Apple just released a batch of security updates for older iOS to protect devices that don’t support iOS 26 from a severe exploit kit known as Coruna.

Here’s what iOS updates were released today:

• iOS 15.8.7
• iPadOS 15.8.7
• iOS 16.7.15
• iPadOS 16.7.15

Google Threat Intelligence Group recently discovered the Coruna exploit kit. This malicious framework chains together 23 different vulnerabilities to attack target devices. Security researchers discovered that threat actors are actively using Coruna to steal data from compromised phones.

Apple originally patched these specific security flaws in the iOS 17 branch between late 2023 and early 2024. And now, almost three years later, the company is releasing the fix for older devices.

Here are the changelogs for 16.7.15 and iPadOS 16.7.15 updates:

“WebKit

Available for: iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, iPad 5th generation, iPad Pro 9.7-inch, and iPad Pro 12.9-inch 1st generation

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to memory corruption. This fix associated with the Coruna exploit was shipped in iOS 17.2 on December 11th, 2023. This update brings that fix to devices that cannot update to the latest iOS version.

Description: The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.”

Here are the changelogs for iOS 15.8.7 and iPadOS 15.8.7 updates:

“Kernel

Available for: iPhone 6s (all models), iPhone 7 (all models), iPhone SE (1st generation), iPad Air 2, iPad mini (4th generation), and iPod touch (7th generation)

Impact: An app may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges. This fix associated with the Coruna exploit was shipped in iOS 17 on September 18, 2023. This update brings that fix to devices that cannot update to the latest iOS version.

Description: A use-after-free issue was addressed with improved memory management.

CVE-2023-41974: Félix Poulin-Bélanger

WebKit

Available for: iPhone 6s (all models), iPhone 7 (all models), iPhone SE (1st generation), iPad Air 2, iPad mini (4th generation), and iPod touch (7th generation)

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution. This fix associated with the Coruna exploit was shipped in iOS 17.3 on January 22, 2024. This update brings that fix to devices that cannot update to the latest iOS version.

Description: A type confusion issue was addressed with improved checks.

WebKit Bugzilla: 267134

CVE-2024-23222

WebKit

Available for: iPhone 6s (all models), iPhone 7 (all models), iPhone SE (1st generation), iPad Air 2, iPad mini (4th generation), and iPod touch (7th generation)

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to memory corruption. This fix associated with the Coruna exploit was shipped in iOS 16.6 on July 24, 2023. This update brings that fix to devices that cannot update to the latest iOS version.

Description: A use-after-free issue was addressed with improved memory management.

WebKit Bugzilla: 255951

CVE-2023-43000: Apple

WebKit

Available for: iPhone 6s (all models), iPhone 7 (all models), iPhone SE (1st generation), iPad Air 2, iPad mini (4th generation), and iPod touch (7th generation)

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to memory corruption. This fix associated with the Coruna exploit was shipped in iOS 17.2 on December 11th, 2023. This update brings that fix to devices that cannot update to the latest iOS version.

Description: The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.”

If you’re using one of the mentioned devices, make sure to update your iPhone by going to Settings > General > Software Update.

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Posted Thursday 12 March 2026 at 12:28 pm AEST (my time).

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Google’s Android LLVM toolchain team has announced the deployment of Automatic Feedback-Directed Optimization (AutoFDO) to the Android kernel which can give a big boost to system performance.

AutoFDO, first introduced in Android 12 (back in 2021), is a sampling-based optimization technique that uses real-world execution data obtained from hardware monitors to guide compiler decisions, thus replacing static analysis with profiles that reflect actual real-world usage. The feature is sort of similar to PGO or Profile Guided Optimization that is already used in Windows and Linux, as well as Google's own Chromium-based apps.

According to Google, this approach allows the compiler to better identify “hot” code paths, those which are most frequently executed, to optimize them accordingly. If you are wondering how this works, the tech giant adds that such profiles are synthesized in controlled lab environments by running representative workloads, including the top 100 most popular apps. In very simple terms, it is kind of like how caching in general works.

Google says that its research shows a geometric mean performance uplift of 10.5 per cent, with AutoFDO achieving 85 per cent of the gains of traditional feedback-directed optimization despite relying on sampled data.

On Android, where the kernel is said to account for roughly 40 percent of CPU time, Google reports measurable improvements of 4 percent reduction in cold app launch times and a 1 percent decrease in boot time. While these numbers don't seem to indicate massive speedups, Google claims these optimizations are excellent for the overall performance of the phone as they translate into faster app switching, smoother and snappier interfaces, and extended battery life for users.

The rollout currently targets the android16-6.12 and android15-6.6 kernel branches, with profiles collected on Pixel devices running kernels 6.1, 6.6, and 6.12. Google plans to expand support to newer Generic Kernel Image (GKI) versions and additional build targets beyond the current aarch64 architecture. Presently, optimization focuses on the main kernel binary (vmlinux), but extending AutoFDO to GKI modules is also something the company is looking at.

By adopting a “conservative by default” strategy, Google says it is trying to ensure that AutoFDO enhances speed without compromising in other areas like reliability.

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Posted Thursday 12 March 2026 at 6:59 am AEST (my time).

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Epic Games has been fighting Google for several years in courts to open up the Android ecosystem. Today, Google announced that it has settled all disputes with Epic worldwide, including in the US, Australia, and the UK. As part of the settlement, Google has announced significant changes to open up the Android ecosystem.

Until now, for any paid transactions inside an app or game downloaded from the Google Play Store, the billing could be made only through Google Play's billing system. Now, as part of the settlement, Google will allow developers to use their own billing systems in their apps and games.

Google is also reducing the fees it charges developers distributing apps and games via the Play Store. If a developer uses Google Play’s billing system, Google will charge a market-specific billing rate on top of the service fee. In the EEA, the UK, and the US, that billing rate will be 5%.

On the service-fee side, Google is cutting the in-app purchase (IAP) service fee to 20% for new installs (first-time installs after the new fees go live in a region). It’s also launching an Apps Experience Program and revamping the Google Play Games Level Up program, with lower rates for developers who meet specific quality benchmarks. Developers in these programs will pay 20% on transactions from existing installs and 15% on transactions from new installs. For recurring subscriptions, Google says the service fee will be 10%.

This updated pricing will go live as per the schedule mentioned below:

• By June 30: EEA, the United Kingdom, and the US.
• By September 30: Australia.
• By December 31: Korea and Japan.
• By September 30, 2027: The updates will reach the rest of the world.

Google is also making it easier to sideload third-party app stores on Android with a new optional program called the Registered App Stores program. With this program, app stores that meet Google’s quality and safety benchmarks can register with Google and get a more streamlined installation flow when users sideload them from an app store's website. If an app store does not join the program, users can continue to download and sideload the app on Android as before.

Google plans to roll out the program outside the US first. After court approval, this will be supported inside the US as well.

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Posted Friday 6 March 2026 at 5:14 am AEST (my time).

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Google is bringing a new desktop mode to its Pixel phones and tablets. The feature comes as part of Google’s March Pixel drop, allowing users with a Pixel 8 and newer to connect their device to an external monitor via USB-C for a “desktop-like multi-window experience.”

You can use a mouse and keyboard with the new desktop mode, which also works with the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. The Pixel Tablet is also getting a desktop windowing feature that Google says will offer a “familiar interface to arrange and resize overlapping windows.”

Google showed off what Android’s desktop mode might look like last year.

GIF: Google

 

Though Google’s announcement doesn’t include any images of what these new experiences will look like, the company has been teasing a desktop experience for Android for months now. Last May, Google said that it’s working with Samsung to build on the company’s DeX feature, which automatically changes your phone’s layout when connected to a larger display. Google also started letting users with a Pixel 8 and up test out these features in June.

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Posted Wednesday 4 March 2026 at 11:49 am AEST (my time).

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It’s been nearly 20 years since Google revealed Android, which the company described as the first “truly open” mobile operating system, setting Google-powered phones apart from the iPhone’s aggressively managed experience. Over time, though, Android has become more aligned with Apple’s approach. For the moment, users still have the final say in what software runs on their increasingly locked-down smartphones. Later this year, though, Google plans to seriously curtail that freedom in the name of security.

In the coming weeks, Google will officially debut Android developer verification, which will require app makers outside the Play Store to register with their real names and pay a fee to Google. Failure to do so will block their apps from installation (sometimes called sideloading) on virtually all Android devices. Google says this is a necessary evolution of the platform’s security model, but upending the status quo could push developers away from Android and risk the privacy of those that remain.

This might make your phone a little safer, sure, but it won’t stop people from getting scammed. At the same time, it could rob the Android ecosystem of what made it special in the first place.

