Summary
The world’s biggest mobile event, MWC 2024, took place in Barcelona this week, bringing together the biggest brands in technology to present their newest ideas and prototypes. Despite all of the commotion, the two largest players in the Android market continued to dominate headlines, with Samsung and Google dominating the spotlight with their hardware and software launches and speculations. We definitely don’t blame you if you missed any of the major Android news this week during the chaos; in fact, we’ll quickly catch you up with the top five stories from the last seven days, which are listed below the jump.
In the code, a second new Chromecast was discovered
News of yet another new Chromecast, or at least its codename, appearing in the Google Home app for Android arrived late on Friday. Mentions to a “YTD” model were discovered among the well-known “YTV” (4K Chromecast) and “YTB” (1080p) variants in an APK deconstruction. This suggests that new hardware is in the pipeline, but we shouldn’t hold our breath too much because of a similar result from earlier in the year.
The software extravaganza of the Galaxy S24
Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series provides some rather conventional technology apart from enhancements like squared corners and titanium frames, but it’s been selling like hotcakes. Why? Because as Samsung has shown by emphasizing software in its top phones this year, there’s more to a phone than OLED panels, massive batteries, and powerful CPUs.
Apart from its functional albeit somewhat odd Galaxy AI software suite, Samsung has been rather responsive when it comes to S24 series upgrades. Three weeks after the phone’s debut, Samsung released its first fresh firmware, and late that week it began seeding a second one. This occurred soon after the Google Play System Update for the S24 and other Galaxy handsets was released in February, indicating that Samsung is prioritizing software this year.
Wear OS prioritizes battery life
With the debut of the OnePlus Watch 2, which we had previously placed under embargo prior to our in-depth review by Gadgets Editor Taylor Kerns, the MWC excitement began in earnest. The new wearable has many positive aspects, such as an excellent charger, but one feature in particular sticks out: it has an actual four-day battery life in testing, not just on paper. We soon discovered that this was no coincidence and that Google’s new hybrid Wear OS interface was mostly responsible for the advances.
A dual OS interface that enables watches to transfer some of their processing to a low-power processor running a separate operating system is what saves batteries. Subsequently, we learned that this was probably the inspiration for Google’s new watch face format, which it encourages developers to utilize in order to guarantee compatibility with next Wear OS versions. This week’s most important tech news for smartwatch users is likely this one, therefore we strongly advise you to read Android expert Mishaal Rahman’s in-depth explanation of the new Wear OS hybrid interface.
Google releases a significant Android MWC upgrade
Google pounded us with a tonne of new features first thing on Monday morning, Barcelona time (and obnoxiously early for those of us in US time zones). We discovered that the business was finally releasing Spotify Connect integration in Android’s new media player, and we found out that Gemini was being rolled out in Google Messages—but only to those who were probably still sleeping at the time and only in the beta channel.
The tale doesn’t stop there, however, as Google also released new Wear OS upgrades to make navigation simpler and added new features to major apps like Google Docs and Google Maps. Our extensive summary of Google’s spring release is provided here.The next major hardware event from Samsung is almost here.
As we wrap off this week’s news summary, we’ll look forward and see how much hardware Samsung still has planned for 2024, even if the rumor mill has been picking up steam lately. While the impending Galaxy Ring was not available for trial, we did learn a lot about the new wearable during the trade expo. Everyone at MWC went crazy at first sight.
Meanwhile, these leaked renderings gave us our first decent look at the impending Galaxy Z Flip 6, and that followed another set that revealed the Galaxy Z Fold 6. In relation to the latter, we discovered that there may even be a Z Fold Ultra model this year, despite contradicting rumors suggesting the second model is a less expensive Z Fold FE. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long to find out since this year’s Samsung Unpacked presentation is predicted to take place sooner than normal, showcasing foldables and the Galaxy Ring.
