Google Photos is readying a new feature for Mother’s Day that will remind users to “Create a Mother’s Day Memory” with a new card in the Memories carousel. We recently got an early look at the feature, and expect it to roll out to users in the coming days. However, it might not be the only change coming to the Memories carousel in Google Photos on Android.

The lead-up to Android 16 has been … interesting. We’re four betas into the update’s rollout, and with each new beta version released, the public-facing changes are both minor and few and far between. However, more significant changes have been found under the hood, suggesting Android 16 will be a more substantial update than initially anticipated.

Now, that point has never been more true.

The start of May is just hours away, and from here on out it’s just a matter of days until Google I/O 2025 kicks off. This year’s shaping up to be a bit different than it’s looked in years past, with Android not necessarily taking a back burner to Google’s current AI interests, but getting its own special pre-I/O event. Even with all this about to happen just over the horizon, Google’s not about to sit around waiting for a few more weeks, and is already rolling out a very welcome addition to Gemini.

Android widgets offer some fantastically handy ways to quickly get to the app features you use the most, straight from your phone’s home screen. We recently took a look at some changes in the works for Google’s widgets for Keep and Calendar, but today we’ve got one better, as 9to5Google spots the arrival of a new widget just for Gemini.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has been battling through an ongoing antitrust case brought up by the US Department of Justice (DOJ). The case could result in the company being forced to sell off Chrome. During court proceedings for this case, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai mentioned an in-progress deal with Apple that could integrate its AI services into the iPhone.

According to Bloomberg, Pichai said in court that he hopes Gemini will be added as a built-in AI option on iPhones this year. The CEO went on to say that he has been having conversations with Apple CEO Tim Cook throughout 2024 in relation to this matter. Furthermore, Pichai reveals that he hopes to have a deal done by the middle of 2025.

Android has taken on a lot of different looks in the 16+ years since its debut — some loved, some reviled. Lately, though, it’s felt like we haven’t been seeing a ton on focus on freshening up the system UI very much. But that could soon be about to change, with new Material Design standards incoming. While it could still be some time before Google is ready to push its new design live, we just managed to bring you an early preview of how this major Android UI overhaul looks like it’s taking shape.

Mind you: This is still probably a very early preview, and we don’t have a ton of confidence that much of this will be ready in time for Android 16’s formal arrival. But even if the bulk of these changes don’t roll out until sometime in the Android 17 cycle, what we’ve uncovered sure suggests a cohesive effort towards bringing Android a new visual identity. But is this new look one that you’re a fan of?

Google Photos is working on a new feature to make sharing photos and albums a whole lot easier. We got our first look at the upcoming QR code sharing feature last week, and as we wait for Google to roll it out, the company has announced another improvement for shared albums in Google Photos on Android.

So far, the Google Photos app for Android has not allowed users to edit photos or videos in shared albums. That’s changing with its latest update, and users should now see an Edit button while viewing an image or video in a shared album. Google says this new functionality will only be available to the album owner, and it will save the changes to both their gallery and shared album.

Touch Lock used to be just a handy way to avoid accidental taps on your Pixel Watch, especially in wet environments. However, a recent update has kicked its functionality up a notch, and not every user is happy about it.

As reported by 9to5Google, Touch Lock’s behavior has changed in Wear OS 5.1. Previously, enabling the setting disabled the touchscreen while still letting you use the rotating crown to scroll through notifications or access Quick Settings. With Wear OS 5.1, Touch Lock now disables both the screen and the crown.

Whether necessary or not, Google loves to tweak the UI of its products. For example, YouTube recently started testing out a new UI for the media player. The company’s latest target, however, is Google Messages, which should see a few handy improvements.

Gemini in Google Drive on the web can help you summarize files and folders, discuss topics based on information from files in your Drive, retrieve quick facts from documents, and even create images or new Google files and folders. However, you currently can’t use these Gemini integrations in the Google Drive app for Android. That’s set to change soon.

Google Contacts‘ Single Contact widget lets you add specific contacts to your home screen. It features shortcuts to help you quickly call or text the contact, and shows your recent messages with the contact. Google now seems to be integrating the latter into profile pages in the Contacts app, allowing you to view recent texts and calls with a contact on their profile.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Google’s widgets. Regarding aesthetic cohesion, they all adhere to the company’s love of pastels and rounded edges. So if you use a Google Pixel daily, they probably won’t seem too misplaced on your particular device. However, if you value information density or customization options, Google’s widgets are far from the best options for your home screen. To prove my point, I detail some of the best Google widget alternatives I use on my phone.

Event Flow Widget

One of the best uses for a smartphone camera is scanning documents, and Google lets you do this on Android via its various apps. Now, it looks like this functionality has received a useful, time-saving improvement.

Google has quietly introduced an improvement to the MLKit document scanner, which is used in apps like Google Drive, Files by Google, the Pixel Camera app, and a few other apps. Documents will now be automatically enhanced immediately after you’ve scanned them. You’ll also see a button in the top right corner after you’ve just scanned a document, allowing you to remove said enhancement. Check out the images below, showing the button and a before/after comparison.

