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 few years, it’s been possible on many Chromebooks to install the Play Store and run Android apps. This opened the door for Chromebooks to become more than just glorified web browsers. Now, Google is looking to make some major under-the-hood changes to Chrome OS’s Android apps support, which may allow for a long-requested feature.
When Google first took the wraps off of Stadia during GDC, they promised that the service would have “best-in-class parental controls.” At the time, though, no further details were offered on how this would work. The latest update to Google’s Family Link app, which lets parents manage their children’s Google Accounts, gives us our first clues to how Stadia’s parental controls will work, and other potential Stadia insights.
One of the best things about Chrome OS is how easy Google has made it to switch from one Chromebook to another, thanks to the variety of backup and sync options. The Chrome OS team appears to be improving this experience in the near future by also syncing WiFi passwords.
In any given day, the amount of times that I’ll need to right-click something numbers in the dozens. This is especially true now that Chrome OS has picked up Linux apps support. And yet, some people are unhappy with one of the ways we can right-click on Chrome OS, and Google may be changing it soon.
Just as new web pages are constantly being created, so too is Google constantly indexing these pages to improve their Search results. However, this morning, it seems as though Google’s search indexing has stopped, meaning no new results are appearing in Google Search.
During MWC earlier this year, Google confirmed that the Assistant would be coming soon to their Messages app. At the time, no specific timeline was shared for when the Assistant would land on our devices. With today’s Messages for Android update, the Google Assistant is arriving for some, bringing useful contextual suggestions.
Since late last year, we’ve been following the development of Microsoft’s attempt to start fresh and do things better with their Edge browser by rebuilding it based on Google’s Chromium (the foundation of Google Chrome). One of the exciting prospects to come out of that development is that Edge would be available on non-Windows platforms. As of today, the new, Chromium-based Microsoft Edge is ready to try out on macOS.
With as smart as our phones have become over the past 10 years, there are certain things we would expect them to already do automatically, like change your ringer volume in certain places. Power users have been able to do this using third-party apps like Tasker for quite some time, but Google may be making Android automation easier for Pixel users with new “Rules.”
In this week’s top stories: the Google Assistant tries on a gorgeous redesign complete with a “light bar,” Google Drive may stop syncing with Google Photos in the near future, Google agrees to settlement in Pixel lawsuit, and more.
Now that Android Q is in the hands of far more users, thanks to Google bringing Beta 3 to over a dozen non-Pixel devices, a lot of folks are just getting acquainted with the new features we’ve covered in the first two betas. Unfortunately, Google also made some of the experimental features, hidden behind “feature flags,” like native screen recording support, harder to access. So here’s how to enable screen recording in Android Q Beta 3.
Whether you want to get up close and personal with your favorite Pokémon, dance along with Childish Gambino, or learn more about the human anatomy, ARCore powers some of the best augmented reality experiences available today, on compatible devices. The latest phones to gain ARCore compatibility are the first devices on the list from Sharp and General Mobile.
Earlier this year, Google launched the .dev top-level domain and simultaneously created a variety of new .dev websites, including a new website for Flutter. It seems Google’s Fuchsia team is planning to launch their own Fuchsia.dev website, hinting at the operating system potentially getting some more developer exposure soon.
Like most other people on the planet, I often have way too many Chrome tabs open at a time, both on my Chromebook and on Android. It’s so easy to rack up that it quickly becomes a hard-to-navigate mess. To help solve this, Google has been working on Tab Groups in Chrome for Android to allow for neatly organizing our tabs, and they’re available to test out now.
For the past few years, Google has been working to make YouTube’s fullscreen experience on Android more immersive, so you can watch more videos without needing to switch back to portrait orientation. YouTube is rolling out another adjustment to this fullscreen UI, with handy upvote, saving, and sharing options.
The OnePlus 7 Pro has been officially unveiled today, and been placed in the hands of many skilled reviewers, including our own Damien Wilde. While the rest of us will have to wait until May 17th to get our hands on the OnePlus 7 Pro, we can make the most of the device’s collection of wallpapers on our own phones.
Google Drive has long been the all-in-one storage solution for many, storing both traditional office files and Google Docs, along with photos and files of all varieties. In the past, Google Drive has worked in tandem with Google Photos to keep your photos safely stowed and accessible in both apps. This Google Photos sync integration seems to be ending in the near future, however, according to the latest version of the Google Drive app.
It’s the second Sunday in May, and for those of us in the United States and many other parts of the globe, that means it’s Mother’s Day. In case you were too wrapped up with the excitement this week—perhaps Google I/O—and forgot, Google is ready to remind you, with a new Mother’s Day Google Doodle that extends to the Pixel Launcher.
In this week’s top stories: Google launched the Pixel 3a and began a strong marketing campaign against the iPhone X, Google Fi mistakenly charged full price to some customers who wanted financing, the third Android Q Beta has arrived, including on non-Pixel phones, and more.
Every year at Google I/O, the community is treated to a “Fireside Chat” where developers can directly ask questions to the Android team and have them answered clearly and honestly. This year, the Android Fireside Chat closed out I/O 2019 and offered candid insight on the future of Wear OS, Fuchsia, and foldable devices.
For the past few years, uBreakiFix has been one of Google’s repair partners for the Pixel phones in the US. The same is true this year, and same-day repairs for the Google Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL are already available at all uBreakiFix locations.
At I/O 2019, Google made the Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL official, with the device already appearing in stores around the world. For those of us who aren’t picking up a Pixel 3a, we can at least use the wallpaper shown in the renders and promotional content we’ve seen so far.
At Google I/O, some were looking forward to the potential for Google to announce Fuchsia as their next operating system for devices of all kinds. That admittedly outlandish dream has now been dashed, but not completely. Despite not being featured on the main stage, Google has publicly acknowledged Fuchsia OS in the middle of a Google I/O announcement.
Developers likely know all too well the struggle of having to create and maintain a consistent experience between mobile, desktop and web apps. Flutter has already bridged the gap between Android and iOS development, but now Flutter is expanding to the web, desktop and more, growing closer to the “write once, run anywhere” dream.
Every day, we offload tasks to the Google Assistant to save time and effort, including opening apps by name. In the coming months, you’ll be able to open into deeper parts of your Android apps using the Google Assistant’s “App Actions.”