News and Updates from Gadget Hacks: Page 2

Samsung is boosting compensation as engineers weigh offers from rival SK hynix, but the gap between its memory and foundry businesses remains wide.

A Tom's Guide reporter spent about four hours trying to book a family trip to Disneyland Paris, phone parked in an online queue the whole time. The reporter said the checks on that booking page came about every 20 minutes in that case, part of a range the same person observed elsewhere running anywhere from 10 minutes to a full hour (Tom's Guide, last week). That inconsistency is the whole problem with an otherwise clever tool.

Samsung's stable One UI 9 update is now reaching the Galaxy S25 series, Galaxy Z Fold 7, and Galaxy Z Flip 7, with the rollout confirmed live in South Korea, according to Android Authority. It's the next phase of a staged rollout that started with the Galaxy S26 family, and it puts Samsung's 2025 flagship lineup on the same Android 17 build already running on the newer S26 and Z8 devices.

Apple's iOS 27 bill-splitting feature is now live, letting Apple Cash users photograph or select a receipt, assign individual items to different people, and calculate each person's share before sending payment requests.

Microsoft has fixed the Windows 11 KB5124008 bug that broke Plan9 host-folder sharing for some Linux virtual machines, including environments used by Claude Cowork and the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Apple Watch GPS vs GPS + Cellular comes down to one question: do you need the watch to stay connected when your iPhone isn't nearby? Within the same Apple Watch model and case material, the two versions share the same core health, fitness, display, and GPS features.

Crack an iPhone 17 screen without coverage and Apple bills $329; do the same to a Pro Max and the number climbs to $379. File that same repair through AppleCare+ instead, and the fee drops to $29 (iDrop News, about a year ago; Engadget, two weeks ago). That gap explains why AppleCare+ can be valuable, and also why so many people buy it without checking whether they actually need it.

Amazon recently unveiled the new Fire TV Stick 4K, priced at $59.99 and replacing both the outgoing Fire TV Stick 4K Select and the 4K Plus in one move. It's now shipping in the US, Canada, and several other markets, and Amazon is running a launch promotion that drops the price to $30 for the upcoming Prime Big Deal Days.

Two rows on a spec sheet, two names with "Android" in them, and a lot of shoppers who assume they're the same feature wearing different labels. They're not.

Samsung recently unveiled the Galaxy SmartTag3, and for the first time in the SmartTag lineup, the tracker supports iPhone finding and sharing alongside Galaxy devices. T

Apple's iOS 27 parental controls started arriving on devices on September 14, 2026, as part of a broader software rollout that also touched iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, visionOS 27, and tvOS 27. The features getting the most attention, child accounts, Ask to Browse, and a redesigned Screen Time, aren't spread evenly across that whole list. Apple says they require installing the Screen Time update specifically on iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27.

Paramount Skydance is the name of the corporate entity acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery. It is not an announced streaming brand, and there is no confirmed HBO Max and Paramount Plus merger into a single app, according to a Paramount SEC filing from earlier this year. That distinction matters because online chatter has treated "Paramount Skydance" as a future consumer app name, when the filing uses it only to identify the company buying Warner Bros. Discovery.

Apple released Final Cut Camera 2.4 recently, giving the app direct control over the iPhone 18 Pro's variable-aperture lens for the first time. This Final Cut Camera iPhone 18 Pro variable aperture support lets users dial in specific aperture settings or switch to shutter-priority and aperture-priority modes while recording video, instead of leaving exposure to the camera's automatic choice.

iOS 27 arrived earlier this month, and among its Apple Intelligence features is a new way to build automations: describe what you want in plain language, and the Shortcuts app builds it for you (MacRumors; EFF). Tap New Shortcut and the app can open to a "Describe a Shortcut" screen instead of dropping straight into the manual action editor, based on MacRumors' testing during the beta this summer (MacRumors). The update also brings new automation triggers and several new actions across...

Samsung's next Galaxy flagship lineup may include a new Galaxy S27 Pro, and supply-chain reporting says its Exynos 2700 chip could ship in some regions instead of Qualcomm Snapdragon silicon (India Today, 3 days ago). None of this comes from Samsung. The regional chip map and the production numbers behind the story trace back to a Korean trade outlet, The Elec, and other publications have spent this week relaying and expanding on that reporting.