The Pixel 10 series is still many months from launch, but rumors have been building up about what we can expect from the upcoming Android flagships. However, we haven’t heard much about what Google is expected to improve for the displays on the devices in the lineup until now. As it turns out, this could finally be the year when Google brings PWM dimming-related improvements to the Pixel 10 series.

Android Central had contacted Google to inquire about PWM dimming on the Pixel 9a. The company reverted with a forward-looking statement for devices coming later in the year:

If you feel like the Google Play Store looks a little less crowded these days, you are not imagining it. A major cleanup over the past year has cut nearly half the apps from the Android marketplace, according to new data shared by app intelligence firm Appfigures. (h/t: TechCrunch)

At the start of 2024, Google Play hosted roughly 3.4 million apps worldwide. Fast forward to today, and that number has dropped to about 1.8 million, representing a 47% decline. Appfigures pointed out that this isn’t part of a broader industry trend, either. Apple’s App Store, for instance, saw a slight uptick in apps during the same period, growing from 1.6 million to 1.64 million apps.

In December 2024, Google rolled out a redesign for Emoji Kitchen as part of the last Pixel Drop of the year. The redesign was previously available for Gboard in beta, but it has now rolled out widely for Pixel phone owners.

If you open Gboard and tap on the smiley face emoji next to the space bar, you may notice something subtly different with the emoji picker. There’s now an arrow that appears to your Emoji Kitchen suggestions. Previously, there was a gear icon that appeared in this location.

Call us a broken record by now, but the Audio Overviews Google initially cooked up for NotebookLM may just be the coolest thing we’ve seen from the company’s AI efforts over the past couple years. A little over a month ago, Google helped introduce these same podcast-like audio summaries to an even larger audience by baking them in to Gemini itself. It’s already incredibly impressive how the system is able to break topics down and communicate them in an easy-to-grasp manner, and now Google’s got a big expansion to share that’s only going to make Audio Overviews even more accessible.

Being able to parse documents across a swath of languages is impressive enough, but Google’s doing us one better by giving Audio Overviews the ability to generate spoken output in more than 50 languages. Sometimes we’re used to seeing Google get a little piecemeal with adding new languages to systems like this, so it’s great to witness the company instead going all-in with a concerted effort like this — while there will always be edge cases, this should be sufficient to address the vast majority of user needs.

Google continues to expand the ways it integrates its AI into everyday life, and its latest experiment aims to make learning a new language a little more personal and practical. The company has announced a new set of features called Little Language Lessons, which use generative AI to help people pick up vocabulary and expressions in bite-sized, real-world contexts.

According to Google, Little Language Lessons are not intended to replace formal study methods, such as textbooks or courses. Instead, it focuses on helping users weave small, manageable language-learning moments into daily life. The experiments include three primary tools:

Since the rollout of digital IDs in 2022, Google Wallet has slowly but surely been adding support for an increasing number of US states. Currently, the app supports Arizona, Maryland, Georgia, New Mexico, Colorado, and California. But soon it will be adding a few more to that list.

Today, Google announced that Wallet will soon expand digital ID support to residents in Arkansas, Montana, Puerto Rico, and West Virginia. However, the company doesn’t specify an exact date for when support will arrive. There are also some new use cases for digital IDs for existing eligible states.

Google offers 15GB of free cloud storage, which must be shared between Gmail, Google Drive, Google Photos, and other Google services. Otherwise, you’ll need to splash out for cloud storage via the company’s Google One service.

We recently posted an article detailing what happens to your data if you stop paying for Google One. We also posted a poll inside the article asking readers whether they paid for Google One cloud storage. Here’s how you answered it.

If you own an Android flagship and a car, you’ve likely already heard of and used Android Auto. Android Auto is a neat way to leverage the smarts of your phone and pair it to the bigger and more conveniently positioned display on your car’s head unit, to get navigation and other functionality with very little distraction. However, Android Auto isn’t perfect, and one long-time complaint of users is the absence of any climate control settings, for which users often have to switch back to their car head unit’s OS. Google has been spotted working on bringing climate control settings to Android Auto, and today, we have a demo of it, showcasing Android Auto’s upcoming layout with integrated climate control settings.

Last week, Google made a surprise announcement regarding its smart home offerings. Later in October this year, the original Nest Learning Thermostats — Gen 1, Gen 2, and the European version of Gen 2 — will go “dumb.” They aren’t getting bricked, but Google is removing all the features that make the smart thermostats, well…smart. When this happens, they will be no better than a $20 unit you could buy at any hardware store.

It’s not all bad, though, as Google is already reaching out to people affected by this change with coupon codes to apply towards new thermostats. They are hefty discounts, too, at nearly 50% off. I wrote an explainer piece about all these enormous changes for Nest thermostats, which you should read if you own any affected products.

