Phone and OS

Samsung is already preparing its next major software update, One UI 9, based on Android 17. Google seeded the first Android 17 beta on February 13, 2026, and early One UI 9 test builds reportedly appeared soon after on Samsung’s internal servers. The company is still preparing One UI 8.5 for wider public release, but work on the Android 17-based upgrade appears to be moving quickly. For Galaxy users, the main question is simple: which phones and tablets are likely to receive One UI 9? Samsung has not announced an official One UI 9 rollout schedule or eligibility list yet. However, the company’s current software update policy, early test builds and previous rollout patterns give a fairly clear idea of which Galaxy devices are likely to make the cut. When could One UI 9 launch? Samsung is expected to open the first One UI 9 public beta for its latest flagship phones. The Galaxy S26 series is likely to be first in line, followed by the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S24 lineups. A beta release cou...

Samsung has said it never formally announced April 30 as the rollout date for One UI 8.5, after widespread rumors led users to expect the stable update to arrive that day. The clarification came from a moderator on Samsung’s US community forum. The moderator said the April 30 timeline was based on community speculation and past rollout patterns, not an official announcement from the company. Samsung said the One UI 8.5 rollout is still being finalized and no release date has been confirmed. The company said it prioritizes testing results before committing to an update schedule, with final approval resting with its lab engineers. The extended beta testing period has made the software nearly stable, according to the company, but Samsung said engineers must complete their evaluations before clearing the update for public release. Regional factors also appear to have influenced the rollout. South Korea observed Labor Day on May 1, and a rollout on April 30 could have left Samsung with limi...

Gemini enabled direct file creation within its chat interface, allowing users to generate multiple file formats through a prompt without switching applications or manually reformatting content. The capability supported Google Workspace files, including Docs, Sheets and Slides, and Microsoft formats such as Excel spreadsheets and Word documents. It also included PDFs, CSV files, LaTeX documents, plain text, rich text format and Markdown files. The workflow aimed to streamline the creative process by allowing users to start with an idea or brainstorm session in Gemini and convert it into a finished file without leaving the platform. It stated that a budget proposal became an organised Excel spreadsheet, loose notes became a structured bulleted document, and complex collaboration summaries condensed into a single-page PDF. It said the time saved by removing copy-paste cycles and manual formatting translated into increased productivity. For Google Workspace users, Gemini integrated within ...

Samsung’s One UI platform is facing a wave of criticism that goes beyond the usual complaints accompanying a major software rollout. Across Samsung Community forums, users are increasingly questioning not just individual bugs, but the company’s broader approach to fixing them. A recurring claim dominates recent discussions: issues identified in one One UI version are not resolved within that release cycle, but instead pushed to the next numbered update. According to multiple forum threads, bugs found in One UI 7.0 were deferred to One UI 8.0, while problems now affecting One UI 8.5 are reportedly scheduled for fixes only in One UI 9.0. This perceived “next‑version delay” has become a focal point of user frustration. The concern is not that bugs exist — users accept that no major software is flawless — but that known issues appear to be systematically postponed rather than addressed through interim fixes. Examples frequently cited include persistent blur artifacts in the Gallery app, in...

Microsoft and OpenAI announced an amended partnership agreement to provide long-term clarity and flexibility as both companies continued advancing artificial intelligence technology. The updated terms represented a significant restructuring of how the two organisations operated together while maintaining their core collaboration. Under the amended agreement, Microsoft remained OpenAI's primary cloud partner, with OpenAI products shipping first on Azure. However, a critical change allowed OpenAI to serve all its products to customers across any cloud provider. This shift represented a meaningful expansion of OpenAI's operational independence while preserving Microsoft's privileged position as the initial deployment partner, unless Microsoft could not or chose not to support necessary capabilities. The intellectual property framework was restructured to provide both companies with greater certainty. Microsoft continued holding a licence to OpenAI's intellectual property f...

OpenAI expanded its reach into Amazon’s cloud infrastructure through a partnership that integrated its latest models and coding capabilities into Amazon Bedrock, bringing together OpenAI’s artificial intelligence models with AWS’s enterprise-grade infrastructure to offer developers a unified platform for building generative AI applications. The integration centred on OpenAI’s open-weight models, specifically the gpt-oss-20b and gpt-oss-120b variants. The smaller model served use cases requiring lower latency and specialised applications, while the larger model targeted production environments and complex reasoning tasks. Both models featured a context window of 128,000 tokens, enabling developers to work with substantial amounts of information in a single interaction. The models supported text input and output modalities and could be invoked through multiple operations, including standard model invocation and batch inference capabilities. The Codex coding agent formed a key component o...

