The Latest from Gadget Hacks

The most revealing thing Apple did at WWDC this week wasn't on stage. Buried inside the first iOS 27 developer beta are three framework references, foldState, angleDegrees, and a new key that returns a device's total number of built-in displays, that correspond to no existing Apple product. Developer Sam Henri Gold first spotted the strings on June 8 and shared them publicly; 9to5Mac verified their existence shortly after, and Macworld independently confirmed the findings, noting that no...

Huawei has set a firm date. The company published an official notice today confirming it will raise prices on its "intelligent collaboration products" starting July 1, 2026, citing memory chip shortages, rising component costs, and AI-driven chip demand as pressures it can no longer absorb, according to Huawei Central. That notice covers smartphones, tablets, and other devices across Huawei's lineup, and moves the Huawei price hike July 2026 from executive speculation to a dated, company-issued...

Samsung's June security update for the Galaxy S25 delivers more than a patch. Three Galaxy AI features that were absent from last month's stable One UI 8.5 release are now rolling out to the S25 series, giving owners tools that have been exclusive to the Galaxy S26 since that phone launched. The update is live in South Korea today and expected to reach North America, Europe, and India within the coming week, Android Authority and GSMArena reported Thursday.

iOS 27 adds two genuinely different ways to create custom iPhone wallpapers: one that generates a brand-new image from a text description, and one that expands an existing photo to fit the Lock Screen naturally. This is a pre-release guide to both. The step sequences are reconstructed from WWDC materials, Apple developer documentation, and pre-release reporting; exact UI labels may shift before the final build ships this fall.

Facer and Citizen launched Kick It today, a free World Cup watch face for Wear OS that surfaces live match scores, tournament standings, and news headlines directly on the watch face itself. No app-switching required. The catch is real, though: eligibility is locked to four countries and requires Wear OS 6 or later, which cuts out a substantial portion of the global soccer audience before they even check the download page.

The "which came first?" Wikipedia quiz is real. It's just not listed for iPhone. Wikimedia's own experiments page shows the daily historical facts game as Android only, with no iPhone version in any published materials, per the Wikimedia Foundation. A separate Wikimedia game is playable on mobile devices in a browser, but it's a navigation challenge, not a history quiz. If you're searching for one and land on the other, you'll know immediately they aren't the same thing.

Chinese leaker Digital Chat Station, cited by Android Authority today, describes the OPPO Find N7 as a wide foldable with a 7.6-inch inner display, a 5.5-inch cover screen, and a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chip built on a 2nm process, with a Q1 2027 launch window. OPPO has not commented. The leak traces to a single source with no independent corroboration. What gives it weight is what OPPO has already shipped: the Find N6, whose TÜV Rheinland certification, documented manufacturing process, and...

Apple Mail's search has been quietly failing users for years. Not dramatically, not in ways that make headlines, but consistently enough that most people stopped trusting it and started working around it. The iOS 27 Apple Mail search upgrade doesn't add a clever new button to the app. It claims to fix the underlying engine. That distinction is what makes it worth paying attention to.

Samsung has added a One UI 9 network speed indicator to the Galaxy status bar through an updated QuickStar Good Lock module, and both Android Authority and Sammy Fans confirmed the feature today through hands-on testing on Galaxy S26 Ultra hardware. The catch: it requires One UI 9, Samsung's Good Lock app, and the QuickStar plugin, in that order. None of that chain is available to most Galaxy owners yet, and the feature is off by default even for those who qualify.

iFixit tore down a Trump Mobile T1 on Thursday and removed any remaining ambiguity about the phone's origins: the Trump Mobile T1 HTC U24 Pro connection goes deeper than cosmetics. Technicians pulled the mainboard from an HTC U24 Pro, placed it into the T1's chassis, and powered it on. It booted, according to Android Authority's coverage of the iFixit findings. The hardware is interchangeable.

Starting November 30, 2026, WhatsApp will require iOS 15.5 or later to run on iPhones and iPads. Devices on iOS or iPadOS 15.4 and below will no longer be able to use the app after that date. The cutoff reportedly covers both WhatsApp Messenger and WhatsApp Business, which share the same underlying codebase, according to BusinessToday.

Apple's June figures put 79% of all compatible iPhones on iOS 26, below the 82% iOS 18 had reached at the same point last year, and the second-lowest June adoption rate Apple has recorded since 2015, ahead of only iOS 17, according to App Store data. The upgrade cycle is functioning. It's just running softer than Apple's own recent standard.

