Android

The Samsung Galaxy A57 5G is Samsung’s top Galaxy A-series phone for 2026, giving you a polished upper mid-range option with a big screen, solid battery life, and Samsung’s well-liked software experience. There’s also a good deal on it at Amazon right now, which makes this a smart time to take a look. See the deal at Amazon

Credit: Taylor Kerns / Android Authority TL;DR Pixel owners are experiencing an issue with the Google Photos editor. Options like sharing, deleting, and editing become unresponsive after a photo is edited. The issue appears to be affecting multiple generations of Pixel phones. Google is currently working on powering up editing in the Photos app by improving the markup tools. In case you haven’t seen our previous coverage, we recently found evidence that Google could add a brush size slider, more colors, text alignment, and more. But before those changes are rolled out, the company may want to look into a new problem affecting the app’s editor. After you take a photo, the Google Photos editor lets you perform a variety of actions, which include sharing, editing, deleting, and adding to an album. Normally, you can perform one of these actions and immediately follow that up with another. For example, if you made an edit to a picture, you could also share the image without leaving the editor. However, it appears a bug has broken this functionality.

Amazon just dropped the Fire HD 8 Kids Pro tablet to a record-low price of $89.99, down from its $169.99 retail price. That saves you $80, which is a 47% discount off the RRP, and it makes this a great time to grab one before the deal disappears. See the deal at Amazon

TL;DR Pixel Buds earbuds already support a number of tap and swipe gesture controls. Those include options for answering, rejecting, and ending voice calls. That call support could soon expand to also let you tap to mute and unmute. When we’re shopping for new earbuds, we may talk a lot about sound quality, battery life, or noise cancelation, but there’s another factor which really impacts earbud satisfaction that all too often goes overlooked: the quality of the on-bud controls. We don’t always want to be pulling our phone out to make every adjustment, so a pair of earbuds that lets us easily tap and swipe to control playback and adjust settings is a big deal. Today we’re checking out what could be the next way Google upgrades the touch controls on its Pixel Buds. You’re reading an Authority Insights story. Authority Insights brings you all the latest exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage from the Android Authority team that you won’t find anywhere else.

The Razer Kishi V3 Pro XL is down to $159.99 at Amazon right now, which saves you $40 off its $199.99 retail price. That is a 20% discount relative to the RRP, and it is a strong chance to grab a premium tablet controller for less. See the deal at Amazon

The Hisense FlexBoom is a portable Bluetooth speaker built for taking music outside the house, and it already has a nice deal attached. This compact speaker comes from Hisense’s newer Boom lineup and focuses on loud sound, rugged build quality, and useful wireless features. See the deal at Amazon

TL;DR A future version of Snapseed could introduce an extensive collage-making tool, with granular control over textures, layers, and more. We are now getting a detailed look at the full set of tools that may be introduced in a future update. This feature could also let you share your templates with other users via a QR code or by copying their link. Snapseed took its sweet time bringing the big 4.0 update to Android. But now that it’s here, we’re seeing a wave of potential upgrades that could reach the photo editing app. In July, we discovered strings for a new collage-making tool. We can now exclusively reveal what that looks like, along with some of the features that would complement it. You’re reading an Authority Insights story. Authority Insights brings you all the latest exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage from the Android Authority team that you won’t find anywhere else.

Generative AI is everywhere, whether it’s used as a cornerstone of a service, used to build apps, or employed to boost functionality within them. But with so many new products appearing all the time, which ones are worth checking out? We’re here to help with a new regular series covering the best and freshest AI apps and services that you should know about.