Google already loved constantly reinventing its apps and services, always testing redesigns and tweaking interfaces in the hopes of figuring out what works best. Then Gemini got here, and it feels like this practice has just shifted into high gear, with Google coming out with new Gemini models almost as fast as it’s updating the app itself. Today we’re not checking out any one big change to Gemini on Android, but instead taking a peek under the hood at a number of smaller adjustments that appear to currently be in development.

YouTube is available on many devices, but the website and smartphone app usually get the lion’s share of changes. Now, the company has announced a slew of features and improvements for the TV and console app.

Google announced a variety of improvements to the YouTube app on consoles and TVs in a post on its support forum. These improvements have either landed or are still scheduled to arrive in Q2 2025. For starters, your homepage will now show five new shelves or category types.

Credit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

Update, April 29, 2025 (03:02 AM ET): The Google app’s Activity tab is now widely rolling out to beta users without any additional steps. This is a good sign for the feature’s progress. We expect to see the Activity tab arrive for stable users soon, too.

Original article, November 7, 2024 (11:17 PM ET): Google is rolling out a new feature for the Google app that brings a new “Activity” tab at the bottom of the app. The new option allows users to easily access their search history from both Chrome and the Google app itself. The “Activity” tab, which is currently in the testing phase, will also serve as a central hub for managing saved items, replacing the existing “Saved” tab.

Just today, we posted a great deal on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, but while that sale is really nice, paying $1,069.99 is still pretty heavy on the wallet. Those looking for a nice high-end smartphone that costs less will be better off taking advantage of this deal. The Google Pixel 9 has dropped to its record-low price of $599, saving you a whole $200 on the original $799 retail price.

Get the Google Pixel 9 for $599 ($200 off)

We’re at the end of April, which means pollen season is almost over. Arriving just a little late to help you manage your allergies, Google is rolling out the Pixel Weather app’s pollen tracker to users in the US.

Last year, in October, Google launched a pollen tracker for the Pixel Weather app. During the initial rollout, this pollen card was only available in France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. Availability was expected to expand in other markets as well, including the US, but when was unknown.

Every year, Google uses its annual developer conference — I/O — to showcase what’s new and what’s next for Android and its other major platforms. Google I/O 2025 officially kicks off on May 20, but this year, the company is trying something a little different: Android is getting its own dedicated show ahead of the main event.

Google is calling it “The Android Show: I/O Edition.” It’s a pre-recorded broadcast that will stream live on YouTube on May 13 at 10 AM PT (1 PM ET). So, what can we expect from the first-ever pre-I/O event focused entirely on Android?

Whether you’re looking for a Mother’s Day gift or planning how to get beach-body ready in the coming months, a near-record price drop in this Google Pixel Watch 2 deal couldn’t have come at a much better time. The fine smartwatch just plunged $100 to a 2025 low of only $149.99.

Google Pixel Watch 2 for $149.99 ($100 off)

When you need to find a photo in your Google Photos library, you could scroll through the hundreds of images saved on your phone or just use the search tab. In the search tab, you have the choice to use “Ask Photos” or classic search. If you simply want to go directly to classic search, there’s a shortcut you may want to know about.

Spotted by 9to5Google, you can use a double-tapping gesture to get sent right to classic search. It’s as simple as double-tapping on the search, or Ask, icon. When this is done, you’ll see all of the old UI, including recent searches and suggestions. According to the outlet, this gesture only works with the Android version of the app. If you’re in Google Photos on iPhone, double-tapping only brings up a search box if you’re already in the search tab.

Every Google account holder receives 15GB of free storage shared across the company’s services, including Google Photos, Gmail, Google Drive, and others. Once you reach this limit, you’ll no longer be able to upload new photos or files, send or receive emails in Gmail, or even create new documents in Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides, among other restrictions.

This is where Google One subscription plans become relevant. These plans offer increased cloud storage space, along with a few other perks, for a monthly fee. But what happens if you’ve been using, say, 100GB of Google cloud storage through a Google One plan and then decide to cancel your subscription? Can you still access your files, or are they deleted immediately? Let’s explore what happens.

Google is preparing a new Material Design theme to give Android a more colorful look. We recently got an early look at the redesigned Settings page featuring this ‘expressive’ theme in Android 16 beta 4. Now, we have spotted the visual changes coming to the Google account management page.

Most Android flagships these days support eSIMs, which are pretty convenient compared to physical SIMs. However, if you use an eSIM and somehow end up with a broken phone, you’d be quite stuck getting back network access without the help of your carrier. Unlike a physical SIM, there is no easy option to move an eSIM from an old, broken phone onto a new one. Thankfully, it seems Google is working on a solution for Android phones, as Google One device backups could soon include SIMs.

