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.
A key feature of this year’s Nest Mini speakers and Nest Wifi points is their ability to use ultrasound to detect your presence and light up in response. Starting today, the Google Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max will be able to detect when you’re nearby in the same way, with a few extra benefits.
Google’s Flutter SDK has long let developers create native applications for Android, iOS, and more. Now, Flutter’s underlying Dart programming language is gaining the ability to create native applications for Windows, Linux, and Mac, with the release of version 2.6.
Last month, we found that the Google Pixel 4 explicitly disables its 90Hz “Smooth Display” for a small handful of apps. One of those, WeChat, is now being redeemed and removed from the Pixel 4’s 90Hz blocklist.
One of the handiest features of Google Pixel phones is “Now Playing,” its ability to listen to music playing around you and identify songs without you needing to ask first. Now, it looks like Google is working on a way to export your Now Playing history.
Google Messages, the default SMS app for Pixel phones and arbiter of RCS chat for those in the UK and France (or anyone else who wants in), is rolling out a new UI for its images view with new Google Material Theme buttons for downloading and sharing.
In honor of Native American Indian Heritage Month, Google is displaying a homepage Doodle featuring Cherokee actor Will Rogers.
In this week’s top stories: a simple trick can enable RCS on any Android phone, our reviews of the Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL arrive, Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon Wear 3300 for Wear OS, and more.
Today marks the final day of Dia de Muertos or Day of the Dead celebrations both in Mexico and around the world, and the Google homepage is joining the festivities with a fantastic skeletal Doodle.
With the recent launch of the Google Pixel 4, many were excited by all of the things that the flagship phone could do, like Face Unlock and Motion Sense gestures. Unfortunately, we quickly found out that these features had some serious limitations. If you have a rooted Pixel 4, however, the limitations on what apps can use Face Unlock and which regions allow Motion Sense can be bypassed with mods.
Last week, it was announced that the first studio for Stadia Games and Entertainment would be located in Montreal, QC. Today, we’re taking a look at two more locations that Stadia Games and Entertainment is considering for development studios — London and Tokyo.
One of the better things about Google Search is the extra information it can tell you without having to click on a specific search result, including a quick rundown of the weather for any given area. On Google Search for mobile web, the weather card has been updated with the latest Material Theme stylings and a more detailed forecast.
One of the signature features of the Google Pixel 4 is Motion Sense, which allows you to perform certain (very specific) tasks on your phone with a wave of your hand. Unfortunately, Google intends for the Pixel 4’s Motion Sense gestures to stay limited for the near future, with no plans to open an API for developers.
If the chill of fright in the air wasn’t enough to tip you off, today is Halloween! Google is joining the festivities with an elaborate, interactive Halloween Doodle that allows you to go trick-or-treating to a handful of houses.
While ads essentially fund the internet as we know it today, sometimes they can create some of the worst experiences that the web has to offer. Google is working on a way for Chrome to automatically block some “heavy ads” on the web, that tend to slow down our browsers.
The launch of Google Stadia is just three short weeks away, and yet many aspects of the game streaming service still feel like a mystery. In prep for that upcoming launch, the official site for the developers of Destiny 2, Bungie․net, has added support for logging in via Stadia, hinting at the “Stadia Player Portal.”
Over the past week, Pixel 4 phones have been arriving at retailers around the world. Despite the fact that the Pixel 4 hasn’t been met with the best early impressions from the tech community at large, there’s no doubt that the Pixel 4 is one of the best phones released in 2019. That raises the question then: how is the Pixel 4 different from the Pixel 3 and is it worth upgrading to?
With Chrome OS being more dependent on internet connection than most other operating systems, it’s important to have a way to figure out why your connection might not be working. To that end, Google appears to be making their super handy “Connectivity Diagnostics” Chrome app a built-in part of Chrome OS, starting with version 80.
The “stable” version of Google Chrome 78 rolled out to Windows and Mac a week ago, but for some on Windows, this release has been anything but “stable.” A change in Google Chrome 78 has caused some antivirus applications, like Symantec Endpoint Protection, to crash Chrome on Windows 10 with an “Aw, Snap!”
We’re now just over three weeks away from the official launch of Stadia, Google’s game-streaming service that will allow playing games in up to 4K on a device as low-powered as even a Chromecast Ultra. In preparation for the launch, Google Family Link has updated its app to be ready to handle parents/guardians approving and purchasing Stadia games for their children.
This morning’s Google Doodle is celebrating the work of American writer Sylvia Plath, whose candid, exacting poetry and novels have resonated with the hearts of multiple generations.
In this week’s top stories: some Pixel phones pick up the “Rules” feature spotted in Android 10 betas, Google releases six experimental digital wellbeing apps, a firmware update inadvertently bricks some Google Home speakers, and more.
Since the Google Pixel 3, Pixel phones have had their own dedicated Google Sounds app with collections full of ringtones, notification sounds, and alarm tones. Today, Google Sounds version 2.2 is rolling out to all Pixel phones, bringing with it over 100 new sounds, including some fantastic new Halloween, Christmas and other holiday-themed tones.
One of the signature features of the Google Pixel 4 is its “Smooth Display” which automatically swaps between 60Hz and 90Hz refresh rates, depending on certain scenarios, which are beginning to be defined. Thanks to AOSP code, we now know that four specific apps have been blacklisted by the Pixel 4 to not allow the 90Hz refresh rate.
One of the many signature features of the Google Pixel 4, beyond the Soli/Motion Sense chip and astrophotography capabilities, is the inclusion of a 90Hz display, or “Smooth Display,” as also seen on the OnePlus 7T and some gaming phones. Early adopters have found, however, that the Pixel 4’s 90Hz display drops down to the standard 60Hz on lower brightness levels.