Tilting at windmills

Google’s Play Store (once the Android Market) has undergone much more than a name change over the years. There were virtually no rules in the early days, allowing developers to publish apps that tinkered with undocumented system features, infringed on copyrights, and leveraged exploits to gain root access. Today, Google has numerous security layers that detect and remove malware, and that has undeniably made Android safer. Developer verification could continue to make your phone safer, too, according to Christoph Hebeisen, director of security intelligence research at Lookout.

While there are still malware scares in the Play Store, Google is doing something right. Hebeisen says there’s far less malware in Google Play than outside of it, and the protections are so good that threat actors often don’t bother trying to distribute malware through Google’s platform. It’s just not worth the time when most of their apps will get instantly flagged.

As Google barrels toward mandatory registration for all Android developers, it is talking up how effective these other measures have been. Google says Play Protect, the anti-malware feature built into all Google-certified Android devices, scans 350 billion Android apps every day as of early 2026—both those downloaded from the Play Store and sideloaded apps.

Hebeisen explained to Ars that Play Protect targets a different part of the process than developer verification. Play Protect can flag and remove individual apps, which is less effective than blocking an entire developer profile, and it can be disabled. Google has suggested that people are often “coached” by threat actors to disable features like Play Protect, pointing to the need for more strict controls. Not everyone buys that, though.

“These scenarios seem really implausible to me, but [Google has] not revealed any specific numbers about how many people are affected by this,” said Marc Prud’hommeaux, a board member of the popular F-Droid free and open source software storefront. “They only quote very vague statistics that say there’s 50 times as much malware outside the Play Store than there is inside the Play Store.”

But why is Google suddenly so interested in forcing these particular reforms on non-Google developers? Hebeisen suggests there’s a bit of Apple envy happening.

“I think Google probably looked at Apple and wondered ‘why has it worked for them?’” said Hebeisen. “Because from a technical perspective, there isn’t a fundamental security difference. Why has there been more malware reporting around Android than for iOS? And I think they have come around to the conclusion that the developer ecosystem and the ability to actually get an app distributed and installed makes a big difference.”

Over time, Google has made numerous technical changes to the Android system aimed at reducing the spread of malware. It has implemented granular runtime permissions, made incremental security patches mandatory for new devices, added malware scanning to all certified devices, and yes, made it harder to sideload apps from unknown sources. Android is vastly more secure than it once was, but there are limits.

“You can only do so many things at a technical level, so you have to clamp down on the developers,” said Hebeisen, who admits there are some negative consequences to such actions. “Android has always been the friendly and open system where you could do anything you wanted to, and that is somewhat limited [with developer verification], obviously, because you now have a mandatory registration if you want to distribute an app.”

The supposed upshot of verification is that when Google detects an app involved in malicious activity, it can take out the trash faster. According to Google, it’s only interested in removing apps that cause “a high degree of harm,” which is generally described as malware in Google documentation, and this is “the same bar.” The company has declined to offer more details on its definition of harmful apps to Ars. Still, the definition of malware is fuzzy, and even Google’s own partners can disagree on what counts.

“We are part of the App Defense Alliance ecosystem, where Google sends us every app that goes into Google Play before it gets published,” said Hebeisen. “We run our analysis on it and send it back to them. They don’t always take our word for it. There are a good number of apps that will get published, although we consider them risky.”

The opposite is also true, though. “There are apps that we consider benign and Google doesn’t,” explained Hebeisen. “That’s mostly like terms of service violations and stuff like that won’t directly affect the users. So there isn’t 100 percent agreement.”

The end result is that developer verification gives Google the tools to banish apps, and Google gets to decide what will count as a high degree of harm in the future. The F-Droid team has already seen shifting standards around the world, and that worries them.

“They say, ‘Oh, we want to stop malware,’ and that sounds all well and good, but show me your definition and demonstrate that this definition is going to be agreed upon by an independent consensus of security experts and the community,” said F-Droid’s Marc Prud’hommeaux. “They don’t do that. They just say malware’s whatever we say it is, and when tomorrow they say, ‘VPNs are malware,’ then say goodbye to VPNs.”

Even if Google’s claims are true, developer verification won’t stop people from being scammed. An attacker targeting Android doesn’t even necessarily need to get the user to install malware—whatever that is—to scam them. The same false sense of urgency that can convince people to sideload a shady app (e.g., “your Facebook account is about to be locked forever!”) can be used to get them to install a perfectly legitimate remote support app from the Play Store and give the fraudster full access.

There is a difference between solving a problem for users and solving it for Google. In this case, developer verification could help shift the blame for mobile security woes away from Google.

“The threat actors are not going to go away,” said Hebeisen. “They are going to go somewhere else, and they are going to come up with new innovative methods to scam people, and they’ll be successful there as well.”

Google calling the shots

With the Play Store’s glut of AI slop and in-app purchase factories, it’s easy to forget that non-commercial software is still an important part of the Android ecosystem. Open source projects provide vital tools for a lot of people, and many of them are distributed outside of Google’s platform for a variety of reasons—not least of which is that some people just don’t trust Google.

Online anonymity used to be the default, but simply accessing resources and services is becoming increasingly officious. Platforms are demanding face scans and IDs in the name of protecting the young and vulnerable, but these tactics also force people to attach their real-world existence to what they do and produce online. In the case of developer verification, this situation could stymie the open source innovation that has made Android what it is today.

The Guardian Project, founded in 2009 to support the development of open source apps around the world, has been around almost as long as Android. According to founder Nathan Freitas, there are plenty of developers doing important work who don’t want to get in bed with Google. The organization aims to empower the wider Android ecosystem by helping those developers reach users.

“Our goal with Guardian project is to support regular people because everyone is potentially an activist. Everyone is potentially a citizen journalist. Everyone is an eyewitness,” said Freitas. “We really want to move away from you having to be sophisticated, technically, to have privacy.”

Reliance on Google’s cloud will be a core element of developer verification. Google is creating a database of developers, but only some of that data will be cached on devices. For many app installs, your phone will need to reach out to Google’s servers to verify an APK, which effectively prevents installing apps while offline. That’s a real problem for alternative app distribution models like, for example, the Guardian Project’s ButterBox, a solar-powered microserver that can provide off-grid access to encrypted chat, maps, file sharing, and other important tools. This project, built in collaboration with the F-Droid team, is essentially incompatible with developer verification.

“In their quest to make everything better, they’ve made the process more onerous,” Freitas said. “This is such a common issue of the mental model of these big tech companies… like you’re driving your Tesla down the 101 in Silicon Valley. That’s the user, you know, someone with 5G and great connectivity all the time.”

Some people may find themselves locked out of Android, even if they have perfect 5G. By requiring developers to register and pay a fee, Google is essentially forming a business relationship with people who might otherwise want nothing to do with the company. Simply due to who a developer is or where they live, their applications could end up blocked on most Android devices.

“There are going to be certain developers who are developing applications that are perfectly legitimate, but because they live in a sanctioned country where they belong to a sanctioned organization, Google is by law not going to be able to let these people register,” noted F-Droid’s Marc Prud’hommeaux. “So that is immediately closing the door to someone who is developing an app, and they happen to be a judge on the International Criminal Court or a resident of Cuba. But that’s it. They cannot convey their work to the world.”

No one knows what Google’s internal deliberations around this change look like—we can only guess at the company’s motivations. That said, even the team at F-Droid, which is publicly opposed to Google’s plans, believes that verifying developer identities will probably slow down traditional malware campaigns. But it also gives Google a lot more power.

“This measure can reduce the amount of malware, but at the same time, it reduces a lot of other legitimate activity,” said F-Droid technical lead Hans-Christoph Steiner. He pointed to ad-blockers and alternative YouTube clients as examples. Early on, Google allowed system-level ad-blockers in its store, but tightening restrictions eventually led to most of those tools being banned. Someone could possibly make an argument that these tools are harmful—to a high degree, even, he said.

“People want those apps for legitimate reasons, and we ship apps like that in a safe way,” said Steiner. “These are all legal things that people want that Google doesn’t want. So when we consistently ship ad-blockers, alternative clients, root kits—all these things that are against [Google’s] terms of service, it seems inevitable that they’re just going to block us.”

Ars Technica has reached out to Google to inquire about developers who are in sanctioned countries and their ability to participate in verification, as well as whether policy-violating apps like alternative YouTube clients will be verifiable. The company has not provided comment as of this publication.

Privacy is a global issue for a global company

Assuming developers comply with Google’s new verification rules, they’ll have to give up personal information, including government IDs and business details. Google’s verification system would see the company retain those details on a global scale, expanding beyond the group of Play Store developers already known to the company. That will expose devs to new legal threats, explained Corynne McSherry, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“The problem with creating this kind of verification program is that it necessarily creates a database,” she said. “That is then going to be vulnerable to subpoenas, warrants, government demand, and sometimes private demands. Sometimes people build apps that are privacy-protecting, that are important for human rights defenders, journalists, and so on. And there are governments who might very much like to know the names of the developers of those applications so that they can go after them.”