This past Wednesday, I woke up feeling a bit off. I shook myself, took a hot shower, and got to my desk, hoping it was temporary. Throughout the day, though, it became clear that I wasn’t at my best. I hit my 10,000 steps on my treadmill while working, but my energy level was scraping the bottom of the basement garage. Getting up and down the stairs at home felt more exhausting than running a marathon, and by 4 PM, I dragged myself up to bed, swallowed an acetaminophen pill, and took a short nap. I dragged on until nighttime and collapsed in bed, hoping it would go away.

The next day, I woke up feeling more off and feverish. I considered using my Pixel 9 Pro’s built-in thermometer to measure my temperature, but I knew forehead thermometers rarely work for me. My fever manifests differently: my body gets hot, my hands get icy cold, but my forehead remains at a normal temperature. Then it occurred to me: Both my Pixel Watch 3 and my Oura Ring 4 have a temperature sensor — let’s see what they’re saying. And this is where I was surprised.

You already know how much we typically like Google’s Pixel camera experience. Not a launch goes by where we don’t praise clever wrinkles like the rebuilt panorama feature or the excellent image processing in any lighting conditions. And yet, it’s not without the occasional quirk. We’ve knocked Google for taking an eternity to add manual camera controls, and we’ve dinged its natural color profile as occasionally being too natural. So, with pieces of both of those complaints in mind, I think it’s time for Google to add camera filters to its Pixel 10 series, and here’s why.

Please, Google, let me spice up my color profile

More so than any other subscription service, I’ve never been more conflicted about one than YouTube Premium. YouTube ads are horrendous; between non-skippable ads, pre-roll ads, mid-roll ads, etc., the amount of advertising you have to sit through for a 10 or 15-minute video is ridiculous. Surely, paying for YouTube Premium to remove those ads would be a no-brainer, right?

I’ve subscribed to YouTube Premium for a couple of months here and there, but I haven’t been able to commit to it long term. When the core YouTube experience is available for free and I have no use for the included YouTube Music Premium service, paying $14/month to essentially use only half of the subscription’s functionality is something I’ve had a hard time justifying.

It’s been nearly a year since Google launched its AirTag-competitor network, Find My Device. In the time since, we’ve seen more Bluetooth trackers released that work with this network, added support for people finding, and signs of more features to come, like ultra-wideband (UWB) for short-range direction and locating.

But nothing proves the network’s immaturity and lack of features more than the two best trackers you can buy today: the Chipolo POP and Moto Tag. Both are packed full of extras, but in order to get those, you have to use a third-party app.

If you’re still holding onto an old Nest thermostat, Google recently broke some bad news about its future. The 1st and 2nd gen versions of the Nest Learning Thermostat are officially being laid to rest, with Google ending software updates and killing Nest/Google Home app compatibility on October 25. You’ll still be able to use them as traditional thermostats, but almost all of the smart functionality is going away.

If you’re upset or frustrated by this news, I don’t blame you. The models in question may be old, but if you’ve got one and it’s still working well, hearing that it’ll be reduced to a “dumb” thermostat in just a few months isn’t the best feeling.

Update, April 25, 2025 (02:28 PM ET): Google giveth, and Google taketh away, and this time we are definitely in the latter territory. While it was not immediately clear whether or not the disappearance of the Assistant Driving Mode from Maps was just a momentary hiccup, Google has now confirmed its intentions. Speaking to 9to5Google, the company explicitly acknowledges that this removal was deliberate.

Unsurprisingly, this is a consequence of Google’s wind-down of Assistant as it pushes Gemini to replace it across its device ecosystem.

Android 16 Beta 4 landed last week for the Pixel testing community. Android 15 is rolling out now to Samsung devices with the distribution of One UI 7. Keep up with headlines like these, and you could easily get the impression that Android users everywhere are basking in the creature comforts of Google’s latest, greatest mobile platform releases. In reality, though, the vast majority of us are running Android 14, Android 13, or even some depressingly older editions. This week we’re getting our latest peek into just what that breakdown looks like.

Google no longer shares its Android distribution statistics in the nice, predictable fashion it had in the platform’s earlier days, but if we’re lucky, once or twice a year the company will run the numbers and update the figures it provides through Android Studio — after all, devs using that tool want to be sure they’re targeting their efforts towards the broadest slices of users. Now 9to5Google has spotted some new data incoming.

It’s been over 10 years since Google bought the smart home company Nest. One would think that, over those 10 years, Google would have fully absorbed Nest. However, that’s not the case. There are still a few devices out there that require the old Nest app for specific functions. Notably, this includes older Nest thermostats, which rely on the Nest app for a core feature: scheduling.

Today, Google made sweeping changes to the Nest ecosystem, including the “dumbification” of older thermostats. While this might have come as a shock to folks who invested in Nest in its early days, it also came with some good news: older Nest thermostats will see scheduling functions move to the Google Home app at some point in 2025.

If you invested in the Google Nest ecosystem way back in the day by buying an early version of a Nest thermostat, we have bad news for you. On October 25, 2025, Google will terminate all support for early generations of the Nest Learning Thermostat. This not only means that the devices will stop getting software support — they will cease to be accessible in the Nest and Google Home apps, no longer be able to be controlled while you’re away from home, no longer support Google Assistant, and no longer support presence sensing.