Google Photos' Wardrobe feature may be getting fixes for two of its biggest gaps: a way to add new clothes without wiping the digital closet, and a way to redo item images that come out looking wrong. Android Authority found both controls in an unreleased Google Photos build, version 7.95, enabled through manual tinkering rather than any Google announcement, according to its regeneration report and refresh report. Neither control is public, and the cited reports don't describe either as a live...

Apple confirmed this week that it's tightening macOS Full Disk Access controls, requiring a "very explicit user action" before any Mac app can receive the permission. The company says autonomous AI agents have pushed the risk of that access high enough to justify the change.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple plans to unveil a new smart home hub alongside a refreshed HomePod mini and an updated Apple TV 4K on Tuesday, October 13, an event already being tagged online as the Apple HomeHub October 13 launch.

The Galaxy S27 Pro Exynos 2700 chip story just moved from spec leak to factory floor. Samsung has reportedly started full-scale front-end production of the Exynos 2700, the processor expected to power next year's Galaxy S27 lineup, according to industry sources cited by The Elec last week. Wafers typically take three to four months to go from entering a fab to becoming finished chips, so this stage of production is a firmer signal of real deployment plans than an early benchmark leak.

Samsung budget Galaxy phone price hikes in the US have landed on four models that are already on sale, not a new generation revealed at launch. The Galaxy A17 5G, A27 5G, A37 5G, and A57 5G all carry higher Samsung.com prices this week than they did before, according to SamMobile and Engadget, which both reported the new figures.

On the same day Google's new Googlebook laptops went on sale, the company admitted that Intel-based models may stumble on certain Android apps (The Verge). In a statement to Android Authority, Google described the affected group as a "small handful of complex apps or games" that need developer tuning to run their best on Intel platforms (Engadget).

Fantastical, the calendar app that spent 13 years as an Apple exclusive before reaching Windows two years ago, is reportedly rolling out to early Googlebook users today. Techritual reports that access is already live for a limited group, while Android Authority describes the broader Fantastical Googlebook launch as an announced plan rather than a finished release (Techritual, today; Android Authority, today).

Apple just released watchOS 27.2 beta 3, the third developer beta, alongside matching beta 3 builds for tvOS 27.2, visionOS 27.2, iPadOS 27.2, and other platforms in the same seed. The update swaps in fresh code for Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Vision Pro testers, but the available report doesn't name a single feature, fix, or interface change tied to any of those three platforms.

Samsung raised official US prices on every Galaxy A phone it currently sells: the A17 5G, A27 5G, A37 5G, and A57 5G. Notebookcheck reported yesterday that Samsung's US site now lists higher prices across the full lineup, putting the Samsung Galaxy A series price increase into effect for anyone shopping Samsung.com right now.

A small shield sitting next to your battery percentage looks exactly like the kind of alert you shouldn't ignore. It isn't one. If you're wondering what the shield icon means on Samsung Galaxy phones, the answer is simple: Battery Protection is active. Samsung says a Battery Protection indicator may appear in the status bar while the feature is limiting charging.

Ever tapped Cancel on iCloud+, and nothing happens right away, and the paid plan keeps working through the end of the current billing cycle? That's what happens when you cancel iCloud storage: Apple doesn't cut off access the moment the change gets confirmed. What happens after that date depends on two separate things: how much data the account holds compared to the free 5 GB tier it's about to land on, and a set of iCloud+ features that disappear regardless of how much storage is actually in...

At the Microsoft Surface event on October 7, 2026, Microsoft will livestream a dedicated Windows and Surface showcase from San Francisco, its first since the 2024 Copilot+ PC launch. The event is confirmed to focus on Windows, Surface, and local AI, with RTX Spark expected to feature prominently.

Google's Pixel lineup has accumulated plenty of labels over the years: standard models, Pros, Folds, XLs, and the more affordable phones whose names end in a lowercase "a." The last one looks simple enough, but Google has never publicly given the letter an official meaning.

