Browsing: Android

Google Play Services now verifies your SIM number by default and adds it to every Google account on your Android phone, including throwaway and work accounts. Here is how to turn it off, how to remove the number from accounts that already have it and what you lose.

Google Play now lets Android users build apps with AI Studio and run them privately, without publishing to the Play Store. Here is how it works, who gets it first and what is coming.

The October Google Play Services update (v26.40) adds receipt scanning to Google Wallet, plus a message center, clearer merchant names and a faster Google Pay checkout in Chrome. Here is what each change does, what Google has not said yet and how to check if you have it.

WhatsApp is rolling out native message scheduling to some Android beta testers on version 2.26.40.7. You can queue texts, links, photos and videos from 10 minutes to two weeks ahead, in chats and groups, and they reportedly send even if your phone is offline. Here is how it works and what is still unexplained.

Google’s October Pixel bulletin fixes three critical vulnerabilities, including a Bluetooth privilege escalation bug that needs nothing more than being near you. The wider Android bulletin adds 25 more. Here is what is actually in the update, which devices get which fixes, and why the Pixel 6 case is different this month.

The Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro share the same Tensor G6, the same 30W charging, the same 25W Qi2.2 wireless, the same seven years of updates, and they finish within one minute of each other on battery life. The $200 gap buys a sharper LTPO display and a camera system that is genuinely in a different class, led by a telephoto with roughly 2.7 times the sensor area.

Hearings began on October 6 in a £1.2 billion claim arguing Google’s 30 percent Play Store commission was passed straight into the prices UK Android owners paid. Because it is an opt-out case, roughly 20 million people are already class members without ever filling in a form. Here is who is in, what counts as a qualifying purchase, and why the headline figure is not what lands in anyone’s pocket.

Google has added six features to Android Advanced Protection in Android 17, including forensic Intrusion Logging, charging-only USB when locked, and a hard lock on the Accessibility API. The accessibility change is the one you will notice: it strips the permission from apps that already have it, and automation tools like Tasker stop working the moment you flip the switch.

Google’s support window for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro closed in October 2026, five years after launch. The phone keeps working and most of the software on it keeps updating, but the monthly Android security patch does not. Here is what stops, what quietly continues, how fast the risk actually builds, and what the realistic options are.

Vivo launched the S2 FE in India today with a 10,000mAh battery in an 8.6mm body, priced at Rs 38,999. The capacity is real and the endurance is real. The catch is on the other end of the cable: 44W into a cell that size is one of the slowest charge rates on any 2026 phone, and vivo put a 7,200mAh phone with twice the charging speed on the same stage.