In brief, your “smart” thermostats are about to become “dumb” thermostats. They will still fundamentally work — you’ll still be able to manually change the temperature and change schedules on the device itself — but it will no longer do most of the things you have relied on it to do for the past decade, and no longer integrate into your wider smart home.

Google Translate is set to receive a new feature to help users practice a language. We recently spotted evidence of the in-development Practice feature in a teardown of version 9.7.102 of the app, but that’s not the only change Google is brewing for its translation app.

The new Pixel 9a might appear an unassuming mid-range phone at just $499, but it actually packs Google’s largest-ever battery into a 6.3-inch form factor. The 9a’s new 5,100mAh cell is a significant upgrade on last year’s 4,500mAh battery and even flies past the 4,700mAh cell packed into Google’s far more flagship Pixel 9 and 9 Pro handsets as well.

The Pixel 9a might not be fighting it out for the crown of the biggest battery in a smartphone ever, but this still represents a huge boost in capacity that surely has to be a boon for multi-day use. But what we really need to help us know for certain is some hard data. I’ve run the Pixel 9a through our suite of battery drain tests to see if this larger cell can live up to the hype.

Google Translate is an excellent app, and frankly, one that I consider a game-changer. It has made communication across languages extremely easy and convenient, taking a big pain point out of international travel and more. However, Google Translate only helps with translating languages and not learning a new one, which is where apps like Duolingo come in with their gamified approach to learning a new language. Google has previously experimented with letting English users practice speaking through Google Search. We’ve now spotted the company working on a Practice feature for Translate that could help users polish their language proficiency with activities.

Google’s Gemini chatbot is available on many Android phones and on the web, but the company still relies on Assistant for smartwatches, Android Auto, smart displays, and more. Now, the company has confirmed that Gemini is spreading its wings later this year.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai used the firm’s Q1 2025 earnings call to announce Gemini’s expansion:

Last year, Google started working on a new approach to its interface for Maps. The change might feel a little subtle at first, but it actually seems pretty smart; basically, Google has been redesigning the Maps UI so that more app elements appear as sheets that still keep the primary map view open in the background, rather than opening full-screen themselves. Last summer we saw this change come to the Explore tab in Maps on Android, and now it’s expanding even further.

The crew over at 9to5Google first made us aware of this change, and we can confirm that we’re already seeing this on our own Android devices, as well, running Google Maps 25.16.06.

Last month, Google announced its latest wave of upgrades coming to the company’s hardware. The March Pixel Drop included a bunch of new features not just for the Pixel smartphones, but also a handful targeted at the company’s wearables. Alongside new features like Pixel Watch loss-of-pulse detection, we heard about some improvements to the smartwatch media playback experience that were on their way. Well, they may have taken a little longer than you’d think to get here, but those new media controls are finally starting to arrive.

As the very last feature it talked about when announcing the March Pixel Drop, Google told us to look forward to getting the ability to “manage your favorite audio content with new actions on Pixel Watch to fast forward and rewind, adjust playback speed or control playback queue.”

The internet is a sucker for a good fail, and we’ve certainly seen our fair share of them. Right now, AI is probably the easiest target around for embarrassing gaffes, whether we’re looking at AI pictures where hands have the wrong number of fingers, or AI-fueled search results confusing satire for fact. This week, Google finds itself in the hot seat as users discover how willing AI Overviews are to dream up fantastic explanations for nonsense phrases. Why is this happening, is it an actual problem, and can we expect to see it get any better? Google’s already stepping forward with some explanations.

If you haven’t heard about this phenomenon yet, people are asking Google Search to find the meaning behind various phrases. For actual idioms, this can be really useful, but the problem is that Google’s also pretty willing to dream up its own explanations for expressions that aren’t true idioms at all — just meaningless gibberish. Ask Google what “an empty cat is worth a dog’s ransom” means, and it will do its darndest to extract some semblance of meaning there, even if that’s squeezing blood from a stone.

Google Photos started testing a new Quick edit sharing feature late last year, allowing users to quickly enhance or crop an image after hitting the Share button. In a subsequent teardown of the app, we also discovered that Google planned on adding an option to disable this feature and spotted a quality-of-life improvement for its crop tool. The Quick Edit feature is now rolling out widely, complete with the disable option and cropping enhancement.

Google appears to have enabled the Quick edit feature via a server-side update, as it’s available on several of our devices running an older build of Google Photos (version 7.24). As shown previously, the Quick edit page appears when you share a single image. It features a preview with an integrated crop tool, a button to enhance the image underneath the preview, and a Share button in the bottom right corner.