Google undeniably has massive global reach—it’s the top search engine by a wide margin in every country other than China and Russia, and Android devices are much more popular than iPhones in most places. That means Google’s policies and privacy protections have to adapt from market to market.

You may think that your nation’s legal protections will keep your data safe, but that’s the problem with being a global brand: There are plenty of places where courts don’t value individual rights.

“We have a tradition in the United States of protections for things like anonymous speech,” said McSherry, while noting that those protections have been weakened recently. “But nonetheless, we have default protections for anonymity that many, many countries do not, and so that’s one assumption that you’re just throwing out the window right away.”

Google’s records would be a very tempting target for governments and corporations that want to track down the developer of an app, even if that person is on the other side of the world. According to McSherry, governments can seek information about developers of apps they find disruptive, even if they reside in another country. Corporate entities could also engage in “forum shopping” by finding a compliant court where they can claim some harm.

“Private parties might just go to the country with the easiest, most hair-trigger judicial process,” McSherry said. “Go there and get a subpoena or some equivalent and also seek your information.”

With that information exposed, developers could be vulnerable to legal repercussions, lawsuits, or increased government surveillance. This is already happening, too. Many developers have chosen to remain anonymous online due to the constantly shifting state of legal requirements. Something that was perfectly fine and legal one day may be heavily restricted the next—take, for example, the laws surrounding messaging encryption in Europe and VPNs in India.

“We work with developers on our team who use pseudonyms 100 percent of the time, even if they are a European citizen or US citizen,” said Nathan Freitas of the Guardian Project. “That’s because of family, because of where they travel, or where they have lived. I made the choice years ago to use my real name and identity. Sometimes I regret it because I can’t travel to India because our work on VPNs is illegal in India.”

Google has said on numerous occasions that it complies with valid legal orders for user information—it has no choice in the matter if it wants to operate in a given country. And it gets a lot of those orders. After remaining relatively stagnant in the 2010s, legal requests for user data have exploded in recent years. In the first half of 2025, the most recently reported period, Google received 664,843 requests targeting 287,027 users. That’s an almost 10-fold increase in the last decade and about 18 percent up (for the number of users) in the first half of 2025 alone.

Expanding the number of developers in Google’s database will only make it a more frequent target of legal demands.

Can the “advanced flow” save us?

The backlash from developers when Google announced its plan last year was swift. The company eventually announced that it would build an “advanced flow” for power users who want to bypass developer verification. For many users, this move was all they needed to stop worrying and trust Google. The nature of that added friction is still unclear, though, and Google doesn’t have much room to maneuver if it still wants to accomplish its stated goal of saving people from malware.

Sideloading apps already involves substantial friction. There’s a warning when you try to download an APK, and a second one appears when you try to open that file. Both the warnings state in no uncertain terms that installing apps downloaded from an unknown source can harm your device. To actually go through with the installation, you have to make a trip to the settings to toggle that option on for the source app (like Chrome). Only then will the installation proceed.

The current security model doesn’t mince words when you try to download an APK.

But will adding more clicks or warnings do anything? For Hebeisen, this seems like a weak point in the plan if Google’s intention is to reduce the spread of malware.

“Obviously, the threat actors have figured out how to social engineer users into allowing apps from third-party sources,” said Hebeisen. “So how much harder does it become to social engineer them through this?”

The team behind the open source F-Droid app store sees many problems with the opacity of Google’s plans. F-Droid’s Prud’hommeaux believes Google’s use of words like “advanced” and “experienced” is a red flag. “F-Droid is not for advanced users, it’s not for experienced users,” he said. “It’s just for users who care about privacy.”

In a recent blog post, F-Droid has claimed that Google isn’t even working on this system yet. Google said in November it was seeking “early feedback” on how the advanced flow could resist coercion and properly warn users of the risks. According to Lookout’s Christoph Hebeisen, as of late February 2026, Google has not asked his team about the design of the advanced flow. Meanwhile, Prud’hommeaux told Ars that his conversations with Google representatives suggest the advanced flow won’t be available until 2027, long after verification enforcement begins in September of this year.

It’s starting to look like Google’s pitch for the advanced flow was less a solution and more a “concept of a plan.” We’ve sought comment from Google, but the company has declined to elaborate on its timeline or the nature of the advanced flow at this time.

If Google begins blocking unverified apps before making this option available, it doesn’t have much incentive to make it genuinely useful—Google will already have everything it wants, and it will be too late for developers and mobile enthusiasts to do anything about it.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

While the timeline could still change, Google has said it plans to offer global access to the new developer console and associated identity verification this month. The company will begin enforcing developer verification in September, but only in Brazil, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand—markets that have higher rates of malware and high-pressure social engineering scams. In 2027, Google will continue expanding verification requirements until all regions are covered.

Some organizations are still hoping they can change Google’s mind. F-Droid has a website directing users to contact regulatory agencies to oppose developer verification. It also urges independent developers not to comply with Google’s verification requirements.

The F-Droid team recently published an open letter to Google, signed by 35 organizations, that expresses grave concern about what this change will mean for Android as a platform, but Google seems locked into its course of action. Even if a big chunk of independent developers boycott verification, Google may still plow ahead.

On an individual basis, there’s not much you as an Android user can do. You might be stuck letting Google police your apps, and you may not even think about it most days. That is, until you get stuck trying to install an app from someone else’s store without a reliable Internet connection or discover an open-source app you want to use is not verified.

Some developers may simply decide to abandon Android development, too. Nathan Freitas of the Guardian Project notes that the mobile web has gotten much better for developers in recent years. “We have moved a lot of our projects to progressive web apps because they can do more now,” said Freitas. “It’s like, ‘Can we do this in a browser?’ If so, then yes.”

Using more web apps could help, but the only way to truly opt out of Google’s verification system is to get off of Google’s version of Android. While there are some non-certified Android phones out there, such devices are usually rife with security vulnerabilities. So that doesn’t solve the problem. Installing a privacy-protecting alternative Android-based OS (sometimes called ROMs) like LineageOS or GrapheneOS could work. This gives you full control over the software running on your phone, but it’s getting harder to customize phones this way.

F-Droid’s Marc Prud’hommeaux sees Android ROMs as a very implausible solution to keeping open-source projects alive. Installing these software packages is beyond the abilities of most people, and device makers don’t exactly make it easy with locked-down products. “Every phone that you get is Android-certified, and many of those phones have locked bootloaders,” said Prud’hommeaux.

To a certain degree, these restrictions are inevitable for devices that connect to mobile networks. “The harm goes back to the telecoms and the mobile operators,” said Freitas, who explained that carriers have certain expectations and requirements for any baseband radio on their networks. “This thing has to work like a phone, and so we can’t just let it be a Wild West as a computer.”

If you can’t unlock the bootloader on your phone, you’re stuck with the stock software and any security changes implemented by Google and the device maker. And increasingly, it looks like they’re going to decide you need protection from yourself.

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Posted Wednesday 4 March 2026 at 5:59 am AEST (my time).

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Mobile World Congress 2026 is still in full swing in Barcelona, Spain, with announcements continuing to come from the mobile-focused show that runs until March 5th.

To make sure you don’t miss the best new smartphones, laptops, concepts, and accessories, we’re rounding up all the most newsworthy gadgets that have debuted so far at MWC 2026. And if you want to stay on top of all the news, you can follow our full coverage of the show right here.

Image: Lenovo

 

Lenovo didn’t skimp on the concepts at MWC this year, but its AI Workmate might be the most peculiar. The device looks like a tiny robot arm but instead of a manipulator on the end there’s a document-scanning camera, a projector, and a screen with an expressive pair of animated eyes. It’s designed to be both a companion and assistant that uses AI to respond to voice queries, summarize documents, organize notes, and then create presentations it can project on a nearby wall.

Image: Anker

 

You can still spend $450 on a pair of wireless headphones with industry-leading ANC capabilities, or you can drop $129.99 on Anker’s new Soundcore Space 2 and still get very good ANC performance, with lots of money left over for other gadgets. While the Space 2 are about $30 more expensive than the original that debuted a few years ago, they come with improved ANC for low-frequency sounds (think the dull roar of a jet engine) and a boost from 40 to 50 hours of battery life with noise cancelling turned on.

Image: Lenovo

Lenovo’s latest collaboration with China’s Angry Miao is a customized version of the Dry Studio ATM 98 that carries forward that keyboard’s oversized glowing knob that can control volume or specific settings in various apps. It also features silent switches and an updated design with a translucent top, plus a USB-C hub and a dedicated audio key that works with some of Lenovo’s Yoga devices.

Image: GlocalMe

Imagine being able to call your dog or cat, even if they’re on the other side of the neighborhood. GlocalMe’s PetPhone isn’t just a tracking device for your pet, it’s also a two-way cellular communicator with a microphone and speaker letting them hear your voice while you’re away. It attaches to their collar, has an optional live-streaming camera attachment, and it even lets your pet call you. You just need to teach your dog or cat to jump in the air three times in six seconds to initiate the call on their end.

Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge

After first announcing it last October, Honor shared more details about its Robot Phone at MWC 2026 while also demoing a functional unit. The company confirmed plans to launch the phone, which features a folding gimbal-stabilized camera arm stored on its back, in China in the second half of this year. That main camera will have AI-powered tracking capabilities and a generous 200-megapixel sensor, but other specs remain a mystery for now.

Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Lenovo’s latest concept capitalizes on a bunch of different tech trends at once. It’s a Windows-based handheld built around an 11.6-inch POLED display that can be folded in half, creating a more compact portable console with a 7.7-inch screen. Like the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons, the Legion Go Fold Concept’s controllers can be removed, letting you attach the folding screen to a folio-style case with a built-in keyboard, trackpad, and stand, effectively turning it into a laptop.

Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge

Honor announced its latest book-style folding phone at MWC, and while an international release isn’t expected until the second half of the year and pricing is still TBA, the new Honor Magic V6 could be worth waiting for. The V6 is just 4mm thick when open, and 8.75mm when folded, making it slightly thinner than last year’s model and Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7. What’s more notable is that the Magic V6 is the first folding smartphone with an IP69 rating. While Google’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold was the first foldable to boast an IP68 rating, the V6 is even more durable and can survive both water jets and a complete dunking, meaning it’s safe for big screen doomscrolling in the tub.

Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge

If you care more about a smartphone’s photography chops than any other feature, Xiaomi’s Leica Leitzphone is a co-branded special edition of the company’s 17 Ultra flagship featuring a rotatable camera ring and Leica’s iconic red dot. The Verge’s Dominic Preston calls it their “favorite phone of 2026 so far” that takes excellent photos with its single 1/1.4-inch type 200-megapixel sensor. As part of the Leica branding, the phone features a customized interface with extra Leica widgets, expanded Leica filters, and simulation modes for the Leica M9 and M3 cameras. However, the rotating camera ring that’s designed to quickly zoom or cycle through filters or exposure settings isn’t as useful as it sounds, given how close it sits to the back of the phone.

Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

The most interesting feature on Lenovo’s ThinkBook Modular AI PC Concept isn’t its pair of 14-inch 4K OLED touchscreens that can be configured as a dual-screen setup with its keyboard and trackpad connected wirelessly over Bluetooth. What’s more interesting are the concept’s interchangeable plug-and-play ports so you can swap between USB-C, USB-A, and even HDMI ports as needed. There’s no timeline for when this concept may ever see the light of day, but it could be an intriguing alternative to Framework’s modular laptops.

Image: Honor

At just 4.8mm thick, Honor’s MagicPad 4 takes the crown of thinnest Android tablet. It’s thinner than the 5.1mm thick Samsung Galaxy Tab S11, and even Apple’s 6.1mm thick iPad Air. But with a 12.3-inch, 165Hz OLED screen and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset under the hood, it’s not a cheap tablet. It’s priced at £599.99 / €699.99 (around $820) configured with 12GB of RAM and 256GB storage.

Image: Tecno

Modular phones have more often than not been failures when they manage to actually reach consumers. That’s not stopping Tecno from taking another stab at it. Using the company’s “modular magnetic interconnection technology” the concept phone can be upgraded with features like an extended battery, a telephoto lens, game controls, or an action camera.

Image: Xiaomi

It lacks the ultra wideband (UWB) tracking capabilities of the AirTag for precise pinpointing, but Xiaomi’s first tracker could be a more useful alternative to Apple’s tracker. The Xiaomi Tag is compatible with both Apple’s Find My and Google’s Find Hub tracking networks and mobile apps (you’ll have to choose one or the other), while a single coin cell battery will power it for up to a year. It has a more elongated design than AirTags, but with an integrated metal loop that makes it easier to attach to things like a keyring without the need for a case or other accessories. At £12.99 (around $18) each, it’s also cheaper than an AirTag.

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Posted Wednesday 4 March 2026 at 5:56 am AEST (my time).

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The case of the budget-focused iPhone 17e is no different, and you don't need to pre-order the device to get your hands on the official wallpapers. Unofficial Apple wallpaper supplier, Basic Apple Guy, managed to extract and upscale the official iPhone 17e wallpapers and made them available for download.

Apple has designed a trio of flower-themed wallpapers for the iPhone 17e, including Black, White, and Soft Pink (click to download them). You might have seen these new iPhone 17e wallpapers in Apple's marketing material, such as the official press release and the iPhone 17e product page on its website.

On a side note, if you're looking for some more official graphics, you can also check out Apple's Year of the Horse wallpapers.

These wallpapers are currently available at 2048 x 4096 pixels, and you should expect higher-resolution wallpapers when Apple starts shipping the iPhone 17e next week. The device, priced at $599 for the 256GB base variant, will be up for pre-orders starting March 4, with shipping starting March 11.

For the uninitiated, iPhone 17e is the successor to last year's iPhone 16e. The new budget iPhone fixes several voids Apple left, such as support for MagSafe charging and higher base storage. The iPhone 17e is powered by the A19 chip, paired with 8GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage.

It shares dimensions and display specifications with the iPhone 16e, but comes with an improved rear camera, Qi2 wireless charging, and an Apple C1X modem. Overall, as Taras puts it in his specs comparison, the iPhone 17e might be a tough sell due to its single-lens camera and 60Hz display; it feels like a more mature budget iPhone.

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Posted Wednesday 4 March 2026 at 5:55 am AEST (my time).

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Digital Home Key is built on the Aliro standard. This protocol enables Samsung Galaxy users to unlock compatible smart door locks using their smartphone beginning in March 2026. Once a user sets up a compatible smart lock through Samsung SmartThings using Matter, the global smart home standard, the user can add a Digital Home Key to Samsung Wallet as part of the door lock onboarding process.

Access methods depend on the device and lock capabilities. Most users will unlock their door by tapping their smartphone using near-field communication (NFC) technology, while others can use hands-free access with ultra-wideband (UWB) proximity detection starting in April 2026 or manage the lock remotely through the app.

This new feature is compatible with smart lock brands like Aqara, Nuki, Schlage, and Xthings (Ultraloq). Samsung states the solution is "designed to align with EAL6+ grade certification standards, providing robust protection against unauthorized access to digital keys." The electronics giant adds that if you somehow lose your device, the Samsung Find service allows for remote management or removal of access.

The Aliro standard was unveiled in late 2023 by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), the same folks who gave us the Matter protocol. The pitch at the time was that the digital key space has been a fragmented disaster. For example, if you bought a smart lock from Schlage, you needed the Schlage app, while an Ultraloq lock required the U-tec app, and a Nuki lock needed the Nuki app. Aliro addresses this by establishing a universal communication language between the reader and the mobile device using technologies like Bluetooth Low Energy for the initial handshake.

Getting a product certified for robust security (like the EAL6+ grade Samsung is touting) can be quite expensive. Manufacturers must submit their products for rigorous evaluation against side-channel attacks and other advanced vectors, and the process often takes months and requires significant financial investment, which increases the barrier to entry.

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Posted Tuesday 3 March 2026 at 6:18 pm AEST (my time).

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The iPhone 17e is visually identical to the iPhone 16e. It has the same design, the same display, the same single-lens camera with some software improvements, and the same aluminum chassis. What is different is the new color. Now, in addition to black and white, the iPhone 17e is available in pink, offering users on the lower end of the price spectrum a bit of color. That is all that the iPhone 17e has to offer outside.

Inside, we have three main changes: a newer processor, a newer modem, more storage, and MagSafe. Apple bumped the processor to the latest A19 chip (still a six-core chip with two performance and four efficiency cores), doubled the storage (now starting at 256GB with optional 512GB), and added the custom-made C1X modem. The latter offers double the speed of the C1, while consuming 30% less energy for better battery life.

Finally, the iPhone 17e supports MagSafe, something that was missing in the 16e. It is now fully compatible with all first and third-party MagSafe accessories, including chargers, stands, power banks, and more. Apple also has a lineup of official cases with MagSafe support. Besides giving the iPhone 17e MagSafe support, Apple bumped the wireless charging spec to Qi2 at 15W.

With the biggest upgrades covered, here are key changes summed up in a list:

• A newer A19 processor
• 256GB base storage, with an optional 512GB configuration
• Improved rear camera with "next-gen portrait mode."
• New color
• MagSafe and Qi2 support

And here is a more detailed spec-by-spec (main changes highlighted in bold):

That is the difference between the iPhone 17e, 16e, and the iPhone SE3. If you are coming from older models, the iPhone 17e could be a good upgrade at a decent price tag. However, it is worth noting that Apple still offers the iPhone 16, and the base iPhone 17 is a tremendous value at a slightly higher price tag. While the iPhone 17e might still be a tough sell with its single-lens camera and a 60Hz display, it now feels like a more mature, budget-friendly iPhone.