Open a tablet or foldable app and get a stretched phone-sized window with blank space on either side, and that's the problem a reported Play Store badge is intended to address. Android Police and Digital Trends both reported in late April 2026 that an upcoming Google Play Store update, which Digital Trends identified as version 51.2, would add Google Play Store large screen app labels marking apps "built to utilise large screens."

Apple's macOS Full Disk Access changes are arriving because AI agents are gaining enough autonomy to turn a convenience permission into a serious privacy risk, and the company says it needs to act before that risk grows further. A notice posted on Apple's developer site states that going forward, anyone who wants to grant Full Disk Access (FDA), the macOS permission that lets an app slip past most of the system's privacy protections, will have to take "very explicit user action," as reported by...

Google's Pixel 12 lineup is still a long way from launch, but an early leak may have revealed the first concrete clues about the screens coming to all four expected models. The reported specifications show only small resolution changes for Google's three conventional phones, while the next Pixel Fold could be in line for a considerably larger jump.

Samsung announced a new SmartThings platform update on October 5, 2026, built around a feature called SmartThings Now that moves automation suggestions to the top of the Home tab instead of leaving them buried in menus and submenus. The Samsung SmartThings Now update also redesigns the Home tab layout, adds a Floating Bar for one-handed use, and expands local hub-to-phone control.

Microsoft and NVIDIA are both talking about local AI on Windows right now, but they're describing two products at very different stages of readiness. One is Microsoft Copilot+ PC local AI processing, a hardware certification already sitting on store shelves. The other is NVIDIA's RTX Spark, a GPU/CPU "superchip" that exists mostly as company specifications and a fall ship date. If you're shopping based on either company's local-AI claims, it matters which one you're actually comparing.

Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra battery life test results are in, and they complicate the easy spec-sheet story. The phone jumped to a 5,000mAh silicon-carbon cell, the biggest capacity bump in the Fold line's history, and it beat last year's model in nearly every test scenario. It didn't beat it by the margin that extra 600mAh implies, though, and Android Authority ties that gap directly to a question Apple's newly announced iPhone Duo will now have to answer on its own: does battery capacity...

Is the Xiaomi 18 Ultra cancelled? That's the claim circulating this week after leaker Digital Chat Station posted on Weibo, relayed via Abhishek Yadav, saying Xiaomi scrapped the phone because the planned price made sales unsustainable, according to Tech Advisor. Xiaomi has issued no public comment on the device, its specs, or any cancellation.

Two enterprise AI reports published earlier this year could be misread as evidence against buying Macs for a managed fleet. The logic looks tidy on paper: pair a documented AI governance gap with a survey of Apple-first organizations, and it reads like a case against the hardware itself. That reading doesn't hold up once you look at what either report actually measured, and that's the gap this article checks, not whether Apple Intelligence enterprise Mac security is settled, but whether these...

Apple rewrote the compatibility lists for the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad around August 25, dropping every Intel-based Mac from the official pages. This week, it reportedly extended the same edits to related tech-specs pages. The pages now read as if the accessories support Apple silicon Macs only, a shift worth knowing about if you're checking Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad Intel Mac compatibility before buying or troubleshooting one.

The Windows 11 24H2 end of support date is October 13, 2026, for Home and Pro editions, six days from today. After that, Microsoft stops shipping fixes for known issues, time zone corrections, technical support, and the monthly security and preview updates that close newly found vulnerabilities, according to PCWorld, citing Microsoft's own support page.

Google Photos code suggests its 2026 Recap could let people replace individual photos and swap out the background music track, rather than relying only on the current hide-and-regenerate workflow. The findings come from an Android Authority teardown of app version 7.96.0.993165104, built on unreleased code strings rather than a feature anyone has actually used. Despite the "retouch" label attached to this story, the strings don't describe an image-retouching tool: nothing points to exposure,...

The Windows Search AI-powered control center Microsoft is building is still mostly locked to testers, even though the plumbing just went live for a slice of Windows 11 users. Microsoft started rolling out a rebuilt Search experience yesterday that executes typed commands like "turn on Bluetooth" or "dim my screen" directly, instead of only returning a list of files, according to the Windows Insider Blog. The idea is a single box that handles common settings without opening another screen, not a...