Update, April 24, 2025 (10:27 AM ET): Through a spokesperson, Google has provided the following statement on AI Overviews’ hallucination:

When people do nonsensical or ‘false premise’ searches, our systems will try to find the most relevant results based on the limited web content available. This is true of Search overall, and in some cases, AI Overviews will also trigger in an effort to provide helpful context. AI Overviews are designed to show information backed up by top web results, and their high accuracy rate is on par with other Search features like Featured Snippets.

In March, Google rolled out the newest Pixel Drop. Among a slew of new phone features dropping for the Pixel 6 series through to the Pixel 9 series, Google launched a new tool called Connected Cameras. This feature allows you to use an extra camera during livestreams by wirelessly connecting two devices together. Think of it like a mini TV studio where you can easily bounce from Camera 1 to Camera 2 without interrupting your stream.

I gave Connected Cameras a shot using a Pixel 9 Pro and a Pixel 9 as Camera 1 and Camera 2, respectively. Overall, the feature worked well and is a terrific idea, but getting everything set up was not a smooth experience, and there are too many limitations for it to see wide adoption amongst creators right now.

Google Fi announced some new and updated plans this week, and I have to admit — they look fantastic. The new Unlimited Essentials plan gives you unlimited talk, text, and data (the first 30GB being high-speed data) for just $35/month. Meanwhile, the other two unlimited plans saw significant high-speed data and hotspot allowance increases without a price hike. In today’s carrier world, that’s pretty rare.

After seeing the news, I went to the Google Fi website and started pricing things out. I’ve been subscribed to T-Mobile for several years now, and while I don’t have any major complaints, the tweaks to Google Fi are compelling enough that I was debating a switch.

The Google Phone app, which is preloaded on several Android flagships, offers call recording in several regions globally, but not in the US (even though you can legally record calls in most states after adequate consent). Instead, users in the US have to use the Pixel 9’s Call Notes feature to record a phone call. However, Call Notes is only available per call, requiring users to consciously activate it whenever they want to record, transcribe, or summarize a phone call. Now, Google has been spotted working on automatic call recording within the Call Notes feature that would make life a lot easier, but we aren’t sure if the company ever plans to release it.

Taking photos has got to be one of the biggest things we use our smartphones for, so of course companies like Google are paying a lot of attention to their photography apps. Right now, those Google devs seem to be on a bit of a spree, and we’ve been spotting a ton of work on upcoming Google Photos features, from new rotation options to improved support for working with multiple pics at once. That party’s not stopping now, and we’ve also uncovered progress on what appears to be a change to how the app displays the faces it’s recognized.

Google allows you to authenticate your Play Store purchases with biometrics or a password. You can also set the frequency of purchase verification for maximum convenience. Now, it looks like the company just released a new measure to prevent accidental app purchases.

Google previously confirmed as part of a Play Services update last month that it’ll offer a swipe gesture for making purchases in lieu of a buy button. Now, Telegram user @Adamzampahere reports that this feature is rolling out. Check out the screenshots below.

Google has announced a battery replacement program for Pixel 7a devices with swollen batteries. The company has acknowledged that some Pixel 7a units are impacted by “unexpected” battery swelling, and if that’s the case with your phone, you can now claim a one-time free battery replacement from the company. Google is also offering other appeasement options for affected Pixel 7a users who are unable to take advantage of the battery replacement program due to a lack of availability in their country or other reasons.

Google Discover represents a particularly convenient way to stay up to date on the latest news, just one little swipe away from your phone’s home screen. But like any aggregation service, its value lies in how successfully it’s able to surface the content that’s most relevant to our interests. So far, that’s basically consisted of stories posted to new sites, as well as some YouTube videos. But now we’re hearing about a new test that could be about to turn Discover on its head.

Right now this appears to only be a limited experiment that select users are seeing, but for those affected, Discover now includes posts from social media. In the examples shared by 9to5Google we see Discover pulling together posts from Instagram and X, and displaying them is a scrollable horizontal carousel. That same look is being applied to YouTube videos, as well, including full-length content — not just Shorts.

Back in February, Google revealed that its two-day developer conference would start on May 20. As the countdown clock gets closer to zero, we’re now learning about what the company will discuss at Google I/O 2025.

On the Google I/O website, the tech giant has now released a list of sessions for the event, giving us an idea of what to expect. It mentions that one of the topics that’ll be discussed is Material 3 Expressive. This confirms our report from last week, where we found evidence of this new version of Material Design. While we don’t know much about Material 3 Expressive yet, we have seen it in action in the Android Settings app.

Update, April 23, 2025 (1:49 PM ET): Well that didn’t take very long! Normally we spot Google developers working on the framework for new features long before they’re even remotely ready to go live, but other times Google flips the script on us. Mere hours after sharing news with you of Photos preparing this multi-photo download tool, we’re beginning to see it roll out publicly. Android Authority reader Jérôme lets us know in the comments that he’s seeing this on his Pixel 9, and we’ve also gotten it on one of our non-Pixel devices.