The iPhone 17e will be available for preorder on March 4, with shipments scheduled for March 11.

Are you interested in buying the iPhone 17e, or would you rather purchase an older iPhone? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Posted Tuesday 3 March 2026 at 10:17 am AEST (my time).

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As expected, Apple has announced a mild update for the iPad family’s middle child today. The new iPad Air is a lot like the old one, but it replaces the Apple M3 chip with an M4. That M4 also comes with a less-expected upgrade: a jump from 8GB of RAM to 12GB, which should be helpful for those using iPadOS 26’s multi-window multitasking features.

The iPad Air still comes in 11-inch and 13-inch versions that start at $599 and $799, respectively; the only disappointment is that these entry-level models still come with 128GB of storage. A 256GB storage upgrade will run you $100, and 512GB (+$300) and 1TB (+$500) versions are also available. Preorders go live on March 4, and the tablet will be available on March 11.

The M4 iPad Air uses the same design as the M2 version from 2024 and the M3 version from last year. The M2 version of the Air was a gently tweaked version of the M1 iPad Air, but it was different enough not to be compatible with all the same accessories; most notably, the M2-and-later Airs use the Apple Pencil Pro accessory and aren’t compatible with the second-generation Pencil.

This version of the Apple M4 is slightly cut down compared to the version that ships in Macs or that came with the M4 iPad Pro. It has only 8 CPU cores—3 high-performance cores and 5 efficiency cores, down from a maximum of  and 4 and 6. It also uses 9 GPU cores instead of 10, and there isn’t an Air variant with 16GB of RAM. A 16GB RAM configuration was available for M4 iPad Pros with 1TB or 2TB of storage.

Otherwise, very little has changed about the new iPad Air. It still comes in four relatively muted color options (space gray, blue, purple, and a pale gold “starlight”), still uses a regular 60 Hz LCD display rather than an OLED or ProMotion screen, still uses a power button-mounted TouchID sensor rather than FaceID, and still includes a single-lens 12MP rear camera with no flash. Apple continues to not offer its nano-texture display coating for the Air, either—that’s reserved exclusively for higher-end iPad Pro configurations.

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Posted Tuesday 3 March 2026 at 5:09 am AEST (my time).

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Apple’s biggest iPhone announcements usually happen in September, but for the second year in a row, the company is also introducing a new iPhone in March. The iPhone 17e is a new version of Apple’s basic no-frills iPhone, replacing last year’s iPhone 16e. The phone will be available to preorder on March 4 and will be available on March 11, starting at $599.

The new iPhone includes an Apple A19 chip similar to the one in the more-expensive iPhone 17—both phones have six CPU cores, but the 17e only gets four GPU cores instead of five. The phone’s cellular modem is also upgraded, from the original Apple C1 to an Apple C1X capable of faster speeds. Like the A18 in the iPhone 16e, the iPhone 17e also supports Apple Intelligence, implying that it has the same 8GB of RAM as the iPhone 17. Apple says the new Ceramic Shield 2 front glass (also used in the iPhone 17) will be more durable and that the “Apple-designed coating” on the display is three times more scratch-resistant than the coating on the iPhone 16e and better at reducing reflections and glare.

But there are two more-noticeable upgrades that help close the gap between the iPhone 17e and the regular iPhone 17. The first is support for MagSafe charging, a notable omission from the iPhone 16e. The second is an upgrade from 128GB to 256GB of storage in the base model, which makes the $599 version of the phone a more attractive deal. A 512GB version of the phone is available for $799.

The iPhone 17e will support MagSafe, which was notably absent from the 16e.

Credit: Apple

The 17e comes in three color options: black, white, and a pastel pink. It still includes a USB-C port, a notched display rather than a Dynamic Island, an Action Button, a 6.1-inch 60 Hz OLED display without ProMotion or always-on support, and a single 48 megapixel rear camera (which is still capable of taking 2x telephoto images by cropping a 24 MP chunk out of the middle of the image sensor).

The biggest problem with the iPhone 17e is still that it’s just $200 cheaper than the iPhone 17, which is an exceptionally strong version of Apple’s default phone. That $200 gets you a better main camera, a wide-angle lens, a slightly larger 6.3-inch display with ProMotion support and a Dynamic Island, and marginally faster graphics performance. But the 17e’s 256GB storage upgrade and the new chip do make it more appealing than the $699 iPhone 16, which also lacks a ProMotion display and only has 128GB of storage.

The new phone is part of a string of announcements that Apple is planning in the run-up to a “special experience” event on Wednesday morning. The company also announced a new iPad Air with an M4 chip today and is also widely expected to debut a new low-end iPad and a new MacBook that’s substantially cheaper than the MacBook Air.

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Posted Tuesday 3 March 2026 at 5:07 am AEST (my time).

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The Snapdragon Wear Elite Platform will support Wear OS by Google, Android, and Linux. Qualcomm is also bringing on-device AI to wearables with a dedicated NPU. Powered by the Qualcomm Hexagon NPU, the platform can run up to billion-parameter models for real-time, agentic experiences. Qualcomm claims 5x higher single-core CPU performance and up to 7x faster GPU performance, which should translate into faster app launches, smoother performance, and improved responsiveness.

Despite the big performance jump, Qualcomm says Snapdragon Wear Elite can deliver 30% longer battery life compared to the previous generation. With fast charging, wearables based on the platform can reach a 50% charge in about 10 minutes.

On connectivity, Snapdragon Wear Elite introduces a “multi-mode” architecture that includes 5G RedCap, Micro-Power Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 6.0, UWB, GNSS, and NB-NTN:

• 5G RedCap: low-power cellular connectivity
• Micro-Power Wi-Fi: always-on Wi-Fi at significantly lower power
• Bluetooth 6.0: improved proximity-aware interactions
• UWB: precise short-range proximity interactions
• GNSS: accurate location context
• NB-NTN: satellite-based two-way messaging

“By integrating a cutting-edge 3nm architecture with an industry-leading suite of connectivity solutions—including the first-of-its-kind hexa-connectivity system—this platform provides the raw horsepower and persistent reliability required to drive next-generation intelligent devices for both consumers and enterprises,” Qualcomm said in the product brief.

The first wearables powered by Snapdragon Wear Elite are expected to be revealed in the coming months. Until now, Samsung’s recent Galaxy Watch models have not used Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear platforms. They’ve mostly relied on Samsung’s own Exynos wearable chips. But today, Samsung announced that this new Snapdragon Wear Elite platform will be powering the next-generation Galaxy Watch.

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Posted Tuesday 3 March 2026 at 5:06 am AEST (my time).

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Here’s what to expect from both devices.

Base iPad (12th Generation) Gets A18 and Apple Intelligence

The entry-level iPad is reportedly in line for one of its most significant upgrades in years.

The most notable change is the move to the A18 chip, which would bring Apple Intelligence support to the base iPad for the first time. Right now, it is the only iPad in Apple’s lineup that does not support Apple’s AI features.

With the A18, users can expect:

• Full Apple Intelligence support in iPadOS 26
• Access to upcoming Siri improvements
• Improved performance for everyday tasks
• Increased RAM, reportedly moving from 6GB to 8GB

Another likely change is the addition of Apple’s new N1 wireless chip, first introduced with the iPhone 17 lineup. The chip enables Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, Thread support, and improved reliability for features like Personal Hotspot and AirDrop, while the overall design is expected to remain largely unchanged, aside from the possibility of new color options.

iPad Air Moves From M3 to M4 With No Design Changes

The iPad Air is also expected to get an internal upgrade, moving from the M3 chip introduced last year to Apple’s newer M4 processor.

While no major design changes are expected, the M4 chip should deliver:

• Improved performance in iPadOS 26
• Better handling of AI tasks
• Enhanced performance for professional apps
• Greater efficiency under sustained workloads

The iPad Air is likely to continue offering 11-inch and 13-inch size options with Touch ID. Apple may also bring the N1 wireless chip to the Air lineup, with cellular variants potentially adopting a C1X modem.

No Other iPad Models Are Coming Yet

Other iPad models are not expected to see updates next week. The iPad mini is rumored to receive an OLED display later this year, while a new iPad Pro refresh is not anticipated until 2027.

Apple’s event next week should confirm the final specifications, pricing, and availability.

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Posted Sunday 1 March 2026 at 7:17 am AEST (my time).

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The search giant also said that the platform is quickly moving towards its Platform Stability milestone, which is set to be reached in March. This will see Google provide the final SDK and NDK APIs, allowing developers to finalize their apps for a stable release in June 2026.

For a long time now, Android has supported chat buttons that give you fast access to conversations across apps. With this latest beta, bubbles are now available for any application just by long-pressing the launcher icon. On tablets and foldable devices, a new bubble bar within the taskbar will allow for easier organization and movement between anchored points on the screen.