Amazon just dropped the iRobot Roomba 505 Robot Vacuum & Mop Combo to $469.99, down from its $999.99 retail price. That saves you $530, a 53% discount off the RRP, and it is the lowest price we have seen this year. See the deal at Amazon

TL;DR Google Messages is widely rolling out its redesigned long-press menu to stable users. The floating menu puts common message actions closer to your thumb and supports selective text copying. The features were previously made available to beta users in August, but the stable rollout still appears to be server-side. Long-pressing a message should be one of those tiny interactions you never have to think about. In Google Messages, though, it has long meant reaching toward the top of the screen for basic actions — hardly ideal when phones keep getting bigger. Google began cleaning that up months ago when it widened access to its redesigned menu in beta in August, and now the upgrade finally appears to be making the jump to stable users. Reddit user Lazy_Excitement_2602 spotted the new menu on the stable version of Google Messages, specifically version 20260903_04. Several other users in the thread also confirmed seeing it outside the beta program, including on a Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus and S25 Ultra, suggesting the rollout is no longer limited to Pixel devices or testers.

The aluminum-cased iPhone 16 Pro battery, compared to the iPhone 15 Pro’s soft-pouch battery Credit: iFixit TL;DR A new leak suggests Chinese Android OEMs (likely Xiaomi) are looking to adopt Apple’s rigid, steel-cased battery design to replace traditional soft-pouch batteries. Android brands are looking to combine steel-cased battery design with stacked-cell battery technology, aiming for 9,000mAh to 10,000mAh capacities on future flagships. While rigid steel casings eliminate the extra clearance needed to accommodate potential cell swelling, they add physical weight and impose tight internal assembly constraints. Upcoming Android flagships might soon deliver better battery endurance, both physically and in terms of battery life. According to a new leak, Android manufacturers are actively experimenting with steel-cased batteries paired with stacked-cell technology to push energy density to as high as 9,000mAh or 10,000mAh. The revelation comes courtesy of reputable leaker Digital Chat Station on Weibo. Highlighting Apple’s continued use of steel-encased battery cells on the iPhone 18 Pro Max, which reportedly pushes the rated capacity to 5,391mAh (with typical capacity hovering around 5,500mAh), the leaker notes that a major Chinese smartphone maker (most likely to be Xiaomi, based on Digital Chat Station’s post format) is testing a similar steel-shell architecture. Combined with stacked-cell manufacturing, the brand could aim to deliver 9,000mAh to 10,000mAh batteries in future top-tier flagship devices.

TL;DR A few Pixel users have been unable to get through their lock screen following the September 2026 update. The issue appears to affect users with a pattern lock enabled on the lock screen, though at least one user with a PIN also reported a similar problem. This bug doesn’t appear to be widespread yet, though Google appears to be aware of the problem. The recent September Pixel Drop introduced a revamped Pixel VIPs widget, expanded scam protection to other chat apps through Gboard, and fixed several bugs. However, some have found that not everything is working as expected, with reports of users being unable to access their phones appearing online. According to a Pixel 10 Pro XL owner on Reddit who installed the recent update, the phone refused to recognize the pattern unlock they set up. They reportedly tried booting the phone in safe mode a few times, cleaning the screen, restarting it, and even connecting a mouse with an adapter, but saw no results.

TL;DR Googlebook laptops have a hidden Glowbar Disco app that turns the lid light strip into a music-synced light show. We had already seen the disco effect in action, but Google has now confirmed there’s a hidden app behind it. Google also plans to let developers tap into the Glowbar for their own app experiences. Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo all got plenty of freedom to make their Googlebooks look different, so Google needed something that would instantly tie the whole family together. Its answer was the Glowbar, a strip of light on the lid that can show battery status, signal Gemini activity, and generally make a Googlebook recognizable from across the room. Apparently, Google also decided that all that glowing hardware deserved a little fun, because every Googlebook apparently hides an app called Glowbar Disco. Alexander Kuscher, Google’s Senior Director of Product for Laptops and Tablets, revealed the Easter egg during an interview on Android Faithful after being asked about his favorite Glowbar feature.

