical new design, the Google Pixel Buds receive their first firmware update of 2021, Samsung continues to put ads on their flagship Galaxy phones, and more.
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For years now, Google has been developing Fuchsia, an operating system that is distinctly not based on Linux. The latest proposal for Fuchsia OS shows how this “not Linux” operating system could run “unmodified” programs for both Android and Linux.
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With the closure of Stadia Games and Entertainment giving Stadia at least the appearance of an uncertain future, Google is taking the wraps off of its plans for “more than 100 games” coming to Stadia in 2021, including nine games coming to the streaming platform in the next few months.
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To ring in the Lunar New Year, Google has replaced their homepage logo with one of a trio of Doodles celebrating the Year of the Ox.
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Recently, instead of using classic Chrome Custom Tabs, the Google app for Android began using a bespoke in-app browser for search results and more. Now the in-app browser for Google Search on Android is testing handy shortcuts to “Read Aloud” and “Translate.”
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YouTube has begun testing a more prominently placed “Watch On YouTube” badge for embedded videos.
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Last week, Google confirmed that Android TV’s home screen would be getting a redesign to bring it in line with the recently launched Google TV experience. This week, the Android TV Home app is receiving an update from version 2.3 to version 3.0, and while simply installing the update doesn’t bring the redesign, it’s clear that the preparations have been made.
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Due to a mistake, Slack for Android may have briefly logged your passwords as plain text, meaning you should probably change your password.
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Google has replaced their homepage logo with a Doodle honoring María Grever, an internationally acclaimed composer from Mexico.
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Crayta, the current Stadia exclusive engine for both creating and playing video games, is going fully free-to-play.
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For over two years now, we’ve known that Google was planning to kill off their classic Hangouts app in favor of opening Google Chat to those without Google Workspace. With the migration set to take place in the first half of 2021, Google Chat is preparing a beta test to open the app for Hangouts users to preview.
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Chrome OS’s upcoming Android “Phone Hub” may be getting the ability to mirror your phone’s screen as an exclusive feature for Google Pixel phones.
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As shared on Bandai Namco’s blog (via Bryant Chappel), Little Nightmares II, sequel to the 2017 horror puzzle platformer, will indeed arrive on Stadia when it launches this week, and it will be free to Stadia Pro members.
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The latest chapter in the Destiny 2 saga, Season of the Chosen, is available now, bringing a new storyline, new strikes, a new social hub, and more.
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Visible, the affordable unlimited everything MVNO from Verizon, is announcing a revamp to their Party Pay system as the carrier expands calling into Canada, Mexico, and more.
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Ahead of the launch of the Pixel 5, the Google Camera and Google Recorder apps, among others, became unable to be sideloaded due to verification errors. Thankfully, a solution — if, perhaps, a temporary one — has been discovered.
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Despite the “Photos” name, the Google Photos app is capable of managing both still images and videos. Now, Google Photos is improving its video capabilities by adding pinch-to-zoom along with a double-tap gesture.
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