Also in this update, Google has improved pointer capture compatibility to treat touchpad movements and scrolling gestures as mouse events by default. This will significantly improve the experience for first-person games. The search giant notes that developers can still opt for absolute mode if they require raw finger-location data rather than relative movement.

Google has also improved security for One-Time Passwords (OTPs) by implementing a mandatory three-hour delay on SMS access for apps that aren’t the intended recipient or the default SMS handler. This will help to stop OTP hijacking by ensuring only verified domains can programmatically read verification codes right after codes have been delivered.

Another security improvement is the introduction of the ACCESS_LOCAL_NETWORK permission which stops apps from scanning local area networks without user consent. This helps to prevent covert tracking and fingerprinting risks. Going forward, apps should now use system-mediated device pickers or request explicit runtime permissions to keep communicating with smart home and casting hardware.

Google says that developers should start compiling their apps against SDK 37 now to test for app-breaking changes. Following the March stability milestone, developers will be able to push their updated apps to the Google Play Store, ahead of the general availability launch. For end users enrolled in the Android Beta program, Beta 2 will be rolled out over-the-air automatically.

If you are in the Beta program and want to go back to Android 16 QPR3 without a data wipe, you must do this before installing this update as the next change for a seamless exit from the Beta program won’t happen until June 2026 next time.

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Posted Saturday 28 February 2026 at 4:58 am AEST (my time).

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The smartphone industry could experience a record-breaking decline in 2026 as a result of the RAM shortage stemming from memory-hungry AI giants. That’s according to the latest report from the International Data Corporation (IDC), which forecasts smartphone shipments to plummet 12.9 percent this year, marking its “lowest annual shipment volume in more than a decade.”

At the same time, the average selling price for smartphones is set to hit new highs, with IDC predicting a 14 percent increase to a record $523. “While memory prices are projected to stabilize by mid-2027, they are unlikely to return to previous level,” IDC senior researcher Nabila Popal says, adding that the sub-$100 phone segment will become “permanently uneconomical.” Next week, Apple is rumored to announce a new edition of its budget smartphone as the “iPhone 17e,” which could give a hint about where things are going.

The RAM shortage is going to affect much more than just smartphones as big AI companies like Microsoft, Amazon, OpenAI, and Google continue to buy up most of the available memory chips for use in AI datacenters. We’re already seeing the immediate impact of the shortage with price hikes coming for devices from Raspberry Pi, Framework, and even Samsung, but reports suggest that the crunch may push back the launch of certain products, like the PlayStation 6 and Meta’s next headset.

The memory shortage is expected to impact budget-friendly Android smartphones the most, as the rising costs of components leave them with “no choice but to pass the costs on to end users,” Francisco Jeronimo, the vice president for IDC’s Worldwide Client Devices, says in the report. That could result in smaller brands exiting the industry, while allowing Apple and Samsung to grab more market share, according to Popal.

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Posted Friday 27 February 2026 at 12:02 pm AEST (my time).

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Magnet rings have changed my life. I grip and mount and satisfyingly snap awesome accessories on and off my phone all day. Even Samsung sells neat ones, like these folding magnetic mirrors. But unlike Apple and Google, Samsung refuses to put the magnets inside the phone.

Why? I asked Samsung’s Won-Joon Choi, the executive in charge of both R&D and operations for Samsung’s mobile business. He says the added thickness of magnets is a bad tradeoff to make, because you’re just going to buy a case anyhow.

“About 80 or 90 percent of people are using a case, and cases with magnets are very popular these days,” he tells me.

Samsung would rather use that extra height to give the phone a larger battery or make it thinner, he says.

That doesn’t mean Samsung isn’t looking into magnets. “We’re still doing a lot of research to make sure we don’t have any sacrifice inside the phone; when we actually achieve that, we’ll integrate,” he says.

Personally, I disagree with Choi’s premise. I want extra battery and magnets, and I’m willing to sacrifice thinness to get it. Phones are thin enough already, except for the ones that fold.

And if Samsung took charge of the magnets like Apple, and replicated Apple’s standard pattern and strength, maybe the magnet case I use with my Galaxy S25 would properly and firmly hold onto magnetic battery packs without them rotating in place. Since there’s no magnets inside my phone, I’m at the mercy of casemakers.

But I get it. Why make the tradeoff if someone will pay for a case anyhow? Seems like we need to ask Apple and Google why they chose differently.

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Posted Friday 27 February 2026 at 12:02 pm AEST (my time).

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The Samsung Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus are “more of the same for more money,” my colleague Allison Johnson reported this week. Now, Samsung is confirming what we previously only suspected: RAMageddon is partly to blame.

Samsung’s Won-Joon Choi, the COO of its mobile business, tells The Verge that the memory shortage alone made a “significant contribution” to the price. All the increasing material costs factored into the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus costing $100 more than their predecessors this year, as did tariffs, but the memory was “significant,” he tells me.

The S26 does come with double the storage this year at its higher price, with 256GB rather than 128GB, though its $899 price tag is still $40 higher than an S25 with 256GB cost at launch. And though tariffs may have been a factor as well, Samsung has hiked the price in other regions too, not just the United States. The pricier S26 Ultra does come with intriguing upgrades, however, including a built-in privacy screen and the largest vapor chamber cooling system in a phone.

Samsung chip partner Qualcomm warned in its February quarterly results that it was seeing a big dip in its handset business “100 percent” due to the memory shortage, telling investors that the AI industry’s appetite for components would likely define the entire scale of the phone industry all year long.

And today, IDC is forecasting the largest drop ever recorded in worldwide smartphone shipments, a dip of 12.9 percent, across 2026. “What we are witnessing is not a temporary squeeze, but a tsunami-like shock originating in the memory supply chain, with ripple effects spreading across the entire consumer electronics industry,” writes IDC.

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Posted Friday 27 February 2026 at 12:01 pm AEST (my time).

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To invoke this new feature, users simply have to long-press the power button and ask Gemini to perform tasks like booking a ride home through a ridesharing service or ordering groceries for a meal using a service like DoorDash. Based on the query, Gemini will work in the background to complete the tasks using the respective apps, allowing users to continue using their smartphones for other tasks.

Google highlighted that this feature is built with safety and privacy capabilities. For example, users can check on Gemini’s progress live whenever required via notifications, allowing them to view, jump in, or stop the task. For instance, if you have assigned a task to shop for groceries on Instacart, you can take over the process yourself while Gemini is in the middle of shopping.

Gemini performs the task by running the required app in a virtual window. Consequently, Gemini can only access limited apps and not the entire smartphone. Initially, this beta feature will work with select apps in the food, grocery, and rideshare categories. In the future, based on feedback, Google will expand it to more apps and devices.

You can check out the feature in action in the video below.

Your "usual" is now just a tap away. ☕️🍕Starting as a beta feature, Gemini can assist you with tasks across select rideshare and food apps. Just ask Gemini to handle your grocery cart, food delivery, or ride home. Gemini does the work, but you’re in control 🪄 pic.twitter.com/fjfsDXDx7m

 

— Android (@Android) February 25, 2026

This new Gemini agentic capability will be available as a beta feature in the Gemini app for Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro XL, and the Samsung Galaxy S26 series initially in the US, and Korea.

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Posted Friday 27 February 2026 at 6:12 am AEST (my time).

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The Xbox mobile app from Microsoft had a hiccup earlier today, sending out a blast of messages to users that it certainly didn't intend to do. If you're someone who was on the receiving end of this and was afraid of something happening with your Microsoft/Xbox account, Microsoft has now confirmed that this was an error on their part and that they are investigating.

Phones with the official Xbox app installed on them were the unfortunate target of this spam, which simply said, "This is a dummy message sent via Braze, please capture a screenshot once you receive it. This should take you to the recently added gallery."

While it doesn't look like everyone with the app was affected, enough were hit by the sudden notification barrage to make it a hot topic on social media.

Users reported dozens of these notifications landing on their phones over a small period of time earlier today, February 25, while some had only received an annoying few. Several posts even show that Ubisoft's Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora game artwork was attached to the messages.

Microsoft responded to the test message spam later, saying its engineers are working to find out what happened:

We are aware that some users have received errant messaging through the Xbox Mobile App. Apologies for this inconvenience. Currently, our engineering teams are working to identify the underlying cause of these notifications.

Brazen, the service mentioned in the spammed message, is an AI-powered customer engagement platform that can deliver targeted and personalized notifications to users. It looks like internal messages meant for a test environment integrating the AI system into the Xbox app had accidentally gone out of their way and ended up in real users' phones.

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Posted Thursday 26 February 2026 at 11:44 am AEST (my time).