TL;DR ATV Launcher v0.1.41 adds “Arrangements,” featuring 10 fixed row layouts, and lets users place widgets directly inside app rows via a tile context menu. The update also includes an upgraded Configure Tile dialog with live previews, new folder preview styles, edge-to-edge Watch Next cards, and a separate free companion app with 15 clock styles. Users also get a fully customizable status bar with floating or fixed placements, toggleable icons, pill styles, and direct TV input switching. If you have ever felt fed up with the ad-heavy, recommendation-bloated interfaces taking over your Android TV-based TVs and streaming sticks and boxes, chances are you’ve explored how to install a Google TV launcher alternative. Among the most iconic tools in that space is ATV Launcher, which received its 0.1.40 update last month, featuring a new layout editor. Now, the developer is keeping that update momentum going with the rollout of ATV Launcher v0.1.41.

One of the biggest changes Google made with the Pixel 11 series is the switch to a new MediaTek modem. We’ve already seen that moving away from Samsung’s Exynos modem has delivered a noticeable generational improvement over the Pixel 10 series and brought Google’s connectivity much closer to the competition. That said, not every Pixel 11 owner is having a smooth experience. Some users are reporting issues with mobile data and Wi-Fi connectivity on their Pixel 11 phones. While the number of reports appears smaller than what we’ve seen with previous generations, connectivity problems can still be incredibly frustrating.

I’ve been wearing a Galaxy Watch 7 for two years. Samsung threw trade-in offers at me throughout the Watch 8 cycle, and I didn’t bite, partly because I was between jobs at the time and partly because my Watch 7 was still doing everything I needed. So when the Galaxy Watch 9 () showed up, I was ready to be impressed. Two generations is a long time to sit out. Whatever Samsung had been cooking for its new smartwatches, I was going to feel all of it at once. But after three weeks of using it, I’ve realized that while the Galaxy Watch 9 is a very good smartwatch, it’s not one I can wholeheartedly recommend without one very familiar asterisk.

Credit: Rita El Khoury / Android Authority TL;DR Some Pixel owners are still struggling with a long-standing bug that prevents alarms from going off. All they get is a notification that says “alarm didn’t fire for an unknown reason.” The issue has been around since at least 2021, and Google previously promised to fix it, though it seems that’s not the case. Google Pixel phones have a long-standing bug with the Clock app that prevents alarms from going off on time. It has hampered users’ experience for years now, and we can trace reports back to as early as 2021. While Google claimed to have fixed it, newer reports keep cropping up every now and then, and that hasn’t changed. We’ve spotted newer reports coming from Pixel users about the alarm not firing when intended. According to screenshots shared by users, these missed alarms occur for an “unknown reason.” Mysterious reasons that Google had promised to address, but hasn’t.

Google’s been rolling out a setting to many Android devices that can make your phone’s IMEI — a unique, unchangeable number that identifies your individual device — accessible from the lock screen. This can potentially help you recover a lost or stolen device by providing easy proof of ownership, but because there are ways for bad actors to exploit an exposed IMEI, it’s also something of a security risk. Making your device identifier accessible from the lock screen is optional, though. Here’s what you need to know, and how to change the relevant setting on your own phone.

TL;DR Magic Pointer identifies things you can interact with on your Googlebook screen locally after you activate it. Once you select something and ask Gemini to act on it, it sends the content to a cloud model. Google says the AI cursor stays inactive until you deliberately trigger it. Google looked at one of the oldest parts of the desktop experience — the mouse cursor — and decided Gemini could make it useful for more than clicking things. The result is Magic Pointer, which can understand whatever you highlight on a Googlebook and help you act on it. That sounds incredibly handy, but it also raises a pretty important privacy question: when exactly does what’s on your screen leave your laptop and head to Google’s cloud? Google has now explained where that line sits. Speaking on Android Faithful, Alexander Kuscher, Google’s Senior Director of Product for Laptops and Tablets, broke down what happens behind the scenes when you use Magic Pointer.

