Gadget Hacks

Google has set a firm Googlebook pre-order date: September 21 at 9 a.m. ET. The company emailed users who had signed up for updates, and the same date now appears on Googlebook.com (Engadget, today; 9to5Google, today).

iOS 27 rolled out today, September 14, and buried inside it is something AirPods owners have asked for through several software cycles: a working iOS 27 AirPods customizable EQ that lets owners push lows, mids, and highs up or down instead of trusting Apple's automatic tuning alone, MacRumors reports. Apple Intelligence and a beta version of Siri AI ship the same day, per Apple's announcement, the clearest confirmation available that today is when the update actually reaches the public rather...

Google Drive's "Organize My Files" tool lets Gemini scan for loose files sitting outside your folder structure and suggest where they belong. Nothing actually moves until you check a box and click approve. Here's how to use Gemini to organize Google Drive files without approving moves you haven't reviewed first, because this is a supervised assistant, not an autopilot cleanup (Google Drive Help).

Apple is reportedly building a new Apple smart home hub: a HomePod-style speaker paired with a 7-inch display, running a new homeOS built on tvOS, alongside a refreshed HomePod mini and Apple TV. An unveiling could land as soon as this fall (MacRumors, 3 weeks ago). The device reportedly slipped from a spring 2025 target so it could ship alongside Apple's AI-upgraded Siri and iOS 27, and it's positioned against Google's Nest Hub Mini and Amazon's Echo Show (The Verge, 7 weeks ago).

The Samsung Galaxy SmartTag 3 leak that surfaced this week centers on one detail that changes how the tracker works in daily use: the built-in loop for a keyring, carabiner, or lanyard appears to be gone. Leaked press renders show a compact squircle body with no cutout at all, a design choice both previous Galaxy SmartTag generations avoided (9to5Google, 3 days ago; SamMobile, 3 days ago).

Tonight, September 14, 2026, the 78th Emmy Awards air live at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT, and working out how to watch the 2026 Emmy Awards live without cable comes down to one quick decision: stream it directly on Peacock, use a live-TV service already sitting on your phone, or grab a short trial before the broadcast starts. Mariska Hargitay hosts the ceremony for the first time, arriving fresh off two Emmy wins earlier this year for her documentary "My Mom Jayne" (NBC, this week; NBC, last month)....

Apple's new foldable, iPhone Duo, ships without any Face ID hardware. In its place, Apple built Touch ID into a side button and says a paired Apple Watch can unlock iPhone Duo as well, according to Apple's announcement ten days ago.

A single number is easier to understand than a night full of sleep charts. That was the appeal when Apple introduced Sleep Score with watchOS 26 in September 2025, giving Apple Watch users a nightly rating from 0 to 100 instead of leaving them to interpret sleep duration, wakefulness, and consistency on their own.

Apple's newest Watches can listen for a doorbell, identify music playing nearby, recover the last few seconds of a conversation, and eventually summarize conversations from throughout the day. That raises an unavoidable privacy question: What happens to all the audio needed to make those features work?

T-Mobile confirmed it will charge $5 per month for iPhone Handoff, the eSIM feature arriving with iOS 27 that lets one phone number move between two iPhones, according to a T-Mobile press release cited by The Verge (The Verge, 3 days ago; MacRumors, 3 days ago). If you're picturing two phones ringing at once on the same number, that's not what this buys. Only the selected iPhone can have the number active at a time, so Handoff works more like a switch than a two-line plan.

iOS 27 lets an iPhone tap into GymKit-equipped gym machines for the first time, with AirPods Pro 3 supplying the heart-rate data an Apple Watch would normally provide (Engadget, yesterday). That's the shift behind iOS 27 GymKit iPhone and AirPods compatibility: the phone becomes a second way to connect to equipment that could already talk to a Watch. It doesn't add GymKit to treadmills that never had it, and as of this testing, iOS 27 remains in beta; Apple hasn't said when GymKit on iPhone...

Sony may be preparing a camera upgrade for the Xperia 1 IX that swaps out the flagship's main sensor for a larger one, which would be the first change to that specific component since the Xperia 1 V launched in 2023. The claim traces to Japanese blog Sumahu Digest and was reported today by PhoneArena.

