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: Google begins selling its ADT-3 Android TV developer dongle powered by Android 10, the Android Flash Tool puts the latest AOSP on your Pixel, Android 10 arrives for the Samsung Galaxy S9, and more.
On this day in 1960, four men began a movement of nonviolent protest against segregated businesses in Greensboro, North Carolina. To honor the sixtieth anniversary of the Greensboro Sit-in, Google is displaying an incredible diorama depicting the historic protest.
When making a purchase on the web, one of the ways you can provide credit card details is through your browser’s built-in Payment Request API. However, due to mounting security and user experience challenges, Google is disabling the Payment Request API on Chrome for iOS.
Over the course of last year, evidence came out showing Google was working on a version of Android for feature phones, followed by signs that the efforts were being scrapped. Now, four months later, new listings for an upcoming Nokia phone suggests those Android feature phone efforts could still be ongoing.
In the last release of the Google Phone app, our team uncovered that the app was gaining the ability to record phone calls. Tonight, Google Phone 44 has released with more preparations for that feature, including the ability to have your recorded call transcribed.
One of the key controls found on every web browser is the address bar, where you can view the current page’s URL, edit it, or enter a new one. A Googler has proposed a potential new way for Google Chrome to display URLs in a way that could help fight back against phishing sites.
For over a year now, Google has made the Android Open Source Project’s automatic build process public through a continuous integration (CI) dashboard. Today, the company has unveiled the Android Flash Tool as a simple way to try any AOSP build on your Google Pixel phone, right from your browser!
Beyond the usual monthly perk of free games, Google Stadia Pro members are offered exclusive discounts on purchasing new games. Closing out January and stepping into February, Google has prepared a new set of deals for those Stadia Pro members, including 60% off Mortal Kombat 11.
Google Stadia launched late last year in four colorways, with many more scrapped options teased in photos. However, there’s actually an official fifth “Clear” color scheme for the Google Stadia Controller, which uses transparent plastic to reveal the controller’s inner workings.
As our Android phones are getting ever larger and taller, Google Chrome has been compensating with a redesign called “Duet” that brings more of the UI to the bottom of the screen. Google has now decluttered Chrome for Android’s Duet design by removing some buttons, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.
On Chrome for Android, it’s all too easy to get more information about a word or phrase on a website by simply selecting it, then opening the new Google Search panel that appears on screen. Spotted by Chrome Story, a similar, but more powerful version of this feature, “Quick Answers,” is being developed for Chrome OS, similar to Look Up on macOS.
In this week’s top stories: the 2020 Google Pixel Buds get certified by the Bluetooth SIG, WhatsApp reaches a massive five billion installs, potential pricing for the Galaxy S20 gets leaked, and more.
Today marks the first day of Lunar New Year celebrations, and the Google homepage is joining the festivities with a Doodle depicting the Year of the Rat.
Regardless of whether you’re on a desktop or mobile device, one of the best free video players on the market is VLC. Today, a beta update to VLC for Android has brought support for Chrome OS’s new picture-in-picture video player.
Over the last few years, LG has garnered a reputation for updating their Android devices at a significantly slower pace than nearly all of their competitors. With Google I/O 2020 now on the horizon, most likely bringing the next major Android version, LG has finally announced a timeline for more of their devices to get the Android 10 update, including the LG V50 and G8X ThinQ.
The first update for the Google Stadia app of 2020 arrived earlier today, bringing a handful of improvements and features. Looking deeper into the app, we’ve found evidence that Google Stadia on Android will soon let you zoom in on screenshots, use the Assistant, and more.
Without a doubt, the best video calling app on Android, and one of the closest competitors to Apple’s FaceTime, is Google Duo. We’ve uncovered evidence that Samsung is working on integrating Google Duo directly into the Samsung Messages app for Galaxy devices.
For over two months now, I’ve been playing video games almost exclusively on Google Stadia. In that time, Stadia has shown itself to be simultaneously both the best and the worst platform for multiplayer gaming.
Today, Google has devoted their homepage to a celebration of the Chinese-American film star, Anna May Wong, on the 97th anniversary of her first leading role.
While game streaming is a surprisingly full market, the two biggest rivals at the moment are Google Stadia and Microsoft’s Xbox One powered xCloud Preview. Today, Microsoft’s Project xCloud has added 15 more games to its library, including Stadia’s flagship title Destiny 2.
In 2018, Pocophone, a sub-brand of Xiaomi, released the Poco F1, which has remained a strong contender for the title of best affordable Android phone. A newly discovered trademark application points to the existence of a Pocophone Poco F2.
Last year, Google (almost) shocked us all with the unveiling of the second-generation of Pixel Buds at Made by Google 2019, this time as a proper true wireless competitor to Apple’s AirPods. Ahead of their slated release in Spring 2020, the new Google Pixel Buds have turned up in the Bluetooth SIG.
Last year, Google brought some of their signature homepage “Doodles” to the home screen search bar of Pixel phones. Now, it looks like Google may be bringing those same Doodles to non-Pixel Android phones in the near future, starting with a “Lab” experiment.
Sharing links to quality content is one of the core experiences of the internet as we know it today. Google is looking to streamline that process with a new share sheet in Chrome for Android that also brings new ways to share the web.