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TM Roh opened the event by calling the Galaxy S26 an "agentic phone," which immediately set the tone for the rest of the keynote. We saw over a dozen new AI features at the event, some are new, some are improvements of existing capabilities, so we've got a lot to unpack.

Here are all the AI features Samsung showcased today:

Now Nudge is an AI agent that runs in the background of a Samsung Galaxy phone. Its purpose is to handle a broader context of what's happening on your screen by allowing different apps to "talk" to one another. For example, if a friend texts you about evening plans, Galaxy AI checks your calendar, spots any conflicts, and shows a pop-up with the relevant info right there in the conversation. You're not even required to switch apps; it all happens automatically.

Now Brief brings AI capabilities to your personalized morning summaries. It also scans multiple apps on your phone for all the events you have planned for the day. It then shows a systemized brief of your reminders, reservations, travel updates, and all the things you'd otherwise piece together by manually checking three different apps.

Circle to Search gets a meaningful upgrade. It already lets you circle a single object to kick off a search; now you can circle multiple items at once. And it works across different purposes, for example, you can circle an outfit of a person on a photo, and it'll find where you can buy that piece.

Photo Assist is Samsung's way of integrating AI into its Gallery app. It allows users to edit their photos by writing prompts. You can swap clothes, restore missing parts of an object, change night to day, and more. Basically, anything that can be done with other in-app AI image editors.

Creative Studio is another AI feature for the Gallery app, which allows you to change the style of your photos. For example, you can turn your selfie into an oil painting or maybe an anime character. Once again, nothing that's exclusive to Samsung devices, since you can do this with almost any AI.

Document Scan is actually one of the more underrated features of Samsung's AI suite. It turns messy document scans into a clean PDF automatically. The AI cleans up distortions, creases, and stray fingers from multi-image scans. Anyone who's ever tried to scan a crumpled receipt knows how much a feature like this can be useful.

Bixby gets its biggest overhaul in a while. The assistant now handles natural language device control, meaning you can adjust settings by just describing what you want rather than knowing where exactly to look in the menus. Samsung also confirmed the integration of Google's Gemini 3 and Perplexity, which allows users to choose between different AI models to handle their tasks.

The broader agentic AI layer ties this together. You can allow multiple AI agents to talk to one another. For example, you can ask Perplexity to perform research on, let's say, the best restaurants in your area, which will do the search for you and then pass that info to Gemini to make a reservation.

On the privacy side, AI Call Screening identifies and summarizes unknown callers, while Privacy Alerts surface real-time notifications when apps are accessing your data suspiciously.

And finally, we're rounding things out with AI improvements for the camera. Upgraded Nightography now covers video, too, which should result in less grainy nighttime videos. The AI ISP, which previously only processed rear camera shots, now runs on the front camera as well, so the same level of detail and natural skin tones you'd get shooting with the main lens applies to selfies and video calls.

ProScaler upscales content on the display itself, so you should be able to play videos at lower resolutions without losing sharpness. This could be useful if you're trying to save some data, as you won't have to play videos in 4K for them to look decent.

And for anyone shooting professional footage, the S26 Ultra is the first Galaxy phone to support the APV codec, enabling near-lossless 8K video capture at high bit rates. Samsung even shot the entire Unpacked event with an S26 Ultra. Although with some extra gear attached to it. I'll just show you the picture of their setup, and you be the judge of how this would compare to a real-life, everyday scenario:

That's about it. It's a lot of features to absorb in one sitting. Some of them are genuinely useful, some are, well... I'm sure they'll find their target audience, too.

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Posted Thursday 26 February 2026 at 11:38 am AEST (my time).

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There used to be countless companies making flagship Android phones, but a combination of factors has narrowed the field over time. Today, Samsung is the undisputed king of the Android device ecosystem with its Galaxy S line. So we can safely assume today’s Unpacked has revealed the most popular Android phones for the next year—the Galaxy S26 Ultra, Galaxy S26+, and Galaxy S26.

Samsung didn’t swing for the fences this time around, producing phones with a few cosmetic tweaks and upgraded internals. Meanwhile, Samsung is investing even more in AI, saying the S26 series includes the first “Agentic AI phones.” Despite limited hardware upgrades, the realities of component prices in the age of AI mean the prices of the two cheaper models have gone up by $100 this year. The Ultra remains at an already eye-watering $1,300.

Faster and more private

Looking at the Galaxy S26 family, you’d be hard-pressed to tell them apart from last year’s phones. The camera surround is different, and the measurements of the smallest and largest phone are ever so slightly different. You probably won’t be able to tell just by looking, but the S26 Ultra has regressed from titanium to aluminum, a reversion Apple also made with its latest high-end phones. This phone also retains its S Pen stylus.

These phones will again have the latest Snapdragon flagship processor (in North America, Japan, and China) with customizations exclusive to Samsung. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy is a 3 nm chip with third-gen Oryon CPU cores, an Adreno 840 GPU, and a powerful Hexagon NPU for on-device AI processing. Samsung promises double-digit performance gains across the board, which is what we hear every year.

Samsung flagship phones have extremely fast hardware, so they benchmark well. However, they also tend to heat up and throttle quickly during sustained use. Perhaps that won’t be as much of a problem with the S26 series. Samsung says it has implemented its largest vapor chamber ever to better control temperatures.

The batteries have also been redesigned for greater efficiency and charging speed, but the base model is the only one that saw a capacity boost (4,000 to 4,300 mAh). Charging speeds have gotten a much-needed increase at the Ultra level. Samsung has only said you can now get a 75 percent charge in 30 minutes using its most expensive phone—it peaks at 60 W, up from 45 W for the last Ultra.

Samsung has been using the same camera sensors for a few cycles now, and it’s not changing anything major this time around. The Ultra still has four cameras (including two telephotos) that top out with the 200 MP primary, and the S26+ and base model still have three cameras with a 50 MP primary. The apertures on the Ultra sensors are a bit wider to allow for brighter photos in challenging conditions. More interesting, though, is the option to record high-quality 8K video directly to an external drive. The S26 also brings support for the Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec.

While the display specs haven’t changed much, they are home to the phone’s most notable new feature: Privacy Display. As smartphone screens have improved, they have emphasized high brightness and wide viewing angles, which is what you want most of the time. However, that also makes it easy for people nearby to see what’s on your screen. With one tap, the S26 can make it harder for shoulder surfers to see what you’re doing.

Privacy Display prevents shoulder surfers from peeking at your screen.

Credit: Samsung

Privacy Display uses a technology called Black Matrix, which activates “narrow pixels.” These pixels focus light more directly on the user to limit the viewing angle. Privacy Display can be activated system-wide as you like, but it can also be activated on a per-app basis or even just in the part of the screen where notifications appear.

What is an Agentic AI phone anyway?

Unsurprisingly, AI takes the lead with the S26 launch. Part of that is just Samsung following the zeitgeist, but companies can also add new AI capabilities to fill out spec sheets without a bunch of increasingly expensive hardware upgrades. In Samsung’s words, it has sought to have “AI integrated into every layer” of the Galaxy S26 experience.

That starts with expanded awareness of screen context. The company’s Now Brief feature, which is supposed to pull together useful information from across your apps, has not been very impressive so far. With the S26, Samsung is piping notification content into Now Brief, allowing it to remind you about things even if you never added them to your calendar or to-do list. Like many of Samsung’s Galaxy AI features, this data is processed on-device and won’t go to the cloud.

In a similar vein, Galaxy AI is also getting “Nudges,” which look similar to Google’s Magic Cue on the Pixel 10 series. The Galaxy S26 will be able to suggest content and apps based on what’s happening on the screen. For example, Galaxy AI might see you want to share images and suggest the right ones, or perhaps it will check your calendar for openings to save you from switching apps. Of course, that assumes the AI will correctly recognize the context and call the right action.

AI features will also be expanding in Samsung’s stock apps. In the Browser, Samsung has partnered with Perplexity for a new “Ask AI” feature. Rather than juggling tabs to read original sources yourself, you can have the AI do it. It basically gives you a research report like you could get from Perplexity itself (or Gemini Deep Research), but it’s integrated with the browser. Samsung’s gallery app also gets expanded AI editing tools with the S26. These capabilities will really allow you to change the substance of photos, so Samsung has added a visible watermark to label them. We’ve asked if there are AI labels in the image metadata, like you get with some other editing systems.

AI-edited photos have a visible watermark.

Credit: Samsung

A major component of Samsung’s “Agentic AI phone” pitch comes from a partnership with Google. For starters, Google’s AI-powered scam detection features in the Messaging app, previously exclusive to Pixels, will launch on the S26 in preview before expanding to more devices later. Circle to Search is getting an upgrade that lets it identify multiple objects in a single image—this is in testing on both the Pixel 10 series and the Galaxy S26.

The other Google tie-in is more in keeping with the goal of agentic AI. For the first time, Gemini will be able to handle multistep tasks for you. You can watch it work if you prefer, but this can also happen entirely in the background while you do other things. It’s a bit like the recently launched Chrome Auto Browse but for apps.

