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 a few months now, we’ve known that Google is bringing “Tab Groups” to Chrome, both on Desktop and Android. We’ve already seen how these tab groups will change our browsing on Android, but desktop has remained somewhat elusive. We now have our first real look at tab groups in Chrome OS and Chrome for desktop, thanks to a Googler’s screenshot.
It’s barely April and Pixel 4 leak season has already begun. Today, we’ve shockingly found our first reference to Google’s next phone, the “Pixel 4,” inside of the Android Open Source Project.
With the Google Pixel Slate, Chrome OS took something of a step forward in camera quality, and in fact it was the first Chrome OS device to introduce Portrait mode photos. The feature has since been exclusive to the Pixel Slate, which uses its own custom app. According to a new code change, the stock Chrome OS Camera app will be getting Portrait mode and more very soon.
In this week’s top stories: we learn how fast the four most recent versions of Android are on the original Google Pixel, preview how the Play Store’s new “squircle” shaped icons will look, lament the seemingly permanent disappearance of the $599 Pixel Slate, and more.
As Chrome OS continues to improve and offer consistent features and experience across all devices (with the exception of the Pixel line’s special treatment), the only real difference between two Chromebooks is the external and internal hardware. The Acer Chromebook 514 has hardware that certainly sets itself apart from the pack, but not always in a good way.
Google I/O 2019 is just over a month away, and we may have our first preview of something Google is going to demonstrate during the keynote. A new Chromium code change listed as being “for internal review” reveals a demo of the Google Assistant using context to recommend an action and automatically performing it in Chrome for Android.
In the build up to last year’s Made by Google hardware event, we shared our three leading guesses for the in-development devices most likely to be Google’s Chrome OS flagship for 2018. Two of those, “Nocturne” and its failed predecessor, “Meowth”, were accounted for by the Pixel Slate, leaving “Atlas” unexplained. Knowing Google’s recent history with hardware leaks, it was only a matter of time before Atlas revealed itself. The time has come, as leaked two videos purported to be of the Atlas Chromebook have come to light, offering our first glimpse of what could be the next Made by Google laptop.
Last year, a change to Chrome OS revealed that Messages for Web would be transitioning from Android.com to Google.com. This lined up with the recent transition from the “Android Messages” name to simply “Messages.” Today, a slightly updated version of Messages for Web with RCS settings has gone live on Google.com.
If you’re like me and use Firefox wherever possible instead of Google Chrome, you probably realize you’re missing out on a lot of useful integrations between Chrome and Android that are tied to your Google Account. While Mozilla isn’t launching an alternative to services like Google Pay any time soon, the company is launching Firefox Lockbox which offers secure access to passwords saved in your Firefox Account and Android autofill support.
With the release of the Pixel Slate, Google has firmly cemented, for better or worse, that Chrome OS is their leading option for tablets, not necessarily Android. One thing these tablets haven’t had that most recent Android phones offer is Qi wireless charging, but that’s changing with the upcoming “Flapjack” Chrome OS tablet.
Late last year, Microsoft confirmed the rumors that they were rebuilding their Edge browser, using open source tech from Chrome like the Blink engine instead of EdgeHTML. This weekend, new screenshots of the Chromium-based Edge (sometimes lovingly called Edgium) have leaked out, giving us a clear picture of Microsoft’s ambitions for the browser.
In this week’s top stories: Inbox by Gmail gets an official date for its shutdown, we get exclusive details on the Google Pixel 3a and 3a XL, Google unwraps its Stadia game streaming service, and more.
Almost two years ago, Adobe formally announced that Flash Player would cease to be developed and supported by the end 2020. Google immediately followed suit announcing that Flash would slowly be phased out of Chrome as 2020 approached. The next step of the deprecation process is approaching in July, as Chrome will fully disable Flash for all sites and warn users of Flash Player’s impending demise in a “loud” way.
If you want or need to use a VPN with Chrome OS, one of the easiest ways is to download one for Android like NordVPN or Private Internet Access. Chrome OS is able to integrate with these VPN apps to protect your browsing and your Android apps’ networking, but this protection was never extended to Linux apps. Google is finally looking to change this, after months of being aware of it.
One thing that many people enjoy about using Safari on iOS is its quick, intuitive navigation gestures that allow you to go back or forward a page by simply swiping right or left. Soon, Google Chrome for Android will be getting on-board the gesture navigation train.
Yesterday, Google revealed its vision for Stadia, a platform for game players, producers, streamers, and spectators. Paired with it, the company also unveiled a first-party game controller, which didn’t get quite the same spotlight at yesterday’s developer-focused event. Because of this, there’s quite a few things that were easy to miss.
Thanks to the near universal nature of web technology, JavaScript has become an almost equally universal programming language. With this in mind, Google is continuing to appeal to JavaScript developers by bringing proper Node.js support to their upcoming Fuchsia OS.
Google is absolutely determined to ensure that if you’re in the United States, you can use your credit or debit card with Google Pay, regardless of who you bank with. To that end, in this week of March alone Google Pay has picked up support for over thirty new banks and financial institutions.
Google’s Stadia represents a massive shift in the game development dynamic, between unheard of technology like ‘State Share‘ and Stadia’s cloud-based structure. To help facilitate on-boarding developers to the platform, Google is launching the Stadia Partners program, which offers services similar to that of a video game publisher and free access to Stadia cloud hardware.
Google unveiled its ambitious streaming gaming platform, Stadia, which was originally demonstrated using Assassins Creed Odyssey, last October. Today at GDC 2019, Google and their partners showed off a handful more games for the platform including Doom Eternal. While no official game list has been shared for Google’s Stadia, these games give us a good indicator of where the platform is going.
Google is out in force at GDC 2019, and while most are waiting on tomorrow’s big announcement, the company also has a slew of announcements, updates, and resources for the Android game development community during what it calls Google Mobile Developer Day.
For almost as long as we’ve known Android, it’s been a touch-centric experience, and this has continued into the apps created for it, like Google Chrome. According to upcoming changes to Chrome, it seems Google may have a new vision for future touchless Android devices, possibly entering direct competition with KaiOS feature phones.
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Google Chrome is available on almost every possible platform, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, Fuchsia, and (to a lesser extent) iOS, which has lead to the browser being available on devices of all kinds.
Yet, one place Chrome hasn’t touched that its competitors has is the feature phones market. KaiOS is essentially based on Firefox, and Opera Mini is available for older Java and Series 30 based feature phones, leaving Chrome distinctly out of the market. A new “touchless” mode being created for Google Chrome is poised to push the browser into feature phone territory.
At the 2018 Made by Google Event, Google debuted the Google Pixel Slate with new-to-Chrome-OS fingerprint support. Before that device has even had the chance to launch, it seems two more upcoming Chromebooks are gaining the same fingerprint capability.
Update: New details have come to light about the two devices.