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Update: October 15, 2024 (6:50 AM ET): Amazon has confirmed that the Apple TV Plus add-on is now available in Prime Video. Apple’s service still costs $9.99/month when used via Prime Video. Furthermore, you don’t need to download a separate Apple TV app or make an Apple account to take advantage of this add-on.

Original article: October 10, 2024 (5:01 AM ET): For years, Apple has enabled other streaming services to offer their content in its TV app. This increases their exposure, lets users subscribe using the same Apple Account billing details, and presents content from different providers in a single hub. For similar reasons, Apple will start offering its own TV Plus content as an Amazon Prime Video add-on in the US later this month.

In a few weeks, US-based Prime Video subscribers will be able to join Apple TV Plus using Amazon’s app. The add-on will cost the same $9.99/month fee presented in Apple’s app and grant viewers access to the complete catalog of movies and series. This will provide a convenient way for those not invested in Apple’s ecosystem to enjoy the company’s originals — without maintaining a separate account and billing details.

For those unfamiliar, Amazon already offers content from over a hundred services as Prime Video add-ons. Like Apple’s approach, this makes it easier to track subscriptions and watchlists, as they all live in the same cross-platform app.

While we know that the collaboration will materialize at some point this month, the companies haven’t publicly set a launch date yet. They’ve also stated that the Apple TV Plus add-on will eventually expand to non-US Prime Video users, but the specific countries and release window remain unclear.

Those unwilling to wait can still subscribe to TV Plus through Apple using the company’s devices, most relevant smart TVs, select gaming consoles, and official website.

YouTube Music is the go-to music streaming app for millions of users around the world. Optionally bundled with YouTube Premium, the service offers unofficial tracks and covers that aren’t necessarily available elsewhere. Despite its popularity and exclusives, however, a key feature remains missing for most users: uploading custom playlist thumbnails. While rivals like Spotify and Apple Music let users freely personalize their playlists, YouTube Music limits its playlist thumbnails to AI-generated images. Fortunately, the Google-owned company could address this shortcoming soon, as a user reportedly got the feature to work.

A Reddit user has posted a screen recording showcasing the highly requested feature. Based on the video, the user was able to upload custom playlist thumbnails using the YouTube Music web client. The option appears to be linked to a new button with a pencil icon that lets users pick from images saved to their local storage. You can also use the same button to replace or remove a previously uploaded image altogether.

Based on a 9to5Google report and Reddit commenters’ statements, the feature doesn’t appear to be widely available yet. Beyond the original poster, seemingly no one has been able to replicate its functionality. Whether the addition will roll out to more users in the near future remains unclear. After all, Google is notorious for its limited tests that often don’t see the light of day.

Google has been ramping up the overall health and security of the Android ecosystem, and the recent rollout of Theft protection features is testimony to that. These features aim to make stealing an Android flagship less desirable by adding roadblocks to its unauthorized use and resale. However, some of these well-intentioned features have room for mischief that could annoy legitimate users. To counter that, Google had announced its intention to strengthen the Remote Lock feature with a security challenge, and we now have a better idea of how that would shape up.

Google began rolling out a new set of Theft protection features for Android devices with Google Play Services last week. The features included Theft Detection Lock, Offline Device Lock, and Remote Lock. Theft Detection Lock locks your device if someone abruptly takes your phone and runs away, while Offline Device Lock locks your device if someone tries to keep it disconnected from the internet for an extended period of time.

Remote Lock lets you remotely lock your phone using just your phone number, in case you can’t remember your Google account password to sign into the Find My Device service. You can access Remote Lock at android.com/lock.

While the features are well-intentioned and generally enhance the security of Android devices globally, keen-eyed readers would notice that the Remote Lock feature, in particular, has room for creating some nuisance. Since you can force enter the lock screen of any device using just a phone number and no further authentication, bad actors could play mischief by remotely locking devices. It’s not a big issue since a legitimate owner could easily get past the lock screen, but someone with a vendetta could certainly make their life a little inconvenient.