Apple spent part of the iPhone Duo unveiling drawing a sharp contrast with rival foldables, including the awkward black space that can surround apps not designed for larger folding screens. But Apple's first foldable won't make that problem disappear overnight. As 9to5Google noted after the Sept. 9 unveiling, older iPhone apps can face a similar limitation when opened on Duo's 7.6-inch inner display.

Microsoft is moving Teams and Copilot's web apps to new addresses this month, and organizations with locked-down firewalls could lose legitimate access if network teams don't update their allowlists first, Computerworld reported this week. The Microsoft Teams and Copilot URL changes are landing in stages through early October, and Microsoft has published two Message Center notices spelling out what admins need to check before then.

Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold owners started seeing an unscheduled software update this week, and it is not the Android 17 QPR1 release many were expecting. The Pixel 11 September 2026 update moves affected phones from build CD1A.260714.001.A9 to CD1A.260905.001.A1, carrying a September 2026 security patch that landed outside Google's normal monthly cycle, 9to5Google reports.

Leave a phone on the dashboard of a parked car on an 80°F day, and the cabin around it will hit 114°F within 30 minutes. Give it an hour, and that number climbs past 130°F, according to Meqtor. Most phones are rated to operate only up to 95°F (Meqtor). Past that point, a phone isn't just uncomfortable, it's running well outside the range it was built for.

A viral claim swept through social media this year: starting in February 2027, EU law will force Apple, Samsung, and every other smartphone maker to bring back pop-off battery covers. It's not true, but the real story is more interesting than the myth (Annie Lab, 2 months ago).

Apple seeded tvOS 27 RC, build 24J360, to developers and public beta testers yesterday, and the update is now available through Software Update on enrolled compatible Apple TVs (MacRumors, yesterday; iClarified, yesterday). If you're trying to figure out how to install tvOS 27 RC, the requirement comes first: it runs on Apple TV 4K (2nd generation, 2021) or newer, and it does not run on the Apple TV HD (2015) or the original Apple TV 4K (2017) (iThinkDiff, 2 weeks ago; iClarified, yesterday).

Motorola posted a short teaser video from its official X account this week, timed to land alongside Apple's iPhone Duo launch. The clip ends with a brief silhouette of an unnamed foldable phone that looks shorter and wider than Motorola's current Razr Fold, according to GSMArena and ChannelNews. The phone appears on screen for about five seconds, near the end of the clip, per Android Police. The Motorola wide Razr Fold teaser confirms one thing: the company is building a new form factor. The...

The sources reviewed here trace the phone's reported specifications to one Gagadget article, and the phone hasn't launched yet. Gagadget reported this week that the Magic 9 Pro Max pairs dual 200MP cameras developed with ARRI, a mechanical gimbal, and support for ARRI's LogC3 color format, with a China launch planned for September 28 starting at 6,999 yuan, roughly £855/$875.

Apple Watch Series 12 doesn't wait for "Hey Siri" before it starts paying attention. Sound Recognition listens continuously for sirens, alarms, doorbells, and crying babies, flagging them with on-device intelligence even when the wearer's iPhone isn't nearby. Live Rewind goes further: a double press of the Digital Crown surfaces the previous 15 seconds of nearby conversation as a text snippet, without anyone having to ask for it in the moment.

New European pricing figures suggest the S26 FE could cost meaningfully more than its predecessor, while confirmed upgrades still fall short of justifying the gap

The Google Pixel 11 hasn't launched yet, and leaked details about it are already complicating the case for buying one. Google has confirmed that portions of the lineup will cost more, and says the increase comes from higher memory costs, not tariffs (TechRepublic, last week). At the same time, leaked battery figures suggest the Pro and Pro XL models may actually pack smaller batteries than the Pixel 10 phones they replace (PhoneArena, last week). That's the real tension behind the question of...

Rivian's chief software officer has a blunt answer for anyone still shopping for Apple CarPlay in an electric truck: the debate itself, he argues, no longer matters. That's a striking claim from a company whose own buyers once ranked CarPlay as their single most-requested feature, according to The Verge, two months ago.

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.

