The Latest from Gadget Hacks: Page 2

Developer Sam Henri Gold says he built Light Touch, calling it a "full-featured iPod touch 2G emulator for Mac" that sends graphics calls out of the emulator to the Mac's own OpenGL implementation instead of rendering them internally (Sam Henri Gold, Hachyderm, 3 days ago). That's the claim, posted three days ago, with no download link, project page, or install instructions attached to the post itself.

The Microsoft Windows and Surface event on October 7 is shaping up to focus on local AI, RTX Spark hardware, and new Windows experiences, though Microsoft has not yet confirmed pricing or a release date for either new device. The event takes place in San Francisco at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, with CEO Satya Nadella, Windows and Surface chief Pavan Davuluri, and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang all confirmed to appear on stage.

Motorola has become the first phone maker to announce a device built around Qualcomm's new flagship chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. The company unveiled the Motorola Signature 27 at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii, with Qualcomm and Motorola both confirming the new platform inside the phone.

Apple's macOS 27 Golden Gate update lets Mac owners route a question, and related follow-ups, to ChatGPT instead of the new Siri AI, but there's no switch that makes the swap permanent. Here's how to use ChatGPT with Siri on Mac: turn on the ChatGPT extension once in System Settings, then ask for ChatGPT by name every time you want it instead of Siri AI, since every new query defaults back to Siri AI otherwise.

Samsung recently unveiled the Galaxy SmartTag3, and for the first time in the SmartTag lineup, the tracker supports iPhone finding and sharing alongside Galaxy devices. T

Searching for a Visible phone plan $5 discount for five years? The Visible promotional terms reviewed for this article describe a different offer: $15 off the $45-per-month Visible+ plan for 25 months, with enrollment that closed January 31, 2025, according to Visible.

Amazon recently unveiled the new Fire TV Stick 4K, priced at $59.99 and replacing both the outgoing Fire TV Stick 4K Select and the 4K Plus in one move. It's now shipping in the US, Canada, and several other markets, and Amazon is running a launch promotion that drops the price to $30 for the upcoming Prime Big Deal Days.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple plans to unveil a new smart home hub alongside a refreshed HomePod mini and an updated Apple TV 4K on Tuesday, October 13, an event already being tagged online as the Apple HomeHub October 13 launch.

TechRadar reported Thursday that Google is rolling out a batch of Google Home update fixes addressing errors with Nest cameras and doorbells, Matter device status, Find My Phone, and Automations for Early Access users, based on release notes that TechRadar says come from Google. The cited release-note summary does not mention one complaint that keeps surfacing: wake-word misses and garbled commands with Gemini voice control on Google Home speakers. That issue isn't named as a fix in this round,...

A new leak claims the standard Xiaomi 18, not the Pro or Pro Max, could ship with a 200MP main and 200MP telephoto Leica camera system, a 7,200mAh battery, and a 6.4-inch display, according to Trusted Reviews. That would give the base model a notably high-end spec sheet, well ahead of anything Xiaomi has confirmed about the standard phone directly.

Two rows on a spec sheet, two names with "Android" in them, and a lot of shoppers who assume they're the same feature wearing different labels. They're not.

Apple released Final Cut Camera 2.4 recently, giving the app direct control over the iPhone 18 Pro's variable-aperture lens for the first time. This Final Cut Camera iPhone 18 Pro variable aperture support lets users dial in specific aperture settings or switch to shutter-priority and aperture-priority modes while recording video, instead of leaving exposure to the camera's automatic choice.

For years, Apple Notes was a one-way street. Text went in and mostly stayed there, with no built-in way to hand a note back out in a format other writing tools could actually read. iOS 26 changes that by building native, two-way Markdown support into Notes, and this guide walks through how to import and export Markdown in Apple Notes on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Google says its notification-abuse defenses cut Android notification volume by more than 7 billion messages a day in 2026, according to Google's security team. That number reframes what looks like a minor annoyance, a browser popup asking permission to send updates, into a large-scale security fight Chrome has been waging for years without much fanfare.

iOS 27 restores a real Home Screen icon for the Apple TV Remote app, but the release candidate also contains two more additions most users can't touch yet: an app launcher and a Top Shelf content carousel. Both of these iOS 27 Apple TV Remote app hidden features sit behind disabled feature flags, so installing the update on its own won't switch either one on, according to MacRumors and Cult of Mac.