OpenAI was reportedly developing a smartphone built around artificial intelligence agents, marking a significant shift in how the technology company viewed hardware’s role in advancing AI capabilities, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The proposed smartphone would replace conventional apps with AI agents capable of understanding user intent and executing tasks autonomously. Instead of navigating between multiple applications, users would interact with a unified AI system that comprehended context and completed actions in real time, including booking flights, compiling market data, managing communications, and handling other requests without requiring users to switch between different applications. OpenAI’s approach involved vertical integration, with the company controlling both the operating system and hardware architecture. This strategy mirrored Apple’s business model and would allow OpenAI’s AI systems deeper access to device-level features than currently possible through app-bas...

New Delhi: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide is rumoured to get the same smaller cover-screen selfie camera cutout as the standard Fold 8, shrinking from 3.7mm to just 2.5mm. That should make the outer display look cleaner and more immersive. Last week, it was reported that the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is getting a smaller selfie camera hole. Well, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide could get the same upgrade, it would seem. This information comes from the same source that shared the Galaxy Z Fold 8 details, Ice Universe. He said, via Weibo, that the so-called Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide will join the Galaxy Z Fold 8 when it comes to shrinking its “front view camera”. As in the earlier report, this appears to refer to the camera hole on the cover display. It is not clear whether the same change will apply to the main display. The camera hole on the front is expected to shrink from 3.7mm to 2.5mm in diameter, a difference that should be easily noticeable. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 has a 3.7mm diameter camera cutout. The d...

Samsung shifted its focus to stable builds for One UI 8.5 over the past few days as the software appeared to enter the final phase for a stable rollout, with the Beta Program underway and the last update expected next week. Samsung opened the One UI 8.5 Beta Program for the Galaxy S25 series in December. The beta activity arrived in six countries, while users in other markets remained on One UI 8.0, based on the Android 16 operating system. Samsung rolled out nine beta updates to the Galaxy S25 series during the Beta Program. The last, 10th beta update could be pushed on April 20. The final rollout of the One UI 8.5 firmware was said to kickstart on April 30 in South Korea. This week, Samsung uploaded new stable builds to its server for Galaxy S series smartphones. The Galaxy S22 series had yet to grab any attention in terms of a major software update. The latest stable builds listed were: Galaxy S23 series – FZD7 Galaxy S24 series – DZD9 Galaxy S25 series – CZDB Galaxy S23 FE – GZD7 G...

A nthropic announced on Friday that it’s launching Claude Design, a new experimental product that lets users create visuals like prototypes, slides, one-pagers, and more using Claude. The company says Claude Design is intended to help people like founders and product managers without a design background share their ideas more easily. With Claude Design, users describe what they want, and Claude will create an initial version. From there, users can refine the visuals with direct edits or requests. For example, you could ask Claude to “prototype a serene mobile meditation app. It should have calming typography, subtle nature-inspired colors, and a clean layout.” You could then tweak the colors, the size of the typography, or ask Claude to add a dark mode toggle. While Claude Design may initially seem like it’s looking to compete with popular design app Canva, which has just expanded its own AI capabilities, Anthropic said that it’s intended to complement it rather than replace it. The co...

O penAI has rolled out a major set of updates to Codex, positioning it as a tool for “almost everything” in modern software and creative workflows. These updates, now rolling out on the Codex desktop app, significantly expand what Codex can see, connect to, and act on—bringing it closer to a true AI work companion rather than a narrow coding assistant. One of the most notable changes is deeper tool integration. Codex now supports more than 90 plugins, allowing it to gather context and take action across the tools many teams already rely on. This includes documentation platforms, project management systems, code review tools, creative software, and deployment pipelines. Instead of switching contexts, users can increasingly orchestrate work directly through Codex, reducing friction across complex workflows. Automations can now run in the same thread, so Codex can pick up where it left off, with the original context intact. It can schedule future work and wake up automatically to continue...

Image: Samsung The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is the latest flagship smartphone from the South Korean tech giant, and it has left a lasting impression on this reviewer. Despite its uninspired design, the device has a lot to offer, including a stunning display, improved camera, and a user-friendly interface. But is it worth the hefty price tag of $1,300? Design and Hardware The Galaxy S25 Ultra's design is reminiscent of its predecessors, with a few minor tweaks. The device features a 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED display, which is both vibrant and sharp. The phone's build quality is solid, with a durable glass back and a metal frame. However, the design is not particularly innovative, and the lack of color options is a letdown. The phone is available in black, gray, and a grayish-blue hue, which may not appeal to users who prefer more vibrant colors. One of the notable changes in the design is the curved corners, which provide a more comfortable grip. The phone also features a lighter ...

 Samsung has officially confirmed the rollout timeline of its One UI 7 software update, which is based on Android 15, for eligible smartphones. The company has announced that the upcoming Galaxy S series, expected to be launched on January 22, will be the first phones to launch with the stable version of One UI 7. One UI 7 Update to be Released by March According to Samsung, the stable version of One UI 7 will be sequentially rolled out to other existing Galaxy devices, including smartphones and tablets, by Q1 2025, which means that the update is expected to be completed by the end of March. The update will include user feedback obtained through the beta programs, the company said. Eligible Devices to Receive One UI 7 Update The Galaxy S24 series is expected to be the first handsets to be updated to One UI 7, based on previous years' trends. The One UI 7 Beta 3 version was rolled out for select Samsung Galaxy smartphone users earlier this month, introducing faster fingerprint recog...