Original article, April 23, 2025 (7:41 AM ET): Google Photos is an excellent photo and video backup solution for Android flagships. Once you have it set up, you can just let the app do its thing in the background, uploading a copy of all of your clicked photos and videos to the cloud for easy access. However, a pain point that has plagued users for years has been the inability to bulk download multiple photos back to their Android device. It seems Google has finally listened to feedback, as we’ve spotted clues that indicate Google Photos could let users download multiple photos simultaneously to their device.

When you tap on an image in your Google Photos library, the app will occasionally provide a suggestion for an action you may want to take. This usually comes in the form of a chip that pops up at the bottom of the screen. For example, it may suggest rotating your picture if the app detects that the image may be in the wrong orientation. Google appears to now be working on a UI change to this particular suggestion.

YouTube‘s first uploaded video just turned 20 years old, and the video platform has spent almost a decade with the current UI for the web video player. We’re all so used to the look and layout of the buttons that any change will disturb ten years’ worth of muscle memory. Google is marking the special occasion of twenty years of video uploads with a new UI for the web video player, but as expected, users aren’t taking kindly to the change.

Several users are reporting that a new UI is appearing in some videos on YouTube’s website. Reddit user NoSpHiel got the new UI on their second account, but not on their primary account, and this is what it looks like:

We’ve spotted plenty of changes and tweaks to Google Photos in the last few months. Now, it looks like the photo backup app is getting a notable UI change for new users or people upgrading to a new Android phone.

Google Photos lets users easily create a highlight video of their favorite photos from a vacation, activity, or event with just a few taps. This feature can also come in handy when you want to surprise someone with a video of your favorite memories with them, and that seems to be precisely what the app wants you to do with the feature this Mother’s Day.

Gemini is currently available for free for all Android users, but you need to subscribe to the Google One AI Premium plan to get Gemini Advanced, which brings access to more advanced AI models and other features. However, the Google One AI Premium plan is currently available only with monthly billing as an option. Google recently confirmed that the company is working on bringing annual billing options for accessing Gemini Advanced features. But that’s not all that Google is working on, as we’ve now spotted the company working on two more AI-centric subscription tiers within Google One.

Google is betting big on its free channel offerings for Google TV devices. After rebranding the experience as Freeplay last year and introducing a redesigned interface, Google is now working to make it easier for users to access free channels by adding a dedicated “Free TV” button to the remote of upcoming Google TV devices. The company has also expanded the Freeplay library several times over the last few months, with the latest addition bringing the total to over 170 free channels.

Google TV has added nine new channels to its Freeplay catalog, with a majority offering kid-friendly content. The selection includes channels streaming popular shows like Teletubbies and Sonic the Hedgehog, along with one for the viral YouTube sensation Baby Shark. For adults, Google TV has added a channel that streams episodes of the popular YouTube talk show Hot Ones. The complete list of new Freeplay channels (via 9to5Google) is reproduced below.

Chrome is the world’s most popular web browser, but the Department of Justice is calling for Google to sell it. Now, at least one major tech company has revealed its interest in buying the browser.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT chief Nick Turley testified in court (via Bloomberg) that the AI company would be interested in buying Chrome if Google were ordered to sell it. He added that “many other parties” would also try to buy the web browser.

Google has quietly made it much easier to track updates to the Google Home app. The update release notes are now far more transparent, clearly outlining new features, specific bug fixes, and other changes.

The current tariff situation in the US is forcing companies to find solutions that will minimize the impact on products shipped to the country. This includes the likes of Google and other tech industry giants. In order to avoid higher tariffs, Google is reportedly considering moving the production of its Pixel phone.

Vietnam has long been the home of Pixel production, but Google may now be thinking of pivoting to another country. According to a report from The Economic Times, Google is considering moving the manufacturing process to India from Vietnam. It’s reported that the company has initiated talks with its Indian manufacturing partners, Dixon Technologies and Foxconn, to move parts of the supply chain to India. While Google can’t wiggle completely out of the way of these tariffs, this move would help it cut costs.

Google has been working on a new feature to help Gmail users easily manage their email subscriptions for well over a year, and it finally seems ready for prime time. The company has reportedly started rolling out the much-awaited “Manage subscriptions” feature, allowing users to view all active subscriptions on one page and unsubscribe with just a tap.

9to5Google reports that the new Manage subscriptions feature is rolling out in the Gmail app for Android via a server-side update. You can find it within the app’s overflow menu, and it automatically lists all active email subscriptions. Each subscription entry lists the name and email address of the sender, along with the number of emails you’ve recently received from that subscription.

Across the world of smartphones, the landscape is always evolving. Every day we see the arrival of new updates, apps, and firmware patches that change the mobile experience for users in myriad ways — both desired and not. And while some of those changes are quite conspicuous, others are much more difficult to characterize, and we’re left wondering if something’s truly different, or if we’re just imagining things. Right now, we find ourselves in just such that kind of situation, asking if Pixel 9 video recording quality is getting worse, or if we’re just hallucinating.

