Latest news with #Updates
Android Authority
29-05-2025
- Business
- Android Authority
Samsung's One UI 8 Android 16 beta absolutely dunks on Google
Joe Maring / Android Authority Samsung surprised us all this week by releasing the One UI 8 beta for the Galaxy S25 series, which is based on Android 16. Following the messy rollout of One UI 7 and Samsung's track record of launching betas after Google has finalized a stable Android update, the arrival of One UI 8 has been a pleasant surprise. There are some welcome changes, from improvements to alarm groups to better support for older Galaxy Buds. Are you going to download the One UI 8 beta? 503 votes Yes 47 % No 31 % When it's more stable 22 % What's more surprising is that Samsung's version of Android 16 is more feature-complete than Google's, with two of the main additions everyone is looking forward to already working in One UI 8. 90:10 splitscreen The OnePlus Open came with a new kind of split-screen multitasking called Open Canvas. Google is bringing this feature to Android 16, but it isn't available in the current beta for Pixel devices. It is here in One UI 8, though, as seen in the video above. It's a great addition to split-screen. Being able to quickly switch between the two apps while having enough space to use each one is a game-changer, and I look forward to seeing how it performs on foldables and tablets. The question is, why does Samsung have it in One UI 8 already when Google hasn't enabled it in the official Android 16 beta? Live Updates Live Updates are similar to the Live Activity feature you'll find on iOS. It allows an app to display real-time information in a place that's easy to see, no matter what you're doing on your phone, such as showing a progress bar for your food order or directions from Google Maps. Zac Kew-Denniss / Android Authority YouTube Music Live Notifications Despite Live Updates being showcased at Google I/O, the feature isn't yet available in the Android 16 beta. It is available on Samsung phones and doesn't require One UI 8. Samsung calls this feature Live Notifications, and it was introduced in One UI 7, which is based on Android 15. It does everything described above and even lets you control your media playback. One UI 8 doesn't have everything Ryan Haines / Android Authority Samsung doesn't get everything, though. Android 15 introduced Notification Cooldown to Pixels, a feature that mutes notifications for up to two minutes at a time if you receive too many in quick succession. Even in One UI 8 with Android 16, this isn't present on Samsung devices. We don't know why Samsung has opted not to integrate Notification Cooldown, but it's a shame. It's a useful feature that can stop the constant barrage of information from being overwhelming. It seems odd that Samsung consistently receives early access to features, while Google's smartphone brand, the Pixel, is often overlooked and has to wait. You could say it ultimately doesn't matter so long as the Pixel gets everything eventually, but I disagree. Google, logically, should want people to buy a Pixel phone. It sends a strange message when Samsung frequently gets priority over Google's own product. Have you tried out the One UI 8 or Android 16 betas yet? What do you think of them? Let us know in the comments below.
Android Authority
13-05-2025
- Android Authority
Your delivery is on the way — and Android 16 will remind you with Live Updates
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority TL;DR Google introduced Live Updates in Android 16 to standardize real-time progress notifications. Live Updates will offer a consistent UI across delivery, rideshare, and navigation apps, even on the lock screen. Live updates for Uber and other delivery apps are coming as part of a redesign later this year. Google is kicking off the Google I/O party with an early focus on Android and its updates through 'The Android Show' program. Of course, the big news is Android 16 and the features it will include, and now's as great a time as ever to re-introduce Live Updates, which will come to several key apps later this year. Live Updates are a new class of notifications that help users monitor and quickly access important ongoing activities through progress notifications on select apps. Apps like Uber have been showing such notifications for a while now, but they had to implement their own custom workaround. With Live Updates, Google has created a standardized version of such critical notifications. Live Updates were officially introduced with the first Android 16 beta, and now, we know what they will look like in the stable update. For instance, one of the more common phone use cases these days is ordering food through food delivery apps. If you place an Uber Eats order on an Android 16 phone, you will soon get a glanceable Live Update to track your delivery progress. You can view certain critical information without needing to pull down the notification. When you do expand the notification by clicking on the Live Update chip in the status bar, you will see more information alongside a progress tracker. This will let you get most of what you need without re-opening the parent app. Live Updates also gives such high-priority notifications a consistent look and experience across the lock screen and even the Always On Display. This way, you always have all that you need to know right at your fingertips, without needing to dig through apps and other notification clutter. Live Updates are currently restricted to delivery, rideshare, and navigation apps. We've already shown you Live Updates in Google Maps, and later this year, you can expect to see them from other top players in these categories too. Compared to what Google had shown off with the first Android 16 Beta, Live Updates look much more polished. In doing so, they also look closer than ever to iOS' Live Activities feature. Android and iOS frequently get inspired by each other, and as long as end users benefit from it, I am not complaining. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Yahoo
Here's How to Get Live Updates to Show on Google Maps With the Android 16 Beta
