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.
To be able to try some of the greatest augmented reality experiences available today—like dancing with Childish Gambino or placing a great white shark in your room—you’ll need a device compatible with Google’s ARCore. Google maintains a list of Android and iOS devices that are supported by ARCore, and all of the newest OnePlus devices have been added to this list, including the fantastic OnePlus 7 Pro.
In this week’s top stories: the Google Pixel 4 is the center of attention with unofficial renders, an official Google render, rumors of Project Soli support, and pictures of the actual phone in the wild.
With all the hype around the Pixel 4 this week, we thought it might be good to look at some of the other things Google might have in the Made by Google hardware pipeline. A new hardware prototype, codenamed “Visalia,” has popped up in the Fuchsia OS source code, which could be yet another Google Home device.
Google Photos is one of Google’s best services, made especially useful by the fact that it’s mostly free. One of the paid parts of the Google Photos app is the ability to make photo books, and some users are now seeing large ads for those books in the app.
During the first ever Stadia Connect earlier this month, we learned about the many multiplayer games we’ll be able to enjoy on Google Stadia. Developers from Bungie, the creators of Destiny 2, have addressed fans’ concerns over potential for input lag when playing a competitive multiplayer game like Destiny 2 on Google Stadia.
Since January, we’ve been following a set of major changes to extensions on Google Chrome, called Manifest V3, which includes a controversial rework of how ad blockers are expected to function. In response to the overwhelmingly negative feedback, Google has created an internal performance test for ad blocking extensions, to show that they’re committed to allowing ad blockers in Chrome.
Last month, we uncovered hints in the Google Drive app that the cloud storage service’s dedicated “Google Photos” folder would no longer be synced with your Google Photos. Today, Google is making the change official and explaining why the sync between Drive and Photos needed to simplified.
One of the most common things we all do while using Chrome is switch from one tab to another. Google is testing an animation for the tab switcher that will make Chrome’s tab experience feel smoother and more seamless.
In this week’s top stories: Huawei continues to update their Android phones with EMUI 9.0, Google releases Android Q Beta 4 to Pixel devices, Stadia Connect reveals all the hot details of Google’s game streaming service, and more.
During yesterday’s Stadia Connect, Google gave us all the details on the best parts of Stadia, namely the games available, the pricing, and the variety of platforms you can play on. What they, of course, didn’t talk about are all the potential threats to Stadia taking off in the long-term, like cross-play availability, the competition, and even Google themselves.
During the Stadia Connect event, many of the juicy details of the streaming service’s launch were revealed, including the platforms and the now-known 14 countries Stadia will launch in. Unfortunately, Google has confirmed that not all of the United States will not be receiving Stadia, with Hawaii being left out of the fun at launch.
During today’s Stadia Connect event, Google is revealing the answers to the big three questions people have been asking about Stadia—pricing, games, and launch info. We now know that Google Stadia will launch on a variety of devices later this November.
Today’s the first Stadia Connect event, where Google is answering many of the questions we’ve been asking about their upcoming game streaming service ahead of E3. If you’re not able to watch along with the livestream event, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a list of all thirty games Google announced during the Stadia Connect livestream.
We’re just under an hour away from the first Stadia Connect, where Google will reveal pricing, launch info, and games coming to the platform. Ahead of the event, however, we have another confirmed game for Google Stadia: THQ Nordic’s Darksiders Genesis.
Google has long been known for their impressive data analytics tools, both for the average web administrator and for Google Cloud customers. Today, Google Cloud is picking up another suite of tools by acquiring a previously-complementary data analytics visualization company, Looker.
Among the fine-grained changes made with Android Q Beta 4, Google has also enabled a fairly in-depth technical preview for developers to try out. The feature, called Dynamic System Updates, allows you to temporarily run a different version of Android on your device.
While today’s Android Q Beta 4 update may not seem to have changed too much visually, it appears there may be a lot more going under the surface. The latest example of this is that “Smart Lock” may be getting rebranded to “Pixel Presence” on Google Pixel devices with Android Q.
Android Q Beta 4 is rolling out to Pixel devices today, and the first change everyone is presented with is the design tweaks done to the lock screen.
Almost every day here at 9to5Google, we try to uncover the latest developments happening in Google Chrome and Chrome OS. The frustrating thing is that it’s often weeks or months before the things we report on make it to our devices. If you’re brave enough to use less-than-stable software to try out these latest features, then Chrome OS’s Canary update channel is for you—here’s how to make the switch.
At the end of last year, Google rebranded Project Fi to Google Fi, to indicate that their cell service was ready for the big leagues. Today, Google Fi has hit a major snag, leaving customers unable to place or receive phone calls, but thankfully there’s a simple fix.
In this week’s top stories: Google stands firm on major changes to Chrome which will adversely affect the functionality of ad block extensions, the Huawei Mate 20 returns to the Android Q Beta, Huawei themselves are reinstated to the SD Association, and more.
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Following along with the development of Google’s Fuchsia OS, it has become clear that it will be capable of running both Linux and Android apps. Chrome OS can also do both of these things, and that’s no coincidence, as the Fuchsia team has opted to use some of Chrome OS’s developments for their own benefit.
With Google I/O’s hardware launches now weeks behind us, it’s time to look ahead to the next Made by Google products. This morning, another Google device has passed through the FCC, and it appears to likely be a Google Nest product.
Before you can use your credit or debit card with Google Pay, your bank needs to form an agreement with Google. Seemingly every other week, a new batch of US banks and financial institutions are added to Google Pay’s master list, with a grand total of 32 so far in May.