OnePlus launched the Turbo 6X and Turbo 6X Pro in China this week, and the pricing structure between them is hard to ignore. At the entry tier, the OnePlus Turbo 6X and 6X Pro are separated by just CNY 100, roughly $15, with the Pro adding a larger battery, an AMOLED display, faster charging, and stronger water resistance for that gap, according to TechCabal. Both phones stay under CNY 2,400 ($354) across all configurations, with the base Turbo 6X starting at CNY 1,899 ($280).

Some YouTube Shorts users have opened the app this week to find the dislike button gone from the right-side action rail. No thumbs-down, no error message, no explanation. Recent reporting indicates it's not a bug but a live interface experiment, one that pulls the YouTube Shorts dislike button out of plain sight and routes it through an extra menu tap.

If you want to keep using an Apple Time Capsule after upgrading to macOS 27, you have three options: stay on macOS 26, install a community tool called TimeCapsuleSMB, or replace the hardware. This guide covers all three, including step-by-step setup for TimeCapsuleSMB, so you can make the right call before the upgrade window closes.

Apple gave EU iPhone and iPad users a concrete reason to notice the Digital Markets Act earlier this month: Siri AI will not be available on iOS 27 or iPadOS 27 in any of the 27 EU member states when those releases ship later this year, with no timeline for when that changes, according to Apple's newsroom. Apple's marketing chief Greg Joswiak escalated that framing this week, calling the Siri AI EU launch delay the "most serious negative outcome yet" of the Digital Markets Act, Euractiv...

Verizon's carrier documentation has done what Google has not: publicly identified which Pixel Watch models are in line for the Wear OS 7 update. The Pixel Watch 2, Pixel Watch 3, and Pixel Watch 4 all appear in Verizon's changelog entries. The original Pixel Watch does not, and given that Google's own support commitment for that device expired eight months ago, that omission strongly suggests the first-generation watch will miss the update entirely.

By the end of this guide, you'll know how to create a shortcut using the iPadOS 27 shortcut builder's new plain-English prompt tool, how to inspect what Apple Intelligence generates, and how to decide whether the result is safe to run unsupervised. That last part is where most coverage stops.

Editor's note: This is an evidence-based analysis built from launch coverage and early hands-on reporting, not a full tested review. A complete assessment of the Honor Magic V6's software, camera quality, and long-term durability will require extended real-world use of the global unit.

Samsung Wallet can now store a passport-backed digital ID accepted at more than 250 TSA checkpoints across the U.S. For frequent domestic travelers on Galaxy devices, that's a genuine convenience upgrade. It is not, in any practical sense, a passport replacement. The gap between those two things is exactly what's worth understanding before you set it up.

OnePlus is reportedly preparing to launch a new budget phone series in India, with some models priced under Rs 20,000 (roughly $240) and a target window of July 2026. The line is expected to carry the N series name and sit below the existing Nord range, which would give OnePlus a three-tier portfolio for the first time. OnePlus has not confirmed any of this.

When iOS 27 ships this fall, most drivers won't be watching video on their CarPlay screen. Apple formally introduced video apps as a supported CarPlay category at WWDC 2026 this week, completing a gradual platform shift that began when Apple first signaled parked-only video support at WWDC 2025.

The base iPhone 17 supports Apple Intelligence. Apple says so plainly. What sits in the footnotes is more consequential: iOS 27 introduces a higher tier of on-device AI that requires at least 12GB of unified memory, and the iPhone 17's 8GB falls short. Two Siri AI features, expressive voices and more advanced dictation are tied exclusively to that advanced model. The base iPhone 17 doesn't qualify for either.

The OnePlus 15 can now transfer files directly to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac using Quick Share, with no cable, no third-party app, and no cloud upload required. Android Authority reported that AirDrop support via Quick Share has reached the OnePlus 15, extending the direct transfer capability that Google first launched for Pixel 10 devices last November.

Samsung has pushed an update to its Always On Display app that triggers animated goal celebrations and red card alerts directly on Galaxy phone lock screens, arriving two days before the 2026 FIFA World Cup group stage opens.

A UK refurbisher has been quietly tracking something the laptop industry rarely quantifies with precision: how often machines come back broken, controlled for how long they've been in use. The results, published this week, are stark. Age-matched Intel MacBooks return for hardware faults at roughly twice the rate of Apple Silicon models, with Apple Silicon units sold throughout 2025 logging a 0.9% fault return rate against approximately double that figure for Intel machines sold under equivalent...