While browsing Reddit’s GooglePixel sub the other day, we spotted a post from user oowwweee that caught our our eye, complaining about worse-than-expected video quality when filming on a Pixel 9 Pro XL past 3x zoom. Even though they were a pretty new owner of the phone, they noted that they only first observed the problem after installing the latest updates.

Google doesn’t just sell Pixel phones, you can also get coverage for your phone through Google Fi. Today marks the tenth year since Fi’s launch, if you didn’t know. To celebrate its 10-year anniversary, Google Fi is introducing a new plan and making some upgrades to existing plans. It’s also expanding coverage, offering new promotions, and making a few other changes.

Google Fi is adding a new Unlimited plan to its current list of offerings. Called “Unlimited Essentials,” this plan is designed to be a more affordable alternative to the Simply Unlimited and Unlimited Plus tiers. For $35 per month for one line, you get unlimited calls, texts, and data with 30GB of high-speed data. Along with the addition of Unlimited Essentials, Google Fi is making a few changes to its existing plans.

When Google first announced what was then called Project Fi on April 22, 2015, I was more than a little intrigued. As a tech journalist, it was easy for me to see the appeal of a carrier with flexible data that worked seamlessly in the US and abroad. I signed up immediately.

At the time, it was hard to imagine a better option. Not only did I love the international coverage, but the service itself felt more like a postpaid provider. I used the service for more than six years straight, but fast forward to 2025, and I haven’t been a regular Google Fi user since about 2021. I still reactivate it occasionally for testing, and I’d likely use it again if I started traveling more frequently.

Google offers an excellent keyboard app in the form of Gboard, available to all Android devices. It’s an app that does the job, so most users don’t think much about it, even though they may use it daily. Thankfully, Google does think about Gboard and what improvements it could make to the keyboard app. We’ve spotted references to several new features in the latest Gboard beta, like optional rounded keys, flicking keys to enter symbols, and more.

Google has long paid smartphone makers and companies like Mozilla to pre-install its services on their platforms. Now, it turns out Google is paying Samsung a ton of money to pre-install Gemini on Galaxy phones.

Google vice-president of platforms and device partnerships Peter Fitzgerald testified in court (h/t: Bloomberg) that Google started paying Samsung a monthly fee to pre-install Gemini on Galaxy devices. The executive said these monthly payments started in January and that the contract was set to last for at least two years. The total fee wasn’t disclosed, but a Department of Justice lawyer claimed that Google was paying Samsung an “enormous sum of money.”

Plenty of people are understandably a little paranoid about AI, but one of the best ways a company can help assuage those concerns is through transparency. That comes in a lot of forms (much like AI itself), including offering a deep look into the “thinking” going on behind the scenes. One of the simplest, though, is just offering a record of interactions, and that’s exactly what Google does with Gemini’s chat history. Right now, finding something specific in that big list of AI conversations can be a little tricky. Thankfully, Google appears to be on top of it.

The Google Pixel 9a is a pretty solid upgrade from its predecessor, and easily the best cheap Android phone of 2025 so far.  Of course, Google phone launches are typically far from perfect, and like just about newly launched device, certain issues and problems are bound to creep up. Some of these are specific to the Pixel 9a, while many of these problems might be relatively common in the Android world across a variety of devices.

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Google is developing a handy new notification snoozing feature for its Messages app. We first spotted mentions of the feature in a teardown earlier this month. Now, we’ve managed to get it working in the latest Google Messages build (version messages.android_20250420_01_RC00.phone.openbeta_dynamic) to give you an early look at how the app will let you snooze chat notifications.

Like so many other things in life, when it comes to AI, you only get out of it what you put in. Now granted, in the case of AI that can be an incredibly complicated situation, involving mountains of training data that us end users aren’t privy to. But we can control what information we feed into AI when giving it a task, and when it comes to using Gemini on our phones, one of the most powerful ways to do just that is sharing what we see on our screens. Gemini Live just started rolling out screen sharing support widely, and we’ve got an early look at what could be one of the next big improvements to how it works.

Google has added plenty of features to Gemini since its launch, and we recently discovered evidence that the chatbot will gain the ability to analyze videos. Now, it looks like we managed to enable the feature.

Update, April 21, 2025 (04:24 PM ET): A few weeks back, we took a look at some changes in the works for how we interact with Gemini on Android. Specifically, Google was retooling Gemini’s compose box. We already got a preview of those new shortcuts for Gemini tools, and got a peek at Power up in action, but it wasn’t clear at the time exactly how this might all come together. Google still isn’t quite ready to hit “go” on these changes, but we’ve identified what could be the final look for the interface:

As you begin to enter text you’ll have the option to tap that little Gemini pencil icon to take advantage of Power up, and you’ll quickly get those expanded text prompts right in the compose box, ready for you to edit or submit to Gemini. While Google could revise this further before pushing it live, but considering how close this is to what we see with Gemini on the web, we’re probably in the right ballpark.