Google has pushed two September updates to the Pixel 11 series, but neither is the Android 17 QPR1 release that has since reached older Pixels. Build CD1A.260905.001.A1 arrived September 1, followed by CD1A.260905.001.B1 on September 9 for the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold.

Four months ago, Google Messages for web began warning users that "QR code pairing is going away soon." The prompt urges people to sign in to Google Messages for web with a Google account "to avoid interruption," an early warning of a removal Google has since completed in the United States.

Xiaomi is taking a different approach to the book-style foldable with the Xiaomi 18 Fold, a shorter, wider flagship that starts at ¥10,999, or roughly $1,640, in mainland China. Xiaomi unveiled the phone and opened preorders on Sept. 7, with general sales scheduled to begin Sept. 10 at 10 a.m. local time.

In yesterday's announcements, Google detailed three headline Pixel 11 camera features, and the coverage that followed backs up a rival comparison for exactly one of them. How-To Geek writes that Camera Looks "parallels Apple and Samsung features that let you adjust photo styles to match your tastes" (How-To Geek). Magic Capture and the Pro line's 8K Pro Stable Video mode don't have a named comparison point anywhere in the reporting reviewed here. That's not proof Google invented something...

Hands-on coverage of the Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL from Android Authority has now shown off details of at least one launch color. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold hasn't gotten that treatment. Everything anyone knows about which Pixel 11 Pro Fold color to buy still traces back to retail listings that leaked last month, not anything Google has shown directly.

Pixel Watch 4 owners who feel left out of the Pixel Watch 5 launch have a workaround. According to Android Authority, Reddit user m0rr0ng0 found that sideloading a newer build of the Pixel Watch Faces app unlocks five Pixel Watch 5 faces: Weave, Chronograph, a Steph Curry edition, Multicolor Reveal, and Multicolor Modular.

A "Remember this with Gemini" shortcut buried in Gemini's app code could bring an early version of the Gemini Remember this image feature to Android's share sheet, letting users save details from photos and screenshots without typing anything. Android Authority found the code three weeks ago, enabled it manually, and got it to run (Android Authority). Google hasn't announced the shortcut, and it isn't available to regular users yet.

Huawei launched the Mate XT2 tri-fold phone in China yesterday, calling it the first foldable with a built-in privacy display. In its home market, Huawei is marketing the device under the fuller name Mate XT2 Ultimate Design.

Phones with 8,000mAh to 10,000mAh batteries used to be a trade-show curiosity. Not anymore. The vivo T5 Pro shipped with a 9,020mAh cell, and the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max has already been confirmed at 10,000mAh, Gadgets Now reports. Batteries that size used to demand a phone thick enough to double as a doorstop, but the same chemistry now lets manufacturers fit 7,000mAh or more into bodies under 8.5mm, per Gadgets Now.

The European Commission issued a €890 million EU Google antitrust fine last Wednesday, but the payment is the least of Google's problems. The twin rulings under the Digital Markets Act demand something far harder to write a check for: a structural redesign of how Google decides which results appear at the top of its search pages, and how Android's app economy distributes money between Google and the developers who build on it.

Chrome Canary is testing a Gemini-powered option that would replace weak or reused passwords automatically instead of just flagging them. It does not work yet. In hands-on testing on Windows 11, clicking the new "Change it for me" button left Chrome's password manager stuck on "Attempting to sign-in..." before it threw an error saying the password could not be updated, Android Authority reported this week after confirming the feature in its own build.

Outlook throwing "Your message can't be displayed right now" sends most people straight to a search bar looking for a one-click fix. There isn't one published yet. The Microsoft material reviewed for this guide does not document a fix for this exact wording. What follows is a troubleshooting heuristic for narrowing down whether the problem is a local app glitch, a single damaged message, an account-level issue, or something happening on Microsoft's end. It's not a Microsoft-confirmed diagnostic...

