News and Updates from Gadget Hacks

Apple released firmware 1B211 for the Beats Studio Buds, closing a Bluetooth vulnerability that could allow a nearby attacker to listen through the earbuds' microphone during the setup window before pairing was complete.

UC San Diego researchers are building a mini data center from 2,000 retired Pixel smartphones, stripped to their mainboards and clustered in groups of 20. According to a Google Research blog post cited by heise this week, each 20-board subsystem performs roughly on par with a conventional general-purpose server, and one such cluster already supports the simultaneous workloads of about 75 students running Jupyter Notebooks.

Multiple leaks point to higher prices on premium storage tiers, not a blanket increase. The $1,999 entry price may hold. The Flip 8 picture is murkier.

Apple Notes is gaining clipboard-level Markdown support in iOS 27, a change that removes a persistent friction point for anyone who moves text between Notes and external writing tools. Pasted Markdown converts automatically to rich text, and note content can be exported as raw Markdown syntax through a new edit menu option, 9to5Mac reported last week. That combination, along with native divider lines and several UI refinements, lands at iOS 27's general release. The AI-related additions operate...

Security researchers published findings today claiming Apple's App Store logs every individual tap a user makes and transmits that data to Apple as behavioral analytics. The gap between that characterization and Apple's own personalization disclosure is now the center of a privacy dispute that raises a direct question: when Apple says users can opt out, what exactly are they opting out of?

Apple published a support document on June 15, 2026, explaining why macOS may warn users before pasted Terminal commands can run. The document, titled "If your Mac blocks a Terminal command paste or script," clarifies popup alerts that 9to5Mac reported were introduced in macOS 26.4.

Apple is reportedly planning two 20th anniversary iPhone models for 2027, not a single commemorative flagship. Bloomberg reporting covered by MacRumors this week says both sizes would share identical specs, including the same next-generation 2nm A21 chip and the same four-edge curved display. Buyers wouldn't have to choose between owning the anniversary device and owning their preferred screen size. That's a meaningful structural shift from how Apple handled the iPhone's tenth birthday.

Gemini Live App Redesign: What Changes for Android Users

Google Home Nest forum posts disappearing with no archive plan

A Weibo leaker is warning that the iPhone 18 Pro could repeat the finish-durability complaints reported by some iPhone 17 Pro owners, especially around the Cosmic Orange colorway. A separate report claims Apple may have revised its aluminum manufacturing process to reduce discoloration risk. Apple has confirmed neither claim, leaving buyers eyeing the rumored Dark Cherry colorway with two opposing signals and no official guidance.

Apple announced three concrete upgrades to iPhone Mirroring at WWDC, and the macOS 27 iPhone Mirroring upgrades cover the full range: Control Center access, protected video playback, and a resizable window that can shift aspect ratios beyond the iPhone's fixed proportions.

Apple's supply chain is reportedly preparing parts and module production for an iPhone camera the company has never built before. Sunny Optical has started producing actuators for a variable aperture mechanism destined for the iPhone 18 Pro, while LG Innotek is preparing full module assembly at its Gumi facility in South Korea for June or July, ahead of its normal schedule, specifically because the new mechanism raises defect risk, MacRumors reported. That points to supply-chain preparation,...

Galaxy S24 S25 Battery Drain After April Update: What the Evidence Actually Shows

A Google employee confirmed this week that the company has been investigating a Google Pixel bootloop issue tied to its March, April, and May 2026 software updates, with devices freezing on the G logo or crashing immediately after PIN entry. The acknowledgement covers the Pixel 6 through Pixel 10 series, and the public issue tracker has accumulated close to 800 entries since March, according to heise. Google says updated guidance is now available.

T-Mobile subscribers who make voice calls abroad could soon pay twice as much per minute. Multiple customers have received notices warning that standard T-Mobile international roaming call rates will jump from $0.25 to $0.50 per minute on June 25, according to Android Authority today and PhoneArena four days ago. The timing puts the reported change squarely in the opening weeks of peak summer travel season.

Strava rolled out a broad set of new hiking features covering route planning, offline navigation, off-route alerts, and route following on Apple Watch. The features that matter most on an unfamiliar trail, planning where to go, staying on route, and navigating without cell service all sit behind the subscription paywall. Free users get a more capable recording screen and better social tools. Subscribers get the navigation suite.

Huawei reportedly unveiled HarmonyOS 7, a major upgrade to its self-developed mobile OS that the company is framing as its entry into what it calls the "agent era" positioning the platform less as a conventional Android rival than as an AI-agent system designed to coordinate complex tasks autonomously across devices. The announcement puts HarmonyOS 7 features directly in competition with Apple's iOS 27, according to South China Morning Post.

An An unreleased Apple Watch anniversary band has surfaced outside Apple, and only four units are known to have surfaced publicly. The Sport Band is engraved with "2014–2024: Ten Years of Apple Watch," two units sold on eBay still sealed in Apple's internal sample packaging, and a public release now looks highly unlikely.

Google Home Instant Account Relinking: Why Devices Go Offline

Gemini for Google Home Update: Faster Responses and Privacy Tradeoffs