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.
In this week’s top stories: the Pixel 5 gets off to a rocky start with potential design flaws and an unexpected “flashing dot,” we share our thoughts on the new Chromecast with Google TV, the new Google Workspace icons begin appearing, and more.
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On this day in 1940, football legend Pelé was born in Minas Gerais, Brazil. In honor of Pelé’s 80th birthday, Google has hidden a new easter egg into Google Search.
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Following three days of “Good Stuff” announcements, “Stadia” has begun trending on Twitter following a tweet from a Google Stadia Games & Entertainment Creative Director suggesting that streamers should be paying game studios a percentage of their revenue.
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This week, Stadia is bringing a jam-packed three days of game announcements and exclusive demos in a video event series they’ve dubbed “Good Stuff.” Today, Google has taken the wraps off of three new exclusive Stadia demos, including Immortals: Fenyx Rising.
Update 2: Day three of the “Good Stuff” has gone live, bringing a quick demo of Ubisoft’s upcoming Immortals: Fenyx Rising.
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Closing out three days of “Good Stuff” announcements, Stadia is revealing two more games coming to players next year, including Young Souls, a First on Stadia exclusive.
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Since the release of iOS 14 earlier this year, Google has been impressing us all with gorgeous new home screen widgets for its apps. YouTube Music is now the latest Google app to get iOS 14 widgets, showing your recently played music in a gorgeous design.
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To help your friends let you know that it’s time to game, the Stadia app for Android and iOS now offers notifications for game invites, friend requests, and more.
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For a few months now, we’ve been keeping an eye on a new feature for Chrome OS called “Phone Hub” which will deeply connect your Chromebook to your Android phone. Now we’re beginning to see the feature come to fruition on the Android side by way of an update to Google Play Services.
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As part of day two of Stadia’s “Good Stuff” event, a port of ARK: Survival Evolved has been announced to be coming early next year.
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For a few months now, we’ve been watching work progress on a full referral system for Stadia, one that offers an incentive for both the sender and recipient. Today, a limited number of Stadia players have begun to be offered this new referral and reward system.
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Last week, eagle-eyed Stadia fans spotted a few seconds of what appeared to be a new Pac-Man game during a Stadia ad. Today, as part of Stadia’s three-day “Good Stuff” series, Bandai Namco has now revealed Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle, a battle royale twist on an arcade classic.
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While Stadia has thus far pulled in games from great studios like Ubisoft, Square Enix, and 2K, the platform has so far been devoid of EA games, despite a few being announced. As of today, we now have a formal release date for the first EA game on Stadia, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
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Chrome OS is set to gain a new “Trash” folder that will make it easy to undelete a file you may have accidentally deleted.
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In this week’s top stories: Google officially shuts down music sales in the Play Store, Carl Pei leaves OnePlus, Google Camera 8.0 can be installed on older Pixels, and more.
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Whether looking through your camera or browsing images on the web, Google Lens is a great way to learn more about what’s visible in a photo. Today, the Google app and Chrome for Android are gaining an easy way to search almost any image through Google Lens.
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One of the most useful features of Google Maps, particularly in the age of social distancing, is the ability to know how busy a restaurant or other business is before you arrive. Soon, Google Maps will be able to show how busy a place is directly in the map view.
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At the end of last month, Google hosted its fall hardware event where the company unveiled their latest phones and Made by Google hardware. Tonight, Google has announced a surprise “Google Search On” event, taking place on October 15, to highlight the latest improvements to Google Search and more.
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Long before the launch of Google Stadia, the one game many players have been looking forward to enjoying is Cyberpunk 2077, though no official launch date for the Stadia version was ever given. Today, CD Projekt Red has given Stadia fans the news they wanted to hear, that Cyberpunk 2077 will launch on Stadia side-by-side with other consoles.
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Despite all the reasons we love Chrome OS, the one major downside is that Chromebooks come with an expiration date, after which they’ll no longer receive updates. Google is now giving some Chromebooks just shy of nine years of guaranteed support.
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The Google Pixel 5 has reached reviewers and will soon be landing in the hands of customers around the world, bringing with it a new update to the Google Camera app. Luckily, it’s possible to install Google Camera 8.0 on older Pixel phones, but it’s not as easy as one would hope.
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For a few years now, Google has maintained three sizes of smart speakers: small, large, and just right. With the new Nest Audio speaker, Google has taken “just right” to a whole new level.
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Part of the magic of Google Stadia is that games, demos, and free play weekends can all be played and enjoyed instantly. Next week, Google has a slate of “Good Stuff” planned for Stadia players, including new games and demos.
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The latest update to Google Stadia for Android, version 2.39, includes preparation for a free trial of Stadia Pro for Google One members.
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The Google Pixel 5 is set to reach its first customers’ hands — outside of the US, anyway — later this week. Ahead of that launch, the Pixel Stand app has received an update, adding “Home controls” styled after Android 11’s power menu.
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