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.
Microsoft Edge, the web browser that replaced Internet Explorer with the release of Windows 10, has been given a dramatic overhaul in the last year or so to be rebuilt on the same Chromium source code that Google Chrome is based on. Today, the new version of Microsoft Edge, based on Google’s Chromium, has been officially launched on Windows and macOS.
One of the big promises of Google Stadia is that Stadia Pro can bring games in up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second with HDR colors, but unfortunately not every game can check all of those boxes.
As of today, Google won’t tell you the resolution or frame rate at which Stadia runs each game, but thankfully a Stadia fan site has taken up the task.
Last year, Microsoft announced official GitHub apps for Android and iOS and opened early registration for the app. Today, those who registered are being sent invitations to download the official GitHub app for Android, but it might not be all that you expect.
When having any particularly important conversation, whether a professional interview or meeting, or just a meaningful conversation with a loved one, it can be a good idea to record it for posterity. Google already has recording in-person conversations down through their recent Recorder app, but phone conversations are a bit more difficult.
A teardown of Google Phone 43 has revealed that the Pixel series’ default dialer app may be gaining the ability to record phone calls.
When a website wants to identify your browser and what sort of computer or device you’re browsing from, the first place they’ll turn to is the User Agent string. In a surprising move, Google’s Chromium team has submitted a new proposal that includes deprecating the User Agent string starting in Chrome 81.
For years, Google allowed users to try upcoming products and experimental features within existing products ahead of a wider release through a program called Labs, which has since been discontinued. Now, Labs is making a comeback through the Google app, bringing with it experimental features like pinch-to-zoom for search results.
In this week’s top stories: the January 2020 security patch lands on Google Pixel phones, we go hands on with Lenovo’s upcoming Chrome OS tablet the IdeaPad Duet, Android 10 lands on a handful of Nokia devices including the Nokia 6.1, and more.
With the seemingly endless breadth of content available on the internet these days, when you find content that’s truly special and unique, you may want to see more from the same author or creator. Google Chrome is prepping an experimental feature to help you do just that by showing social media info and more content from your favorite web creators.
For years now, long before it became a part of Google’s Firebase, Crashlytics has offered Android and iOS developers a way to obtain insights about if and why their app is crashing on their user’s devices. As has been the trend for Firebase libraries recently, Google has made Crashlytics for Android and iOS into an open source project.
While there’s no doubt that Google is what comes to mind when most people think of a search engine, there are a plethora of other great choices on both web and mobile like DuckDuckGo. Following a silent auction last year, Google has unveiled the search engines that will be presented to Android devices in the European Economic Area.
For most, the best time to charge your phone is when you’re sleeping, simply for the fact that you’re not using it during those hours, but this isn’t necessarily the best thing for your battery life in the long term. To solve this battery issue, OnePlus has unveiled a new feature coming soon to their devices called “Optimized Charging.”
Last month, Qualcomm signaled the proper beginning of the 5G era by including 5G modems in both their flagship and mid-range chips for 2020. Today, Realme is introducing their 5G option, starting in China, with the Realme X50 5G.
It’s the first official day of CES 2020, and the product announcements are flowing like water. Today, Philips is rolling out a few new series of Android TVs, including one model that’s optimized for gaming, including Google Stadia.
Since the launch of Linux apps on Chrome OS in 2018, manufacturers have been in an arms race to provide better, higher-powered Chromebooks to accommodate the performance demands of developers and other power users. At CES 2020, ASUS has unveiled their latest flagship Chrome OS device, the Chromebook Flip C436, and it’s a real spec sheet stuffer.
In this week’s top stories: we go over the major problems the Google Pixel 4 has even after two monthly updates, we collect the best features of Samsung’s One UI 2.0, Chrome for Android tries out a new UI for Tab Groups, and more.
One of the biggest valid criticisms of Google Stadia’s launch was its limited game selection. Over the course of the last year, the library has steadily expanded with AAA and indie titles alike. However, before 2020 comes to a close Stadia still has a few more tricks up its sleeve, with over 25 games slated to arrive by the end of the year. Here’s a preview of every game we know is coming to Stadia before the end of 2020.
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One of the hallmarks of Google Stadia is the ability to game on traditional devices like computers and TVs along with more portable form factors like a Pixel phone. To make the most of playing Stadia on your Pixel, you’ll need a phone mount for your controller. But is the official Made for Google Stadia Controller CLAW from Power Support worth your money?
Earlier this year, Google Chrome officially launched tab groups on Android, confirming the change from the classic tab switcher to the new grid-based design. Google’s next step for their mobile browser is to integrate Tab Groups into Chrome for Android’s recent “Duet” redesign.
In this week’s top stories: Google Messages update brings Android 11’s “Bubbles” feature, the Google Pixel 4a makes its first visual debut, and renders for the Samsung Galaxy S11+ have been updated with a new camera layout.
Today, the rumor going around is that Apple might be rebuilding their storied macOS browser Safari on top of Google’s Chromium, similar to Microsoft’s recent changes to Edge. However, the “evidence” for this just doesn’t add up.
So, you received a Nest Wifi as a gift or maybe picked a new router from a Black Friday sale, to help improve your connection to Google Stadia. Now you need to connect that controller (and all your other devices) to your new network. Here’s how to change the Stadia Controller’s WiFi settings to connect it to a new network.
This week, Google is ringing in the holiday season with a series of Doodles and easter eggs to wish you a “Happy Holidays 2019!”
Not long ago, it was a simple task for developers to find up-to-date information about what percentage of Android devices is running each version of the operating system. Now that Google is no longer consistently updating the Android distribution dashboard, we need to turn to… alternative sources, namely Pornhub.