The selection of apps is pretty slim during this testing period. Samsung and Google say you’ll be able to order food and groceries in apps like DoorDash and Grubhub, and there will be a tie-in with Uber for both rides and food. Google currently says you should “supervise closely” when the agent is working on your behalf. So we’ll see how that goes.

When you can get it

Samsung is accepting preorders for its new phones starting today. You can get them at every mobile carrier or directly from Samsung’s website. Carriers will offer a variety of deals with monthly credits to reduce the sting of the new, higher prices. Samsung has enhanced trade-in values right now, which is a more straightforward way to get a discount if you have an old phone to unload. It’s offering up to $900 off instantly with an S25 Ultra or Z Fold 6 trade-in. Even a phone from a couple of years ago can cut the price of a Galaxy S26 way down.

The Galaxy S26 comes in a variety of understated colors.

Credit: Samsung

The phones are available in violet cobalt, sky blue, white, and black at all retailers. Samsung’s exclusive colors this time are silver shadow and pink gold. Devices will be on shelves and the doorsteps of preorderers on or around March 11.

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Posted Thursday 26 February 2026 at 11:34 am AEST (my time).

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The Galaxy S26 Ultra leads the way with the headline hardware, Samsung’s highly-anticipated Privacy Display. The Privacy Display uses Flex Magic Pixel tech, which allows it to control pixel light dispersion and keep content clear for the direct viewer, while blocking the side angles. This means users of the Galaxy S26 Ultra won’t have to buy those privacy screen protectors anymore. The Privacy Display is exclusive to the S26 Ultra.

All models run the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 "For Galaxy" (global, overclocked primary core up to ~4.74 GHz on Ultra), with the S26 and S26+ shipping with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM, while the Ultra also adds the 15GB variant.

Here are the specs of all the models:

The new Galaxy S26 series ships with One UI 8.5, which introduces all kinds of new software features, mostly powered by AI. We got Circle to Search 2.0, Live Translate Pro, Sketch to Image, and Ultra-exclusive video b-roll generation. Bixby also gets conversational updates, with users will also be able to choose different AI agents, including Gemini and Perplexity.

The Galaxy S26 series is available for pre-order starting today, with general retail availability beginning March 11. It comes in Cobalt Violet, Sky Blue, Black, and White, plus Samsung.com-exclusive Pink Gold and Silver Shadow.

Starting prices (US): Galaxy S26 at $899 (256GB), Galaxy S26+ at $1,099 (256GB), and Galaxy S26 Ultra at $1,299 (256GB), with higher storage options available and generous trade-in credits up to $900 to lower effective costs for upgraders.

You can find more details about the Galaxy S26 lineup on Samsung's official website.

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Posted Thursday 26 February 2026 at 4:55 am AEST (my time).

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You might already know that Unpacked is a bi-annual event that happens once at the start of the year and then again around July or August, when Samsung refreshes its foldable lineup. It's been weeks since the company sent the official invitation for the first iteration of Galaxy Unpacked 2026.

The event is set to kick off in San Francisco, and you'll be able to catch up on its livestream on February 25 at 10 am PT/ 1 pm ET / 6 pm GMT / 7 pm CET / 11:30 pm IST, depending on your time zone.

Just like previous years, Samsung said it will stream the event at different locations on the web, including its official YouTube channel, Samsung.com, and Samsung Newsroom website. You can also return to this page when the livestream starts to catch up on the latest announcements.

Samsung has made it pretty clear through its marketing materials that the Galaxy AI will be a big focus at the event, with a new home on the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26 Plus, and Galaxy S26 Ultra. You can check out our detailed roundup to know about the expected specs of the Galaxy S26 series.

Galaxy S26 series will feature a privacy layer to deter shoulder surfers in public places. However, the ongoing memory crisis may prompt the company to cut corners on its base model. You can also expect the Galaxy Buds4 and Buds4 Pro at Galaxy Unpacked 2026, which were spotted in an alleged screenshot from Samsung's LockStar app.

Samsung will talk more about the upgraded Bixby, which is now a conversational AI assistant on One UI 8.5. You can control your device using Bixby and manage settings and web searches using natural language. Its beta version is currently available in the US and UK.

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Posted Wednesday 25 February 2026 at 4:39 pm AEST (my time).

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After selling their popular weather app to Apple in March 2020, where some of its core features were incorporated into Apple Weather, the creators of Dark Sky have left Apple to create yet another alternative. Their new app, called Acme Weather, embraces the fact that forecasts will never be entirely accurate by providing both a main prediction of the day’s conditions and several alternate predictions.

Acme Weather is currently only available for iOS. An Android version is planned, but there’s no release timeline yet. You can try it out for two weeks for free, but a $25 annual subscription is needed if you like what you see and want to keep using it. Dark Sky cost $3.99 when it was a third-party app, but Acme Weather’s creators claim their new app will provide better forecasts and more weather info than Dark Sky did, sourced from satellite data, ground station observations, and radar data.

The app shows the primary forecast alongside alternate predictions. The closer they are, the better the chance the forecast will be accurate.

Image: Acme Weather Corporation

 

The alternate predictions will be presented alongside the primary forecast as a series of lines showing how conditions may progress throughout the day. When the alternate prediction lines are grouped close together, it’s an indication that the primary forecast is reliable. When there’s a wider spread between predictions, the forecast could be more likely to change throughout the day.

To expand the information available through the app during active weather events, Acme Weather also allows users to report conditions where they’re located, which appear on a map as simple icons. Community-reported conditions are joined by other maps featuring radar, lightning, rain and snow amounts, wind, temperature, humidity, storm tracks, and cloud cover, which are included with forecasts based on their relevancy to predicted conditions.

Dark Sky was known for its excellent notifications, which are another feature being carried forward with Acme Weather. The new app will offer user-customizable notifications that can include “down-to-the-minute rain warnings,” government-issued severe weather warnings, nearby lightning activity, and even a heads-up as to when you might be able to see a rainbow at your location.

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Posted Tuesday 24 February 2026 at 1:46 pm AEST (my time).

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According to Samsung’s press release, Bixby will now allow users to control and navigate Galaxy devices using natural language without needing to know exact setting names or menu structures. The update is designed to help users describe what they want to do or ask why something is happening on their device, and receive direct access to the relevant setting or action, similar to Apple's AI assistant Siri.

The upcoming Galaxy S26 series is likely to ship with the updated Bixby experience, while existing supported Galaxy models should receive the feature through the manual software updates.

Bixby Expands Natural Language Control on Galaxy Devices

Samsung states that users no longer need to memorize specific commands or navigate through multiple layers of settings. Instead, Bixby can interpret conversational requests and map them to system features.

Samsung provides several examples:

• If the display is straining a user’s eyes, asking Bixby what to do can trigger the Eye Comfort Shield setting.
• Asking, “Why is my phone screen always on when it’s inside my pocket?” prompts Bixby to surface the Accidental Touch Protection setting.
• Users can request automated routines, such as dimming display brightness at 9 p.m. daily, and Bixby will create the routine automatically.

The company positions the update as a way to reduce friction in accessing deeper customization options that many Galaxy users may not know exist.

Integration Of Bixby Within One UI 8.5

The Bixby update is tied to Samsung’s One UI 8.5 software release. Samsung has not provided a full device compatibility list in the material, but the update is most likely expected to reach current and next-generation Galaxy phones.

Samsung has faced criticism in previous years for Bixby’s limitations compared to other digital AI assistants. With the rise of generative AI, Samsung appears to be repositioning Bixby as a device-level assistant focused on understanding natural language prompts related to phone settings and features.

The company does not mention external AI providers in the announcement. However, previous reports have suggested that Samsung may use a combination of its own AI models and third-party systems for more complex prompts. Samsung has previously partnered with Perplexity and offered promotional Perplexity Pro subscriptions to Galaxy users. The current Samsung press release does not confirm how the partnership with Perplexity factors into this update.

What This Means for Galaxy Users

For current Galaxy owners, the update may change how they access settings and routines. Instead of manually searching through menus, users can describe the issue or desired outcome in simple human language.

If your Galaxy phone receives One UI 8.5, you can test the new functionality by:

1. Updating to the latest available One UI version in Settings > Software Update.
2. Activating Bixby using the assigned button or voice trigger.
3. Asking a settings-related question in natural language, such as describing a display or battery issue.
4. Review the suggested action before confirming any system change.

Because One UI updates typically launch in phases, availability may vary by device model and region.

Samsung should provide more details during its upcoming Galaxy Unpacked event, where the Galaxy S26 is likely to be introduced. The full list of supported devices and regional rollout timing for One UI 8.5 has not yet been disclosed.

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Posted Monday 23 February 2026 at 3:42 am AEST (my time).

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