Snap two windows side by side in Windows 11, drag the shared border to resize one, and in many cases the other window resizes too, whether you wanted it to or not. Microsoft currently documents a checkbox for controlling that behavior under Settings > System > Multitasking > Snap windows. Some users nevertheless report that the checkbox is missing on their installations, so this guide covers both the documented setting and the available workarounds.

Apple's China support site posted, then quietly pulled, a guide showing Mac users how to connect Alibaba's Qwen model, known in mainland China as Qianwen, to Siri and Writing Tools. The page went live on August 8 and disappeared within a day, according to Particle. It is the most detailed public look yet at how Apple Intelligence Qwen integration is meant to work, even though Apple has not confirmed the feature is actually live.

Apple has finally unveiled its first foldable phone, and the shape looks strangely familiar. The book-style design, 7.6-inch inner display, and 3,000-nit peak brightness Apple announced this week land close to where Samsung already sits with the Galaxy Z Fold 8, a phone The Verge put through a week of testing. That overlap is the starting point for any iPhone Duo vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 comparison: Apple has arrived at a form factor Samsung has already priced and had independently reviewed.

WhatsApp is rolling out a new settings panel that lets a subset of Mac beta testers set their own WhatsApp beta for Mac update schedule, picking between two release channels instead of taking whatever build the company pushes automatically, according to WABetaInfo and Hardware Upgrade this week.

Some Pixel owners are still waiting for the Google Wallet fix that should have landed automatically. If your phone is showing a "Device doesn't meet security requirements" warning every time you open Google Wallet, it hasn't been compromised and your cards are fine. A stalled update rollout left a specific group of beta opt-outs stranded on a software build that Wallet's security checks no longer recognize as certified.

Some YouTube users say they no longer have to tap play at all. Opening the app is apparently enough to start a Short playing, according to a report from Android Authority published today. One user described a Short auto-launching through connected earphones and waking a sleeping partner, with no interaction involved beyond opening the app.

Google Photos has added a floating camera button inside its AI editing tools, letting people snap a fresh photo without leaving the app and feed it straight into an edit. The new Google Photos AI camera button shows up inside Photo Remix and Photo to Video, part of a wider push to add camera access to tools in the app's Create tab.

Bluetooth speaker problems rarely have one cause. Microsoft's own support documentation splits them into distinct categories: pairing failures, connection failures, and audio-output failures, each requiring a different fix (Microsoft Support, 3 months ago; Microsoft Support, 3 months ago). Treat all three as the same problem and you'll end up applying the wrong fix for hours.

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.

Apple didn't quietly bolt on a new financing tier this week. It shut down the iPhone Upgrade Program and iPhone Payments in the United States and replaced both with the Apple Upgrade program, a Klarna-backed lease that now spans iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac (Apple Newsroom, this week). Leases start at $17.99 a month for iPhone and run 12 to 36 months depending on device category, sold through Apple's own retail and online channels in partnership with buy-now-pay-later provider Klarna...

Turning off Roku's automatic content recognition system took investigators at The Markup 11 to 24 clicks. That click count applies specifically to Roku's ACR setting on Roku TVs, the feature built into Roku's television hardware rather than its streaming sticks (The Markup, 2023). Even after finding it, disabling ACR doesn't answer the bigger question most people actually have: how to stop Roku from tracking what you watch across every app you open. This guide walks through the Roku privacy...

Google has spent the past several months steadily expanding what the Gemini overlay can do, and the latest round of Gemini overlay new features makes the strategic intent hard to miss. The overlay the assistant panel you pull up from any Android screen is gaining video generation, music creation, Canvas, and Guided Learning directly on its surface. Taken together with a persistent floating bubble still in testing and a Gemini Live redesign that eliminates its own dedicated screen, the changes...

Reports of a Disney Plus free tier trace back to internal talks inside Disney, not a public announcement. Two people familiar with the matter told Business Insider that the company is discussing making some Disney+ content available without a subscription.

Firefox 153 shipped last week with a security advisory that warrants immediate attention. MFSA 2026-68 rates the release's overall security impact as high, citing memory-corruption bugs in Firefox 152 that Mozilla says could, with sufficient effort, have been exploited to run arbitrary code. The update also delivers native HDR video playback on Windows 10 and 11 for qualifying hardware, QR code tab sharing, expanded PDF editing, and tighter extension permissions.

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...