Google Play Services v24.41.34 beta addresses this scope of mischief by introducing a Security Challenge for Remote Lock. Google mentioned the security challenge in its announcement in May 2024 but did not share further details about it.

Remote Lock feature throws you a lifeline if your phone is already gone. You’ll be able to lock the screen of your phone with just your phone number and a quick security challenge using any device. This buys you time to recover your account details and access additional helpful options in Find My Device, including sending a full factory reset command to completely wipe the device.

This security challenge feature has not yet been rolled out, but we activated its UI to show you what it could entail.

As you can see, you can set a date as a security challenge. To set up, change, and delete the security challenge, you will require biometric authentication on your device. Once you set up the security challenge on Android, Google will likely provide a data picker on the web for remote lock.

Remote Lock’s website does not show any fields to enter the security challenge yet (as you can see in the first set of screenshots), so this feature could be rolled out in the coming weeks. We’ll keep you informed when we learn more. There’s still room for someone to guess a significant date associated with you that you would use as a security challenge, but even this by itself vastly reduces the scope of mischief.

Samsung and Apple both enjoyed major launches in the past quarter, with new foldable phones and the iPhone 16 series, respectively. Now, a tracking firm has revealed that the two brands are neck-and-neck when it comes to market share.

Canalys reports that Apple and Samsung both achieved 18% market share in Q3 2024, although the firm gave the lead to Samsung. Xiaomi was a comfortable third place with 14% of the market. OPPO (9%) and vivo (9%) rounded out the top five.

“Apple achieved its highest third-quarter volume to date and has never been closer to leading the global smartphone market in a Q3 than now,” Canalys analyst Runar Bjørhovde was quoted as saying.

The iPhone 16 series had a limited impact on the quarter as it was only available for three days in Q3. Instead, Bjørhovde cited sales of the iPhone 15 series and earlier models as the biggest reasons for Apple’s success in the quarter.

Nevertheless, we’re expecting Apple to steal the crown from Samsung in Q4 as the full impact of the iPhone 16 series launch is felt. But we’re also keen to see Xiaomi’s performance in Q4 as it recently launched the Redmi Note 14 series in China and is expected to launch the Xiaomi 15 series in its home market too.

Google Messages is back in the limelight these days as the primary medium for RCS messaging on the Android platform. More and more companies are ditching their messaging apps in favor of Google Messages, so it is important for Messages to evolve into a service that fulfills the needs and expectations of a wider user base. Google officially announced Profiles back in November 2023 as a way for profile discovery. While the feature is still seeing a spotty rollout, we’ve spotted clues that indicate Google is working on fixing privacy concerns around profile discovery.

As part of the Profiles, aka the Profile Discovery feature, users can choose to:

• Use either the name from your profile or a short name.
• Show or hide your profile picture.

Google Messages v20241010 beta includes changes that give users more granular controls over who can see their name and profile picture. We managed to activate the options for this upcoming feature:

With the new options inside Google Messages, you have three choices for profile privacy and visibility:

• People you message: This option will likely show everyone you message your name and profile photo first. It can also be interpreted as similar to setting your profile to “Public” on a social media website, letting everyone find you when they look up your number through the Profile Discovery feature.
• Only your contacts: This option will likely restrict your name and profile picture and make it visible to only people in your phone’s contact book.
• No one: This option will likely hide your name and profile picture from everyone.

These new options will likely be presented to users when they log into Google Messages for the first time (once this change rolls out), as you can see in the first screenshot. Post initialization, you will be able to access this setting through the “Your profile” option in the account switcher, as you can see in the second screenshot.

It’s unclear if choosing the “No one” option will turn off profile discovery features. Nonetheless, the flexibility of these options will remedy a good chunk of legitimate privacy concerns that people had about their name and profile picture being visible to anyone with their number or even to people who randomly searched for numbers.