Just as I started to get over the near-uselessness of HiLight on the new Pixel 11 Pro models, I got hit across the face with OnePlus’ curious little decision with the upcoming OnePlus 16. The phone is still a few weeks away, but the company has already revealed quite a lot about it, in typical OnePlus fashion. One detail that stood out about the handset, which I believe would also be its marquee feature, is a glowing LED light array on the phone’s back. It particularly stands out because I believe it’s the feature that will embarrass OnePlus the most, too.

TL;DR Magic Pointer and Rambler won’t require a Google AI Pro subscription on Googlebooks. The new laptops include free 12 months of AI Pro, but the built-in features are separate from that perk. That means those headline AI features should keep working after the free year ends. Google is putting AI front and center with its first wave of Googlebooks, from Magic Pointer, which turns the humble cursor into a Gemini tool, to Rambler, which cleans up your rambling voice notes. There’s just one potential catch: every Googlebook also comes with a free year of Google AI Pro, which raises an obvious question about what happens to those headline AI features once the freebie runs out. Thankfully, Google has now confirmed that some of the best ones aren’t going anywhere. Speaking on the Android Faithful podcast, Alexander Kuscher, Google’s Senior Director of Product for Laptops and Tablets, clarified what owners can expect once that 12-month Google AI Pro benefit expires.

TL;DR The ARMSX3 PS3 emulator just got a major update that fixes game crashes and adds several features. It can now run games at playable frame rates, including Helldivers and Race the Sun at 60fps. It also supports PS3 themes, SIXAXIS motion controls, multi-game discs, and more. When the team behind the popular PS2 emulator ARMSX2 launched its PS3 emulator, it was just a proof of concept. As such, it had several issues, including the fact that most games didn’t run at a playable frame rate. Now, the devs have released an update that brings several improvements, including useful tweaks to touch controls. The update was announced in a Reddit post detailing a laundry list of improvements to the emulator. ARMSX3 now supports PS3 themes as library backgrounds. Users can set up pictures, slideshows, animated themes, and full 3D scenes that play live in the library background. According to the devs, they tested the feature with 92 dynamic themes, and each one played properly.

TL;DR Several Google Photos features are now available to more users. Google Photos’ Redact tool and Moods feature are rolling out globally. Features like AI Wardrobe and Video Remix are also available to more users in select countries. Google has been developing and testing several new features in Google Photos over the past few months. Some of them, such as AI Wardrobe, were originally rolled out only to users in the US and later expanded to a few other countries, while others, such as the Redact tool in markup, weren’t yet available. Now, Google is finally rolling these out more broadly. In a new blog post, the company announced that several new Google Photos features are now available to users. Redact pen in markup tools We first spotted the Redact tool in Google Photos in July, and while we got it working on our test device later, it wasn’t available to users until now. Google has announced that the upgraded markup tool with the redact pen is now rolling out globally on Android phones.

TL;DR Google has listed its Create My Widget app on the Play Store. Screenshots from the listing show the various widget categories and templates the app will support. It also shows what the app will look like on Android phones and Googlebook laptops. Google announced Create My Widget ahead of I/O 2026, promising to let users create custom widgets that fit their exact needs. In the months since, we haven’t heard much about it — until now. Google has finally listed the Create My Widget app on the Play Store, giving us a solid first look at what to expect. The Create My Widget app’s Play Store listing (first spotted by 9to5Google) has plenty of screenshots showing the app’s UI on both Android phones and Googlebook laptops. The app will let users quickly create a custom widget by simply describing what they want in natural language, with Gemini handling the rest.

TL;DR Google is working on reverting a UI change it made to the Phone app last year. The company could soon bring the Contacts tab back into the navigation bar. It will sit alongside the Home, Keypad, and Voicemail options. Among the many changes Google introduced to the Phone app with its Material 3 Expressive makeover, some didn’t sit quite right with users. If you were especially bothered by Google’s decision to relegate the Contacts tab to the app’s sidebar, you might soon have a cause to celebrate. You’re reading an Authority Insights story. Authority Insights brings you all the latest exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage from the Android Authority team that you won’t find anywhere else.