A new Samsung Galaxy S27 Pro battery leak suggests the rumored flagship could pack a 5,000mAh cell matching the Galaxy S26 Ultra's capacity in a noticeably smaller body. Tipster kro (@kro_itnyang) shared display and battery details via Digital Trends this week, adding to reports suggesting Samsung may expand its Galaxy S27 lineup from three models to four when it launches in early 2027.

Samsung's Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 have cleared China's 3C database, with both devices appearing in an official regulatory filing issued June 3. The Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 3C certification confirms the first concrete hardware spec for either device: 10W charging at 5V/2A, matching their predecessors exactly. Android Police and Android Authority both covered the filings this week under model numbers SM-L3550 and SM-L7150.

Google is rolling out Gemini 3.5 Live Translate today across three surfaces at once: the Google Translate app globally on Android and iOS, Google Meet for enterprise customers entering private preview, and the Gemini Live API for developers in public preview, according to Google's announcement. The Meet piece carries the biggest numbers: Google says the feature now supports 70+ languages and more than 2,000 direct language combinations in a single call, up from four languages that routed...

Apple announced a new iPhone feature this week that can automatically pull confirmation numbers and reservation codes from a user's inbox and display them inside the Phone app during a live support call, no app-switching required. Called Call Context, the feature is part of the new Siri AI unveiled at WWDC26, according to 9to5Mac. It works without ever analyzing call audio.

Google announced at I/O last month that Search will automatically generate interactive visual tools, including diagrams, graphs, simulations, and custom interfaces, directly inside search results for all users, free of charge, later this summer. This is not a separate app or a paid feature. Search itself will assemble these outputs in response to ordinary queries, according to Google's I/O announcement.

Samsung's stable One UI 8.5 rollout began last week in South Korea, covering the S24 and S25 families, 2024-era foldables, and the Tab S10 and S11 series. The S23 generation and anything older are not on the confirmed stable release list. If headlines describing this as a rollout for "older Galaxy phones" left you checking your S22's software update screen, that's the correction this article exists to make.

Apple highlighted Spatial Reframing at WWDC26, while multiple outlets also reported new or upgraded Photos tools, including Extend and Clean Up. Apple's announcement confirms Apple Intelligence now powers image editing in Photos; the specific tool lineup beyond Spatial Reframing comes from third-party reporting.

Before WWDC 2026, the consensus on watchOS 27 was polite and unexciting. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman told readers to expect AI features, stability work, and "not much, really" beyond that, and 9to5Mac summarized those expectations in March. What Apple announced today is still narrower than a typical platform release. It's also more targeted than the preview implied.

Apple yesterday confirmed a complete overhaul of Genmoji at WWDC, replacing the feature's one-shot generation model with an iterative editing system that lets users refine results step by step. The iOS 27 Genmoji redesign is the biggest structural change to the feature since it launched. Separately, pre-release reporting from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggests Apple is also developing a proactive suggestion engine that would generate custom emoji based on typing habits and Photos library content,...

Copilot in Microsoft Edge can turn a web page, or a stack of open tabs, into a generated audio podcast. This guide walks through exactly how to do that: what you need before starting, how to write a prompt that produces useful output, and where the feature's limits are.

Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel 8a owners are finding the Quick Share Extension installed on their devices after recent system updates — the component required for Quick Share–AirDrop interoperability between Android and Apple devices. The feature itself isn't active yet. Google still needs to flip the switch on its end.

Samsung Messages is being discontinued in the US market in July 2026 for devices running Android 12 or later. Samsung has not confirmed whether the phase-out will apply outside the United States.

Apple raised the memory bar for its most capable on-device AI today at WWDC. iOS 27 introduces a new on-device model requiring at least 12GB of unified memory, which means the standard iPhone 17, shipping with 8GB, is excluded from the top tier of Apple Intelligence at launch. Not because the phone is underpowered in any other sense, but because of where Apple drew a single spec line, MacRumors reported today.

Apple is reportedly building a photo reframing tool for iOS 27 that would let users shift the apparent viewpoint of a spatial image after capture, not by filling in synthetic pixels around the edges, but by working with actual stereo depth data recorded at the moment of shooting. That's a materially different operation from anything Google Photos offers today, and it points to a category Google has not yet publicly addressed. If Apple confirms it at WWDC this month, Google's answer to the...