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 our lives become ever more connected to the digital world, technology creates new ways to help us get work done and to unwind with a bit of play at the end of the day (or whenever you can squeeze in a few minutes). Here are some of the best gifts you can give to anyone in your life who works hard and plays hard.
In this week’s top stories: we re-review the Google Pixel 4 one month after its launch, Android 10 arrives for the OnePlus 6 and 6T, we take a look through Moment’s new fisheye lens on the Pixel 4, and more.
It’s Thanksgiving in the United States today, and many of us around the country are taking time to be with our families. To help celebrate, today’s Google Doodle is designed to rekindle memories of your personal history with Thanksgiving.
Google Stadia launched last week, allowing you to stream AAA video games to your laptop, desktop, Chrome OS tablet, Chromecast Ultra, or Pixel phone. Of course, the Android power user community was none too pleased about Stadia’s seemingly arbitrary restriction preventing non-Pixel phones from playing games on the go, and have made a way to play Stadia on almost any rooted phone.
Yesterday, Google revealed that December’s free Stadia Pro games would be Tomb Raider and Farming Simulator 19. Google Stadia has followed up on that announcement to share that those who bought either game are eligible for refunds.
Earlier this year, Google upgraded the Nest Hello with the ability to have holiday-themed doorbell sounds, starting with spooky Halloween sounds. Today, the company has announced that a variety of Christmas and other winter holiday sounds have been added to the Nest Hello’s repertoire.
When the Google Pixel 3 launched last year, one of the new Digital Wellbeing features that launched with it was “Flip to Shhh” which simply puts your phone in Do Not Disturb mode when placed face down on a surface. As of this week, Flip to Shhh is now available on the Google Pixel 2, by way of a beta update for Digital Wellbeing.
Earlier today, Google announced the next two games being offered for free to Stadia Pro members, one of which is Farming Simulator 19. Following that announcement, one of the developers of Farming Simulator 19 confirmed new details about the game’s graphics settings and the availability of cross-play on Google Stadia.
One of the perks of using Google Chrome on all of your devices is the ability to sync your autofill data such as your address and credit card number between all of your devices. But what if you move or your card’s expiration date changes? You’re in luck because you can quickly update Chrome’s autofill information. Here’s how…
Last Tuesday, the first group of customers got to experience the launch of Google Stadia, as Founders Editions pre-orderers received their invite codes. The next phase is just around the corner, as the Google Store has begun shipping Stadia Premiere Edition bundles to those who purchased.
In this week’s top stories: Google Stadia isn’t actually running all games at 4K, the Pixel 3 goes out of stock on the Google Store, Dynamic Email releases for Gmail on Android and iOS, and more.
After an eight-month wait from its original announcement, Google Stadia is finally here for the first wave of players to enjoy. One of Google’s apparent goals with Stadia is to make gaming appealing to new groups of people who may not have gamed before. As part of that goal, a partnership has just been announced between Google Stadia and AbleGamers, a respected charity vying to make gaming more accessible.
For those who like to live life on the bleeding edge, Google offers versions of Chrome that update more often than normal, ranging from every few weeks to nearly every day. However, Sign In with Google is now showing a warning to those who use Chrome Beta, Dev, or Canary that some Google services may not be available to them.
Today is the first Friday following the launch of Google Stadia, and no doubt there are people who are diving into Stadia Pro’s best (in this author’s biased opinion) free game, Destiny 2. However, Destiny 2 is not currently playable on Google Stadia, or any other platform for that matter, as server issues are currently plaguing the game with error code “stork.”
Canary builds of Google Chrome are updated almost every night, sometimes with exciting new features, other times with crashes or unwanted changes. Today’s Chrome Canary update for Android mistakenly renames the app to “Clankium.”
Google Stadia had something of a rough launch earlier this week, between less-than-stellar reviews and a slow-going rollout of invite codes to Founders. The latter issue is now behind us, with Google announcing that all Stadia Founder’s Edition invite codes have been sent, along with the shipping dates for the Premiere Edition.
Google Stadia launched to the world (or at least 14 of its countries) yesterday, and many of the early reviews painted a picture that Stadia just isn’t living up to any of its promises. We took some time to go hands-on with Google Stadia and our first impression is that it really, truly works.
This morning, a bit of misinformation surrounding Google Stadia was spread — starting from Stadia’s own Twitter account — saying that Stadia Pro members will lose the games they purchased at a discount when they unsubscribe from Stadia Pro. We have confirmed that this is not the case.
Gamers worldwide have been looking forward to the launch of Google Stadia, for the past eight months. Today, many of those who pre-ordered the Stadia Founders Edition are not receiving their invite code to start playing, but Google is actively working on a solution to the problem.
Update: Google has broadly confirmed who has and has not been sent their invite code, and how codes will be sent going forward.
Google Stadia, as a game streaming service that can run at up to 4k and 60 frames per second, is very demanding on your internet connection. So we’ve collected a few ways you can improve your internet connection to Google Stadia to be both better and faster and have less lag.
One of the more annoying parts of owning a cell phone these days is the number of robocalls and outright spam that randomly rings your phone from unknown numbers. To help combat these robocalls, Google Phone 42 is prepping for the Google Assistant to be able to automatically screen incoming calls from unknown numbers.
Over the last year, Google’s supremely cross-platform app development framework Flutter has expanded to both web apps and even smart displays like the Nest Hub. To encourage developers to think more about smart displays, Google’s Flutter and Assistant teams and Lenovo have launched a competition centered on creating a smart display clock face.
We’re now less than two days away from the launch of Google Stadia, and most pre-orderers of the Stadia Founders Edition have now been charged for their purchase, meaning their hardware will ship soon. However, for some unfortunate folks, Stadia pre-orders are being put on hold and then cancelled automatically by the Google Store due to payment issues.
Less than two days before the launch of Google’s Stadia game streaming service, the launch day lineup has been expanded with ten more games, bringing the total to 22. We also may now know the second game that Stadia Pro members will be able to enjoy for free.