Talk to enough app developers about platform strategy and someone will eventually repeat a version of the same claim: foldable phone users spend more on apps, so building foldable-specific features is worth the engineering cost. It's a tidy story, and it fits with what everyone already assumes about early adopters of expensive hardware. It also isn't backed by any published dataset. No research reviewed for this article measures in-app spending, subscription conversion, or revenue per user by...

Apple has brought the App Switcher back on Apple Watch in watchOS 27.2 beta 2, and it works differently than the version longtime owners are used to. Instead of double-clicking the Digital Crown, testers now press and hold the bottom of the screen while inside an app.

Granola Apple Watch App Explained: Features, Privacy Gaps, and Timing

A full set of press renders for the Lenovo Googlebook 15 surfaced this week, giving the clearest look yet at Google's new Android-based laptop category before either company has said a word about it. The images, first shared by Digital Citizen, show a 15-inch laptop built for Google's Gemini-first computing push, complete with a new Google 'G' key that leak reports identify as a Gemini shortcut.

Apple quietly previewed a way to switch one phone number between two iPhones at WWDC 2026, but it left the mechanics largely unexplained. What sounded at first like a small continuity feature now looks more substantial: one iPhone can serve as the main device, a second can act as its companion, and the same phone number can move between them without repeatedly transferring the primary eSIM.

A Samsung device with model number SM-X848U appeared in the FCC database today, with Notebookcheck reporting that the identifier reportedly corresponds to the US 5G variant of the Galaxy Tab S12+, citing 91mobiles. That mapping comes from third-party leak reporting, not from the FCC filing itself. The listing arrived eighteen days after two related variants cleared Safety Korea certification, and together the three filings across two regulatory bodies point toward a fall 2026 release that...

Apple's WWDC26 preview of iOS 27 showed off video playback in the car and a much smarter Siri, but installing the update on an iPhone doesn't unlock either feature by itself. Working out iOS 27 CarPlay features compatibility means checking three separate things at once: the iPhone's model, the car parked in the driveway, and whether the apps already installed have caught up to Apple's new tools.

RAM used to be a straightforward performance purchase. More meant smoother multitasking, faster app switching, fewer cold reloads when you returned to a backgrounded app. That calculus has shifted in a specific and practical way: RAM is now a feature-gating purchase. According to Android Authority last month, current flagship AI implementations on both Android and iOS require 12GB as a hard minimum the point below which those tools simply won't run. Meanwhile, the memory inside most mid-range...

Samsung's Memory Manufacturing Technology Center stood up a task force this month to build a commodity DRAM end-fab at its Hwaseong Campus Complex 1. An industry official says the move will lift Samsung DRAM production capacity roughly 15% by December relative to the start of 2026, according to Seoul Economic Daily. The cause is a market running critically short: commodity DRAM prices climbed more than 80% in the first half of this year, a move that makes a capacity investment easy to justify...

A writer at Eurogamer traded in a PS2 and more than 100 games the day after a single session with Halo 3 at a colleague's apartment. Not gradually. Overnight. That is what a system-seller looks like: not a game that rewards console ownership, but one that creates it from nothing.

Scrolling through your phone from the passenger seat can trigger motion sickness, and Google has quietly added a setting to Android 17 meant to ease that discomfort. Motion Assist overlays small dots around the edge of your screen that move according to your phone's gyroscope and accelerometer, tracking your vehicle's motion (Android Authority today; Google Android Blog earlier this month). This guide explains how to use Motion Assist on Pixel phones, including how to check whether Google has...

Galaxy Z Fold 8 sales in South Korea rose roughly 10% week over week in the seven days after Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo, according to telecommunications industry sources cited by Yonhap News Agency.

Apple TV won 28 television Emmys this year, more than any other outlet, with parent company Apple's total reaching 29 once a separate commercial-category award is folded in. It's the first time Apple TV has finished at the top of the Emmy tally since the service launched in 2019, according to The Hollywood Reporter today.