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.
While most of the biggest announcements for Stadia came during last week’s Stadia Connect, Google still has a few tricks up its sleeve. Today, the company is announcing three more of the 120+ games coming to Stadia in 2020, including Superhot: Mind, Control, Delete.
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One of the awkward things about Google Stadia since launch is that the web, Chromecast, and Android versions don’t all support the same features. Among other work found in Stadia version 2.26, Google is working on one feature missing from Stadia for Android — voice chat support.
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Microsoft’s hotly anticipated first Android phone, the Surface Duo foldable, has been rumored to be releasing this summer instead of its original “holiday 2020” window. Now the Surface Duo has arrived at the FCC, moving it one step closer to release in the US.
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Google has been working hard to bring many G Suite apps together into one, using Gmail as the “home for work,” but not everyone is a fan of the change. Here’s how to disable the Google Meet tab in Gmail for Android and iOS.
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Every year, PC gamers look forward to the summer and winter sales on the Steam marketplace, when games get ridiculously steep discounts. Google Stadia is trying its hand at a similar event with the “Summer of Games Sale.”
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In the age of smartphones, screenshots have become an essential way to quickly share, as they allow others to see exactly what you’re seeing. That said, the way to take screenshots on your Chromebook or Chrome OS tablet isn’t exactly obvious, so here’s a quick how-to.
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Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 51st anniversary of the moon landing by honoring Dilhan Eryurt, one of the scientists responsible for Apollo 11.
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In this week’s top stories: Google reveals a bold redesign of Gmail for desktop and Android with Chat integration, the Google Store leaks a render of the Pixel 4a, the specs for the upcoming OnePlus Nord are confirmed, and more.
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Over the years, Chrome OS has landed on a wide variety of form factors like laptops, desktops, all-in-ones, tablets, and more. New evidence suggests Google is looking at bringing Chrome OS to another form factor — dual-touchscreen Chromebooks.
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Google Chrome, like most browsers, already goes a long way toward making browsing the web easy and secure by saving your passwords and periodically checking if any of them have been compromised. Now Chrome for Android is streamlining the process of logging into websites using saved passwords with a new “Touch to Fill” experience.
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One of the more useful features of Windows 10, as well as Gboard for Android, is the ability to temporarily store and manage the things you’ve recently copied to your clipboard. Now, Google is looking to bring a similar clipboard manager to Chrome OS with support for text, images, and more.
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To help make securely navigating the web easier, Google Chrome can access and autofill the passwords you’ve saved to your Google account. Soon, Google Chrome will also be able to directly manage and edit your saved passwords.
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Today marked the second Stadia Connect event for 2020, revealing a variety of new games coming soon to Google’s Stadia game streaming platform. During the video event, Google announced five new partnerships between Stadia Games and Entertainment and renowned game studios like Harmonix and Supermassive Games.
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Today, Google is hosting their second Stadia Connect of 2020, a livestream event showcasing the latest games and features coming to Google Stadia. Here’s everything Google announced during the July 2020 Stadia Connect event.
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Last year at GDC 2019, side-by-side with the announcement of Google Stadia, the company also unveiled its efforts to deliver fantastic games for the streaming service, through a new division of Google — Stadia Games and Entertainment. Now, nearly eight months into Stadia’s life, Stadia Games and Entertainment has delivered its first release in the form of Orcs Must Die! 3.
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In this week’s top stories: the Google app confirms the “Pixel 4a (5G)” and “Pixel 5,” Android 11 Beta 2 arrives for Pixel phones, more Nest controls previewed for the Google Home app, and more.
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One feature that Android fans have to be envious of the iPad for is Sidecar, the ability to use your iPad as an external display. It seems the folks at Lenovo are eyeing an interesting way to solve that by making an Android tablet that doubles as an external monitor, the “Yoga X.”
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For months now, we’ve been tracking three codenames tied to the lineup of Made by Google’s 2020 Pixel phones. Now all three codenames have appeared in the Google app along with associated product names including the “Pixel 5” and the “Pixel 4a 5G.”
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Five new Wear OS watches from Fossil have been listed with the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), suggesting Gen 6 Fossil watches may be coming soon.
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Last month, it was discovered that Google was hard at work on bringing Android’s answer to AirDrop, Nearby Sharing, to Chrome OS and Google Chrome for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Now the feature has begun to appear for some on Chrome OS Canary.
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Over the last few years, and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic gave many of us a lot more free time, TikTok has become one of the leading social media apps worldwide. Today, following talk of the United States officially banning the service, likes and view counts have disappeared from the TikTok app, but a fix is on the way.
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The second proper version of the Android 11 Beta released today, and in it we’ve found that the Android share sheet has been reorganized to only show apps instead of each individual share target.
One of the features we’ve been watching closely in the Android 11 Beta and Developer Preview period, the new media player controls interface, has gotten a familiar-looking redesign with Android 11 Beta 2.
Google’s cross-platform Flutter SDK has grown significantly since it first launched for Android and iOS apps, gaining support for the web, Mac, and Windows. Today, Google has announced that they’ve partnered with Canonical, the publishers of Ubuntu, to bring Linux desktop app support to Flutter.