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.
We’ve long suspected that Google’s upcoming operating system, Fuchsia, would join the ranks of Chrome OS (and Android) in its support for Android apps. Today, that suspicion has been confirmed by a new change found in the Android Open Source Project, and we can say with confidence that Fuchsia will be capable of running Android apps using the Android Runtime.
Chrome OS gained a whole host of new applications to use last year when Google officially released Linux apps support, internally known as Crostini. Unfortunately, many of these Linux apps looked very small on Chrome OS devices like the Pixelbook and Pixel Slate, which have high resolution displays. The latest Chrome OS Developer build includes a new, simple display density fix to get your Linux apps looking correct.
The Google Pixel 3 has been available in the United States, from the Google Store and other retailers, since mid-October, with the noted exception of Puerto Rico. According to a change made to a Google Store support page, the Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, and the Pixel Stand should soon be available in the US territory.
Back in September, it was discovered that Google was hard at work creating a dark mode for Google Chrome to be used when macOS system-wide dark mode (which arrived in 10.14 Mojave) was enabled. Now confirmation is rolling in that Google Chrome for Windows 10 will not be left out of the fun, and, in fact, you can try an early version of dark mode today.
Earlier this week, we reported that just about everything we’ve seen about Fuchsia is now gone, as the “Armadillo” UI has been deleted. In its place, we only have references to what seem, in context, to be three other “shells” or user interfaces which are all kept closed-source by Google. However, one of these, “Dragonglass,” may offer more answers than we initially thought.
In yet another nail in the coffin for the Android brand, Google will soon move its Messages web app from Android.com to Google.com, according to an upcoming change to Chrome OS.
Our avid readers know that Google is working on a new operating system for phones, computers, and just about everything else, called Fuchsia. We’ve seen it in a variety of demos over the last year and a half, all of which featured a UI, codenamed “Armadillo.” Now it seems that Armadillo, and thus everything about Fuchsia we’ve “seen,” has been removed.
Many aspects of Google Chrome and Chrome OS are available open source directly from Google under the Chromium projects. However, Google still keeps some things private. One piece of Chrome OS that’s been kept private all this time is the Camera app, but that is changing now with it being added to the open source Chromium repository. Google also seems to be planning some improvements like portrait mode.
Earlier this year, Google Chrome, including the Android version, got a visual refresh to bring it in line with the latest Google Material Theme style unveiled at I/O 2018. However, one of the hallmarks of the Google Material Theme, seen in a variety of other apps, the ‘Google Sans’ font, was not part of the Chrome redesign. This seems to be changing very soon, as Google Sans is coming to Chrome for Android.
Last week, we reported that Google was working on a way to draw on PDFs in Chrome OS, using a library called ‘Ink’. Now, a fun new web app called Chrome Canvas has come to light that also uses Ink, which gives us a taste of how fast drawing by touch in Chrome can be.
Just in time for last-minute holiday shopping, Google has added over thirty new banks and credit unions in the US to its Google Pay mobile payment service in December 2018.
For the last few years, Google Chrome has been able to (at least attempt to) predict your next movement on the web and pre-load the page you’re most likely to go to. However, this prediction service is also able to chow through data and is thus always disabled when Chrome detects that it’s on a mobile network. With the advent of 5G, and the incredible speeds associated with it, just around the corner, Google is looking at loosening this restriction.
Samsung is introducing their three flagship phones to Google’s ARCore in China. ARCore, the basis for Google’s best augmented reality experiences, is normally available to install from the Google Play Store. In China however, the Play Store is not accessible.
The Play Store has a problem with spam, there’s no way around it. With causes ranging from apps that borderline beg users for reviews and companies that pay for fake reviews, it’s obvious something needed to be done. This year, Google has acknowledged all the spam and finally has begun to do something about it by creating a machine-learning-powered anti-spam system to remove fake reviews from the Play Store.
There’s a problem with the web that we’ve all likely faced. You go to read an article on a less-than-stellar website and find that it’s not what you were looking for. Then, when you use the back button to leave, nothing happens, and you have to click it many times to truly leave. Google’s Chrome team calls this “history manipulation,” and has come up with a new solution to put it to an end.
In this week’s top stories: We soothe our eyes with the new, darker look for Google Discover, enjoy the benefits of Android and Chrome OS being ‘Better Together’, and uncover part of Google’s plans for the future of Android and Fuchsia.
With the significant news this week that the Fuchsia SDK and a Fuchsia “device” are being added to the Android Open Source Project, now seems like a good time to learn more about the Fuchsia SDK. Today on Fuchsia Friday, we dive into the Fuchsia SDK and see what it has to offer developers who might want to get a head start on Fuchsia.
Google Search and Google Maps are certainly some of the top ways that restaurants and small businesses are discovered. To make it easier for customers to book appointments with these companies, Google launched Reserve with Google last year. Today, Reserve with Google is expanding to include simple Square Appointments support.
In many ways, PDF files are supposed to replace physical paper documents. One thing that’s been missing, compared to the traditional paper experience, is the ability to quickly make notes over an existing document with a pen. Chrome OS is working on its own take on this with a new PDF annotation feature that should also take advantage of the Pixelbook Pen or any other stylus.
Qualcomm has been more than happy in recent weeks to demonstrate various new use cases for their Snapdragon processors, including being used for a Windows computer. This may soon extend into the realm of Chrome OS, with the company’s first ever Chromebook, powered by the Snapdragon 845. Now, Geekbench benchmarks have appeared for the device, though with surprisingly low scores.
Google has two operating systems intended for mobile devices (and more), Android, which we know and love, and Fuchsia, Google’s OS of the future. These two have just gotten further connected with the incorporation of the official Fuchsia SDK and a Fuchsia “device” into Android’s AOSP code.
This morning, Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified before the United States House Judiciary Committee, and fielded a wide variety of their questions on subjects like user privacy and Google’s Dragonfly project. Let’s take a minute to look at the numbers Pichai shared in his testimony.
Google Pay, Google’s competitor to mobile payment services with strikingly similar names such as Samsung Pay and Apple Pay, is continuing its global expansion today with its entry into France.
With all the buzz recently around (the recently dubbed) “Hangouts classic” shutting down, in favor of Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, we took some time as a group to give Hangouts Chat a hands-on trial. Needless to say, things didn’t go smoothly.