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.
For the past year and a half, Google has been pushing a “digital wellbeing” initiative to help us all use our phones in a healthier way. In the latest, and arguably largest, push, Android devices are now required to have a digital wellbeing app of some kind, along with parental controls, according to documents viewed by 9to5Google.
In this week’s top stories: we get to see official camera samples for the Google Pixel 4, the “new Google Assistant” appears in video, a robot repeatedly folds the Samsung Galaxy Fold to the death, and more.
We’re now only a month away from the launch of Stadia, Google’s premium game streaming service, with support for streaming games in up to 4K at 60FPS. Today, Google has announced another title coming to Stadia, Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2.
Back at I/O, with the release of the Google Pixel 3a, Google launched both it and its flagship brother, the Pixel 3, on three more carriers. However, this still left AT&T out of the fun, but an alleged internal email points to the Google Pixel 4 launching on the carrier.
Since the launch of the Nest Hub (Google Home Hub at the time), it’s been possible to Duo call your smart display from a phone or call your loved ones from your Nest Hub. Meanwhile, the classic Google Home speakers were left without this handy feature, but not for long. As of now, you can finally place audio calls to your Google Home smart speakers via Google Duo.
For the past three months, we’ve been tracking what appears to be a next-generation Nvidia Shield TV with updated hardware that might be in a dongle form factor. Now this device has received Bluetooth certification, putting it one step closer to release and confirming some details.
We’ve learned so much over the past few months about updates to the camera on the Google Pixel 4, including a recent tidbit about the existence of a “Pixel Neural Core.” We’ve now learned that the Google Pixel 4 will offer “Dual Exposure Camera Controls” to help you take the perfect shot, regardless of lighting.
For the past two months, the hardware of the Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL has felt “known,” with leakers even posting the full spec sheet to YouTube. Today, we’ve exclusively obtained the official spec sheet for the Google Pixel 4, which includes a previously unknown detail, the “Pixel Neural Core.”
The Google Pixel 4 is now less than two weeks from being properly unveiled at the 10/15 Made by Google Event, but the leaks just keep rolling in. We can now exclusively show you some official, full-resolution camera samples that Google plans to use to promote the Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL.
Earlier this week, the first official press renders of the Google Pixel 4 leaked out, displaying a bold wallpaper depicting “P4” in a colorway very close to Google’s traditional four-color scheme. A graphic designer has re-created that P4 wallpaper for you to use today; download it here!
Immediately after the launch of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro, we showed how easy it was to install Google apps on the device, despite the phone not being legally allowed to have them in the first place. The app responsible for this, LZPlay, has now been taken down, following the release of a detailed explanation of the security backdoor used to install Google apps on the Huawei Mate 30 Pro.
Yesterday, it was discovered that Google would soon be launching a new app for Pixel phones, called “Personal Safety” that would, among other helpful things, detect car crashes. If you want to test out Personal Safety on your Pixel phone today, here’s where you can download it.
Throughout the year, Google devotes time to celebrate some of the unsung heroes of the world on their homepage. The latest Google Doodle honors the late Dr. Herbert Kleber, one of the pioneers in substance abuse and addiction therapy.
With the Made by Google event still over two weeks away, the Pixel 4 leak train continues running full steam. The latest likely leak of a Made by Google 2019 announcement comes in the form of the Personal Safety app, which, among other things, claims to detect car crashes on Pixel phones.
Last week, we put special attention on the specific apps that we know for sure will work with the Google Pixel 4’s Motion Sense to allow skipping tracks without touching your phone. However, Motion Sense will be capable of more than just media controls. Check out everything you’ll be able to do with Motion Sense on the Google Pixel 4 at launch.
One of the features we’re most looking forward to on the Google Pixel 4 is the ability to control things like music without touching our phones by simply gesturing over the screen. Now we’ve now learned that Motion Sense on the Pixel 4 will certainly work with these media apps.
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The one feature that really sets the Google Pixel 4 apart from any smartphone before it is Motion Sense, which uses radar technology to track hand gestures. We’ve already gotten a small preview of the countries Pixel 4’s Motion Sense will work in, but now we have the full list of all 38 countries. Check it out!
In this week’s top stories: Gmail finally gets a dark theme on Android and iOS, we exclusively report on Google’s next Chromebook the “Pixelbook Go,” we get hands-on with many of the Google Pixel 4’s pre-installed apps, and so much more.
The idea for the “Google” search engine was hatched back in 1998, or twenty one years ago. The latest Google Doodle celebrates the company’s 21st birthday in a fittingly nostalgic way.
Between video leaks of the Pixel 4 in action and leaks of the Pixel Themes app, we’ve seen bits and pieces of the live wallpapers launching with the phone. Now, we have a preview of all the new live wallpapers coming with the Google Pixel 4 next month. Check them out!
If you find yourself in or around Chicago this weekend, you might want to take a detour over to the Wonderful Weekends Festival being hosted by Google from September 27th through the 29th.
From time to time, Google places a small promotional message on their homepage, and these promos are often also shown on Chrome’s New Tab Page. Google has created a way for you to dismiss promos from the Google Chrome New Tab Page.
Today is the annual Firebase Summit where developers gather to learn more about the latest advancements to Google’s app development suite, and the biggest announcement of the event is Firebase Extensions, which allow you to quickly and easily add new capabilities to your app.
The leak cycle for the Google Pixel 4 has been running non-stop for the past few months, and while we’ve meticulously cataloged every Pixel 4 leak so far, it’s sometimes easier to think about what we don’t know yet. So here are the main lingering questions we have about the Google Pixel 4 ahead of its launch.