In this week’s top stories: The leak of Android 12 reveals a radical new design, Google Pixel Buds receive their first firmware update of 2021, Samsung continues to place ads on its main Galaxy phones and more.
The biggest news from Google this week is that the Android 12 mockups were leaked, with the leak revealing a major overhaul of the operating system design. In the images, we see confirmation that Android 12 received an in-depth theme system, along with a curious new “Conversations” widget that continues to focus on people.
When it comes to privacy, Google will alert users when the microphone or camera is active. There will be a green pill in the upper right corner of the status that reduces to a point. When touched on the notification sheet, more information is provided with links to settings. A new unified privacy settings page will allow users to “Disable camera”, “Mute microphone” and turn the location on / off at a high level. The last control is currently its own preferences page.
This week, Google released a firmware update for Pixel Buds, going from version 552 to 553. So far, Google has not released any information about what this update contains.
[…] The [update] process starts by connecting Pixel Buds to your phone. Over about 10 minutes, the new firmware is transferred to the headphones. After placing the buttons in the charging case, it takes another 10 minutes for the update to occur. All components must be sufficiently loaded.
On the Samsung side of things, our Ben Schoon took the time to show how frustrating it is that even Samsung’s flagship phones display ads for Samsung devices and services. Fortunately, you can disable some of these ads, although not all from them.
Okay, so let’s start with the bad news. Samsung never leaves you totally turn off the ads. The most effective way to get rid of ads is to disable notifications, as detailed below. The rest, however, is not so easy to get rid of. If you want to use Samsung’s Weather app, you will probably see ads as you do so. The same applies to many other Samsung applications.
In the news from Google Nest, Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max received a firmware update for version 1.52 this week. With the update, smart monitors gained a new alarm clock experience – including the “Sunrise alarm” that was originally exclusive to Pixel phones in the Pixel Stand accessory – a family guide and more.
Google released a preview of Zoom for the Nest Hub Max in December. Earlier this month, @MadeByGoogle tweeted that Zoom is “now available”. The broader release may coincide with this firmware, although the Google support document – with complete setup instructions – still mentions how the integration is “only available to a limited number of users”.
Fitbit, who is now part of Google, shared some improvements to his app this week, with the addition of blood glucose tracking to help people with diabetes. In addition, the ECG features of the newly launched Fitbit Sense will soon be available for use in Canada, New Zealand and the US.
Fitbit’s Load 4 is receiving an update that shows on the device SpO2 readings, as well as metric and skin temperature data in Health Metrics. This new fitness tracker firmware is “coming soon”.
The rest of this week’s main news follows:
Android |
Android TV / Google TV |
Applications and updates |
Chrome / OS |
Made by Google |
Stadia |
Wear OS |
Videos |
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