It’s important to note that you still cannot set a different profile picture or name for Google Messages. Your profile on Google Messages takes the name and picture of your Google account, i.e., your Gmail profile picture.

Profiles haven’t been widely rolled out to all Google Messages users yet, even a year after their announcement. But it’s good to see Google make progress on fixing privacy concerns before a wider rollout. We don’t know when this feature will be available to all users, but we’ll keep you updated.

With AI assistants and tools now widely accessible, scams are getting even more sophisticated. One such Gmail takeover scam is currently going around, wherein users are tricked into thinking they are interacting with Google. The scammers even spoof Google phone numbers and email addresses for the sake of credibility.

Sam Mitrovic, an IT consultant focused on Microsoft security, reports that he was the target of this scam. It started with him receiving a notification to approve a Gmail account recovery attempt. The request originated from the US. When he denied it, he received a call from an Australian number with a Google caller ID. He ignored the call and forgot all about it. A week later, the same thing happened again, and this time, he picked up the call. An American voice greeted him, with the individual claiming he was from Google and that the company had noticed suspicious activity on his Gmail account. When Mitrovic Googled the phone number from where the call originated, he found it in Google’s official list of numbers from where people can expect to receive calls from Google Assistant.

The caller then told Mitrovic that he had sent him an email. The email also seemed to originate from a Google domain. However, some minor sleuthing revealed a non-Google email address in the “To” field of the email. The email address was cleverly named “GoogleMail at InternalCaseTracking dot com.” This immediately concerned Mitrovic, who later also realized that the Google representative he was speaking with was using an AI voice.

Ultimately, Mitrovic did not fall for the scheme, but this isn’t the first time someone has reported the fraud. It seems incidents like these involving spoofed Google numbers and email addresses have been going on for a while. Others have reported receiving similar AI scam calls on Reddit.

These scam attempts should serve as a warning to readers to be extra vigilant on emails and calls. If you receive a call about suspicious activity on your Gmail account, be sure to investigate it thoroughly before taking any action. If you suspect that your Gmail account has been compromised, you can take the following steps to secure it.

• Change your Gmail password immediately.
• Enable two-factor authentication for your Gmail account.
• Be wary of any emails or calls asking you to provide your personal information or click suspicious links.

You can also find tips on recovering your Google account if it’s hacked here.

Phone insurance, like all insurance, is a gamble. What are the odds you damage your phone, in a way that’s covered by your plan, to an extent that would cost more to fix than you’d pay for the plan itself? For some shoppers, that’s an easy decision, while others are going to feel like they don’t have enough data to make an educated call. And as a result, they might end up declining that coverage when purchasing a new phone. Well, if you’re a Samsung user who’s starting to have some second thoughts about passing on insurance, you may be in luck, as the manufacturer extends a special grace period for Samsung Care Plus enrollment.

Normally, if you’re interested in Samsung Care Plus, you have to either sign up at the time you purchase your phone, or within 60 days of that date — Samsung doesn’t want you using (and abusing) your phone for months, and only signing up for insurance after it’s halfway to destroyed, after all. But from now through November 24, Samsung is offering an extended open enrollment for eligible devices, even past that 60-day cut-off.

Now, the eligibility list is a little narrow, but the good news is that it hits all the highlights. This offer is good for the Galaxy S24 series, the Galaxy Z Flip 6, and the Galaxy Z Fold 6, as well as the more budget-oriented Galaxy A25 and A15.

If you’ve got one of those models and want to start covering it, you can get Samsung Care Plus with Theft and Loss for 20% off the normal rate. The flagships count as “tier 4” devices under how Samsung prices its plan, and 24 months of coverage will normally run you $349. The A-series phones are only “tier 1,” though, with the same coverage going for $129 before this discount.

Before you get any smart ideas about insuring the Z Fold 6 you accidentally bent backwards, Samsung is clear that a Device Quality Certification is required when signing up, meaning that you’ll have to film a video of your currently intact, functional phone. Samsung wasn’t born yesterday, after all. But if that sounds fine, go ahead and visit the Samsung Care Plus site to get started.

