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An unreleased feature discovered in Google Photos version 7.90 lets users long-press albums, folders, or people to pin them as shortcuts in a new horizontal bar at the top of the Collections tab. Android Authority manually activated the hidden option and found it largely functional, including a dedicated Edit menu for reordering pinned items and browsing library categories.
Google's newly announced Pixel Tag Bluetooth tracker won't ship until November, leaving buyers without an option for months. Android Authority points to five trackers already available, with Motorola's Moto Tag 2 standing out at $20 (or $99 for four), offering UWB support, a replaceable CR2032 battery, IP68 water resistance, and roughly 600 days of battery life, all while working with Google's Find Hub network.
An Android Authority writer asked ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude to name the best Google Pixel phone for most buyers in 2026, factoring in the newly released Pixel 11 lineup. The three AI models gave conflicting recommendations, with ChatGPT notably sticking with the older Pixel 10 rather than favoring Google's latest flagship.
Google's next Android release will support Encrypted Client Hello, a TLS extension that encrypts the hostname portion of the connection handshake so it can no longer be read in plain text. Paired with private DNS, this stops internet providers and Wi-Fi operators from easily seeing which sites or apps a device is contacting. The feature will be on by default for apps targeting Android 17 that use updated networking libraries like OkHttp, WebView, or HttpEngine.
New outline renders shared by leaker Ice Universe suggest Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S27 Pro will adopt the same iPhone 17 Pro-style camera plateau expected on the Galaxy S27 Ultra, replacing Samsung's traditional vertical camera island. However, the Pro model appears to omit the S Pen slot and has the speaker grille and microphone positions swapped compared to the Ultra.
Google has replaced the Exynos modem used in previous Pixel phones with a MediaTek modem in the Pixel 11 series, promising better reliability, speed, and power efficiency. Android Authority ran side-by-side signal and performance tests comparing the Pixel 11 Pro against last year's Pixel 10 Pro using identical SIM cards and network conditions to verify these claims.
New leaked renders from Android Headlines and OnLeaks reveal Samsung's Galaxy S27 Ultra sporting a camera layout that departs from the three-ring design used across recent Ultra models. An Android Authority writer who has used Samsung's flagship phones for years says this marks the first real design shift he's noticed in a while, though he remains uncertain about the final look.
IDC's August 2026 forecast predicts worldwide smartphone shipments will drop 16.7% this year, a steeper decline than the 13.9% estimate from May. The cause is a severe shortage of NAND and DRAM chips, with component costs up over 300% year-over-year as manufacturers redirect capacity to AI data centers. As a result, average smartphone selling prices have jumped 27.6% to $581, effectively pushing sub-$100 Android phones out of the market.
Google is broadening the rollout of its 'find in note' feature in Keep, which lets users search within a single note or list for specific text, similar to Ctrl+F. The feature had appeared in a limited release earlier this month but is now showing up more widely across devices, though not universally yet.
Xiaomi has launched the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max with a 9,210mAh dual-cell silicon-carbon battery in Europe, and a 10,000mAh single-cell version in some other markets. The company claims up to three days of typical use or 37 hours of continuous video playback, alongside 100W wired charging that can fully charge the device in just over an hour.
Google announced that starting February 2027, Android apps and games on the Play Store must comply with new per-app memory limits based on a device's total RAM, with games given more lenient thresholds than apps. Titles that fail to meet these caps risk reduced visibility in the Play Store or being blocked from publication altogether. The rules build on per-app memory limits first tested on Pixel phones under Android 17, now expanding device-wide.
After users reported that Gemini on Google Home devices couldn't properly add items to Google Keep lists, a Google spokesperson confirmed the company is rolling out a fix. Google described the issue as a set of 'UI issues' rather than a change to Keep support, and said the patch should reach all affected users within a few days.