A new rumor has surfaced suggesting that Apple may release a 'Plus' variant of the iPhone SE 4, in addition to the standard model. This information comes from Japanese blog, Macotakara, which has a history of providing accurate information about upcoming Apple devices. According to the report, the iPhone SE 4 is expected to use the iPhone 14 design as a template, with a single camera on the back. However, the 'Plus' variant, if it materializes, may feature a larger 6.7-inch display, similar to the iPhone 14 Plus. This is speculation at this point, as the final design and dimensions of the iPhone SE 4 have not yet been decided, according to the report. The standard iPhone SE 4 is expected to have the same dimensions as the iPhone 14, measuring 146.7 x 71.5 x 7.8mm. The location of the TrueDepth front camera is also expected to be the same as on the iPhone 14. The arrangement of the microphone and stereo speakers is also expected to be identical to the iPhone 14. Addition...

  Google has officially released Android 15, the latest iteration of its popular mobile operating system, which is now rolling out to Pixel devices. This update brings several new features and enhancements, including improved security, redesigned interface elements, and enhanced user experience. Security Enhancements Android 15 introduces a new feature called Private space, which allows users to create a separate, secure environment for sensitive apps. This feature can be accessed through the app drawer or by searching for "Private space." Private space includes apps such as Camera, Chrome, Contacts, and Photos, and users can customize the lock settings to secure their data. Additionally, Android 15 enhances the security of Find My Device and other sensitive settings by requiring PIN, password, or biometric authentication. The operating system also includes enhanced factory reset protection, making it more difficult for thieves to reset devices without the owner...

  Adobe, a leading innovator in digital media and marketing solutions, has recently unveiled a groundbreaking addition to its Firefly suite—a cutting-edge video generator. This new tool is designed to revolutionize the way users create and share video content, offering a seamless and efficient experience that leverages the latest advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. The video generator, integrated within the Firefly platform, enables users to produce high-quality videos with minimal effort. By harnessing the power of AI, the tool can automatically generate video content based on user-provided text, images, and audio inputs. This functionality not only streamlines the video creation process but also democratizes access to professional-grade video production, making it accessible to a broader audience. One of the standout features of the video generator is its ability to adapt to various user needs. Whether one is creating a promotional video for a busin...

  A recent leak has surfaced, showcasing a purported case for the upcoming iPhone SE 4, which is expected to be announced in early 2025. The image, shared by well-established tipster @SonnyDickson, provides insight into the design choices that Apple may have made for its next affordable iPhone. At first glance, the case design appears to be similar to that of the current iPhone SE 3, with the rear camera bump and button placement remaining largely unchanged. However, rumors suggest that the iPhone SE 4 will feature significant design tweaks, including the adoption of Face ID and the removal of Touch ID and the home button. The leaked case design does not confirm or contradict these rumors, but it does suggest that the iPhone SE 4 may have a similar overall design to the current model, albeit with some potential changes to the screen size and notch. The rumored 6.1-inch display and iconic notch would give the iPhone SE 4 a different look and feel compared to its predecessor....

  Image: Samsung In a move that is expected to bolster user satisfaction and device longevity, Samsung has announced that its newly launched Galaxy A16 5G model will receive six years of software updates. This decision is a significant departure from the standard practice in the mid-range smartphone market, where devices often receive updates for a shorter period. Moreover, Samsung has revealed that this six-year support window will not be limited to the Galaxy A16 5G alone. The company has stated that many of its future mid-range devices will also benefit from this extended support period, ensuring that newer models remain relevant and secure for an extended duration. This new policy reflects Samsung's commitment to its users and underscores the company's focus on enhancing the value proposition of its devices. However, it is worth noting that this extended support does not apply to older Samsung models, which will not be retroactively included in the six-year update policy. S...

  In a significant development, Google may be working on introducing extension support to the Chrome browser app for Android. This move could potentially bridge the gap between the mobile and desktop versions of the browser, offering users a more comprehensive browsing experience. Historically, Google has been hesitant to offer extension support on mobile versions of Chrome, with some reports suggesting that the company may be concerned about the impact of ad blockers, which are available as extensions. However, with the increasing demand for a more feature-rich mobile browsing experience, Google may be reevaluating its stance. According to recent reports, Google is developing a new version of Chrome for Android, aimed at "desktop" devices like Chromebooks. This new version, dubbed "Desktop Android," is expected to support browser extensions, a feature that has been absent from the mobile version of Chrome. The introduction of Desktop Android is part of Goog...