When the iPhone 15 released last year, I took the plunge and switched from Android after a decade of loyalty, hoping that Apple’s long-awaited adoption of USB-C would ease the transition. Unfortunately, I quickly found that I missed Android’s extensive customization and certain features like notification channels. But with each iOS update, Apple seems to be listening to its users and addressing common pain points from migrating Android users.

In that vein, the latest iOS 18 update this year brings many customization options and usability improvements that could finally offer the flexibility I’ve always loved about Android. But is it enough to convince long-time Android users like me to stick with iOS this time around? I think so, and here’s why.

After nearly two decades, iOS now finally allows you to place icons anywhere on your homescreen — with as much blank space as you’d like. You still have to respect the underlying grid but there are few restrictions otherwise. Icon gaps between may not seem like a big deal but it’s an important feature to me — it means I can avoid placing icons along the top edge of the screen where it’s difficult to reach one-handed. It also lets me show off more of my wallpaper, which I greatly appreciate coming from Android.

Besides placement, the latest version of iOS offers a surprising amount of icon-level customization too. For instance, you can now remove app labels entirely for a minimalist look and make certain icons larger than others. And all of that’s before we even talk about widgets, which have been neglected on Android for some time now. It goes without saying that built-in and third-party iOS widgets offer far more functionality than on Android, and you can even stack them. Only Samsung’s One UI skin comes close to matching this experience.

The iOS 18 update also introduces a wealth of icon theming options. You can’t install fully custom icon packs, but the color tinting and dark mode option should be enough for most Android users, including myself.

Of course, iOS won’t replicate the traditional Android launcher experience for me until you can swipe up for an app drawer. Moreover, I’m not happy that Apple doesn’t let me select a custom grid size like many Android launchers. The default density leads to a lot of wasted space especially on the larger models. At the very least, going from the iPhone 16 to the iPhone 16 Plus should result in an additional row of icons.

So while the home screen changes are a step in the right direction, I wouldn’t call Apple’s offering better than the myriad Android launchers we’ve had for over a decade.

On the subject of home screen management, locking and hiding apps is an example of the small, quality-of-life features that Apple manages to perfect, even if it won’t single-handedly convince me to switch to an iPhone. With iOS 18, you can long press on an app’s icon and select a new option to hide it behind an additional Face ID gate. This will move the app into a secure “Hidden” folder in the App Library page. It’s a handy feature if you frequently hand your phone out to strangers and don’t want them to access messaging apps while casually scrolling through your phone.

This isn’t a groundbreaking feature, but it’s surprising that Android still doesn’t offer something like this at a system-wide level. I could download third-party launchers that do the same thing, but they only offer the illusion of security. Luckily, you can still use One UI’s Secure Folder or the Private Space feature in Android 15 to create a…private space for your apps and data. However, this is more like a separate user account in PC terms and isn’t as convenient as tapping and authenticating individual apps.

Given that Google already offers a Locked Folder within the Google Photos app, I hope the ability to hide singular apps comes to Android sooner or later.

The iPhone 16 series introduced a Camera Control button, complete with a capacitive sensor that allows you to slide your finger to access features like zoom. But even before that, the iPhone 15 Pro replaced the mute switch with a programmable Action Button. Given Apple’s usual one-size-fits-all policy, you’d expect the button to be limited to one or two functions. However, the company broke from tradition here, allowing us to customize the button for a variety of genuinely useful actions.

You can set up the Action Button to launch the camera, turn on the flashlight, open specific apps, or even run custom Shortcuts for more complex routines. It’s a small addition, but it offers a level of flexibility that’s rare to see from Apple. And surprisingly, we haven’t seen it replicated on Android yet. The Pixel’s quick-tap gesture or Samsung’s Bixby button remapping come to mind, but the latter was short-lived and Google has changed how the power button works too many times to count at this point.