While Android 16 is coming sooner than expected, feature-wise, it seems like it will be an incremental update -- with a heavy focus, not surprisingly, on Gemini, Google's AI model. However, one feature that should get people excited is the introduction of Live Updates, which is now showing up for Google Maps in the Android 16 beta 2.1, according to Android Authority. Live Updates are Google's answer to Apple's Live Activities feature, which was introduced in iOS 16 a couple of years back. The feature pulls relevant and timely information from an app, like a delivery service, to track something you've bought as it progresses from order to delivery. Android 16 is expected to launch in the second quarter of this year, a few months earlier than its typical third-quarter launch. Google's move is to get features out at an accelerated pace, which is why it plans to drop two SDK releases a year now: one major release in the second quarter and a smaller one in the fourth quarter. Android 16 should arrive around June. You can test the feature for yourself, given you own a supported Pixel device. For more, check out the best Android phones to buy in 2025. Apple's live activities can be seen via an iPhone's Dynamic Island, the lockscreen or a connected Apple Watch. Android's Live Updates will be added as a chip to your notification bar with the latest status update pulled from the app. Given the infancy of the Android feature, we don't expect it to be nearly as robust as the current iOS offering, but it's a step in the right direction. If you're running the latest Android 16 beta (2.1) and have the latest version of Google Maps installed, this should be all needed to check out the feature. You can try it out by navigating somewhere using turn-by-turn directions, which will bring up a small chip showing you the time until your next turn or your ETA to your destination. I installed the latest beta on my Pixel Tablet to see if I could get the feature to trigger, and once I minimized the mini navigation overlay, the chip appeared. Tapping the chip will bring a pop-up with the current navigation step. While Live Updates aren't anything we haven't seen before, it is a meaningful new feature for Android that should make your next delivery or Lyft ride easier to keep track of. For more, don't miss the Android security and privacy features you should know about.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Despite uneven earnings, AI is still Big Tech's star
Big Tech's earnings season is nearly over, with just Amazon and Nvidia left to announce their quarterly performance. And despite uneven reports from some of Silicon Valley's biggest names so far, AI continues to be the star of the show for Wall Street. Microsoft (MSFT) missed on cloud revenue, Meta (META) said sales growth would slow in the current quarter, Apple (AAPL) fell short of iPhone revenue estimates, and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) disappointed on cloud growth. President Trump's tariffs on goods out of China, which have kicked off a tit-for-tat trade battle that's pulling in Google and Apple, and the emergence of DeepSeek's low-cost AI models haven't helped things either. But analysts aren't overly concerned, focusing instead on Big Tech's long-term AI bets. 'Tech sector volatility is likely to continue in the months ahead. But we see the initial set of large-cap tech results as reassuring and believe the AI growth story remains intact,' UBS's Chief Investment Office team wrote in its Daily Updates note. Nvidia (NVDA), the AI trade's bellwether, doesn't report its earnings until Feb. 26, and a miss on earnings or outlook could send AI stocks off the rails. But for now, it's all about AI's future. Microsoft and Meta kicked off earnings last week, with both companies beating analysts' expectations on the top and bottom lines. But dig deeper and the beats start to look less impressive. Microsoft reported cloud revenue of $40 billion in the quarter, shy of the $41.1 billion Wall Street was looking for. The company's Intelligence Cloud platform, which includes Azure services, came up short too, posting revenue of $25.5 billion on expectations of $25.8 billion. Microsoft said part of the problem had to do with demand outpacing its available capacity for cloud services and that non-AI cloud services were lower than expected because it's working to 'balance driving near-term non-AI consumption with AI growth.' Despite that, AI services grew 157% year over year and contributed 13 percentage points of growth to Azure overall. 'While investors wanted a more pronounced 2H [acceleration] from Azure, we continue to believe [Microsoft] is the predominant software AI winner,' Jefferies analyst Brent Thill wrote in a note to investors. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood says cloud capacity should meet customers' needs by the end of the company's fiscal 2025. Meta, for its part, declined to provide full-year guidance for its fiscal 2025, but pointed to growth opportunities via its heavy AI investments. The company is planning to spend upwards of $65 billion building out its AI services this year, including launching its next-generation Llama 4 AI model. Meta also pushed back against fears that DeepSeek's low-cost AI is a danger to its business, something Pivotal Research Group's Jeffrey Wlodarczak agreed with in his investor note following the company's earnings report. 'We expect [Meta's] open-source Llama AI to emulate the best of DeepSeek's techniques, which should allow Llama to take the lead in AI given likely significantly lower costs than their peers for best-in-class AI products boosted materially by the fact it is US based and open-sourced which will attract developers,' Wlodarczak wrote. Google parent Alphabet's stock plummeted Wednesday after coming up short on cloud revenue in the prior quarter. Like Microsoft, Google laid the blame on greater demand for its cloud services than is currently available. The fix? Spending $75 billion in 2025 on its AI build-out. That's up from the $57.9 billion analysts were anticipating. The hope, among analysts and investors, is that those billions help even out Google's supply and demand imbalance. 'We continue to see a favorable risk/reward for Alphabet and think there is a case for multiple expansion in the coming quarters as investors gain more comfort related to infrastructure spending, regulatory risk, and the impact of generative AI on Google Search,' Wedbush's Scott Devitt wrote in an investor note. Then there's Apple, which like Microsoft and Meta, beat analysts' expectations on earnings per share and revenue. But the company fell short of Wall Street's anticipations on iPhone sales, reporting revenue of $69.1 billion on expectations of $71 billion. Apple's Apple Intelligence AI platform was supposed to help buoy iPhone sales, but with the service only available in English, it's missing out on a large portion of its user base, especially in China. The company says it will launch Apple Intelligence in more languages in the coming months. CEO Tim Cook also said iPhone sales performed better where Apple Intelligence is available, indicating that the platform is helping to drive upgrades, something that is sure to please investors if it holds true for other regions. Now Apple, like the rest of its Big Tech cohort, just needs to deliver on its AI promises. Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@ Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