Once again, the Action button isn’t revolutionary but it’s helping to close the gaping customization gap that has long existed between iOS and Android.

If you’re a long-time Android user, you might already be familiar with automation app Tasker. It allows you to create custom routines and actions, like automatically turning off Wi-Fi when you leave home or enabling auto-rotate when you open the Netflix app. But Tasker is a separate app, and some of its more powerful functions require ADB permissions or even root access, which isn’t practical for everyone.

Apple’s Shortcuts app achieves effectively the same thing on iOS, with an easy-to-use interface as an added bonus. It’s not a new feature, but I was surprised to find it when I first started using an iPhone, given Apple’s reputation for favoring simplicity above all else. And if you’re willing to tinker a bit, Shortcuts can even be used to get around certain iOS limitations, like setting up custom app icons.

Samsung admittedly offers similar functionality via Bixby Routines but most people don’t venture that far into Bixby menus and it’s not available on my Pixel. I wish I could turn off my Pixel’s always-on display between certain times like when I’m sleeping or automatically fire off a WhatsApp message to my partner when I tap an NFC tag in my car.

You can do a lot of device automation with Tasker on Android, but it often feels like a workaround rather than a fully integrated solution. This makes the Shortcuts app one more example of Apple delivering a polished yet powerful option that helps motivate advanced users like me to switch away from Android.

Like the power button, Google has changed various aspects of the Android notification shade and quick settings menu more frequently than I’d like. Not all of these changes are consequential or even well-received, though, like the decision to combine the Wi-Fi and mobile data toggles. On the other hand, Apple has only improved the iPhone’s Control Center, which is equivalent in function to the quick settings menu on Android.

With iOS 18, the Control Center has gained the ability to rearrange the layout of controls and delete toggles you’ll never use. At face value, this might look like iOS has only caught up to what Android has offered for years. However, Apple didn’t stop there and added the ability to resize controls, similar to homescreen widgets. The interface now also has the ability to create multiple pages for different controls. This means you can create a page dedicated to smart home controls, another for media playback controls, and so on.

As an Android user, the iPhone’s Control Center seems far more customizable and interactive. You can add a dedicated cellular data toggle, for instance, and that’s already more choice than modern Android versions. Beyond that, I’d love to add individual toggles for my smart home or programmable buttons that let me open any app. Once again, these are possible on Android but only with the right third-party app.

All in all, the iOS 18 update is not just a step in the right direction but a clear indication that Apple has finally opened its eyes to the benefits of customization. It brings the iPhone closer than ever to the flexibility that Android users have long enjoyed, without losing any of iOS’ simplicity. There are still areas where Android remains ahead for me personally, though, mostly in relation to notification management. But with another major iOS update or two, I could definitely see myself and many other Android loyalists lured to the other side.

It’s hard to believe, but it has been a decade since Destiny first launched. Although the future of the franchise is up in the air due to recent Bungie layoffs and upheaval, players will be getting a new game set in the Destiny universe. That new game will not be Destiny 3, but rather a mobile game created by NetEase.

Today, NetEase Games announced it is developing and publishing a game called Destiny: Rising, with official licensing from Destiny creator Bungie. The game is described as a free-to-play sci-fi RPG shooter that takes place in an alternate Destiny timeline during the post-Dark Age era.

Players will have access to playable hero characters with unique abilities, a shared world, and multiple game modes. It will introduce new characters, PvE and PvP modes, and locations, in addition to characters, modes, and locales you’re already familiar with. You can watch a breakdown of what the game entails in the preview video below.

You’ll be able to play the title in single-player, co-op, and competitive multiplayer, just like the mainline game. It’s important to point out that the game will allow you to choose between touch controls or controller. You also have the choice of playing from a first-person or third-person perspective.

If you’re interested in giving it a try, NetEase has started registration for a limited-access alpha. The alpha test is scheduled for November 1, 2024. When you sign up, you’ll have to select what model of Android or iOS device you have.