Mobile UX

Mobile UX

Last month, Realme announced its flagship GT 8 Pro in China with a novel design approach. The back features a removable lens cover that allows for easy customization and different styles, ranging from round to square and robot styles, with various color and material finishes. Ahead of the GT 8 Pro's global launch, Realme shared some additional information regarding the GT 8 Pro's switchable camera bump and its other key design features.

OnePlus has now started rolling out the stable update to OxygenOS 16 based on Android 16 to the OnePlus 12. The rollout is starting with units purchased in India, and OnePlus promises it will reach more regions soon.

WhatsApp has finally released an app for the Apple Watch. The new app lets you access basic functionality of the service without having to pull your phone out. The new WhatsApp app for Apple Watch supports being able to read full messages instead of just snippets. You can also see more of your chat history while reading messages. You can record and send voice messages and also send quick emoji as reactions.

OnePlus unveiled the Ace 6 alongside the flagship 15 last month, but apparently the Ace 6 family still isn't complete. You may have expected an Ace 6 Pro to arrive at some later point, and that could still happen, but in the meantime OnePlus is preparing the Ace 6 Pro Max. It's definitely a bit strange how Chinese smartphone makers seem to have all collectively decided to use the Pro Max suffix this year - hi Xiaomi and Oppo.

The changelog is extensive and includes Modes, which let you block notifications to help you concentrate in situations like driving, working, or sleeping. You also get a new Recommended option in display quality settings, there's a new way to set the screen's white balance, there's a new way to turn Side sense on and off, you get the ability to open the lock screen settings from the home screen, and you can now check the battery's status too.

Y500 Pro (V2516A) will feature a 6.67-inch AMOLED display with 2,800 x 1,260px resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. The device is equipped with MediaTek's Dimensity 7400 chipset alongside 12GB RAM and either 256 or 512GB storage. Vivo is bringing a massive 7,000 mAh silicon-carbon battery with 90W charging. The device also features IP68 and IP69 ingress protection and boots OriginOS 6.

The gaming smartphone market has grown rapidly, offering players a wide range of options that combine strong performance with stylish designs and advanced cooling systems. Modern mid-range phones can now handle demanding titles easily, thanks to faster processors, high-refresh-rate AMOLED displays, and game-optimised software. This means you no longer need to buy an ultra-premium flagship to enjoy smooth, console-like gameplay. Devices priced under Rs. 40,000 now deliver an excellent balance of performance, style, and value, catering to both casual gamers and esports enthusiasts.

London has always been the heart of global currency trading, but things are changing fast. More traders, from beginners to professionals, now use mobile forex apps to manage their trades and analyse markets. As prices swing faster and working habits evolve, these tools are helping traders stay connected and in control wherever they are. Independent reviews of the leading forex apps in the UK show how mobile platforms have become essential for both accessibility and performance.

Honor launched the Magic8 and Magic8 Pro in China in mid-October, and the company is now gearing up for the international launch of the latter. The Magic8 Pro will begin its journey outside of China in Malaysia, where it's already being teased by Honor's local arm. There's no exact launch date yet, only a "coming soon" notice posted to Honor's Malaysian X account, as you can see below.

With this new model, Apple is claiming a 2x improvement in active noise cancellation over the AirPods Pro 2, which is apparently good enough for the title of the world's best in-ear active noise cancellation. There are new foam-infused ear tips that come in five sizes, improved audio quality, heart rate monitoring, an IP57 rating, more precise Find My, and a new Live Translation feature. Meanwhile, you still get things like adaptive EQ, personalized Spatial Audio

Under a new partnership between Adobe and YouTube, the free Adobe Premiere mobile app (launched last month for iOS) will soon add Create for YouTube Shorts. The new content-creation space will provide access to Adobe's video-editing tools including exclusive effects, transitions, title presets and more tailored to YouTube Shorts.

Samsung's growth was driven by the Galaxy Z Fold7 and Flip7, as well as the A07 and A17. Apple's base iPhone 17 "outperformed launch expectations due to improved value proposition". Xiaomi shipments in China declined after state subsidy programs ended, but growth in Asia-Pacific and other regions offset that. The entire market shipped 320.1 million units in Q3, a 3% increase year-on-year.

While Natzir was analyzing his access logs, he found an undocumented user agent string "GeminiiOS" that didn't appear anywhere in Google's or public documentation. After he did some digging, he was able to confirm that it corresponds to visits generated from the WebView embedded inside the Gemini app on iOS. The example user agent Nazir sent me was: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 18_7_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/15E148 GoogleWv/1.0 (WKWebView) GeminiiOS/1.2025.4170000

For a while now, Google has been AI-ifying everything it owns, and the latest AI infusion just went straight to the Play Store on Android. This is now showing AI generated review summaries for apps listed in the store, which should save you a lot of time skimming various app reviews to get a feel for how good or bad a specific app is.

A YouTuber named Michi NekoMichi recently posted a slow-motion video that recorded him typing the phrase "thumbs up" on his iPhone keyboard. The video showed that even when the correct key was pressed, the phone would enter the wrong character, typically one surrounding the key he pressed. For example, typing the letter u would insert the letter y or h instead, while typing the letter m would insert the letter n.

Tariffs have been a major topic in the tech world this year, with the ongoing US-China trade war, but it seems we've reached a turning point. President Trump came to an agreement with Xi Jinping to reduce tariffs on Chinese goods from 57% to 47%. In addition, China is suspending its restrictions on US rare-earth mineral imports for one year.

Today, Gemini for Home has started rolling out in the US, but there's a catch. Gemini for Home is currently in early access mode, and if you want to be among the first people in the US to be able to test it, you need to request access. To do this, go to Google Groups settings > Global Settings, and make sure "Add me to their groups" is checked.

During the event, Oppo also shared the global release timeline for its ColorOS 16 update. While the ColorOS 16 rollout for compatible devices is scheduled to begin in China on October 30, global users will have to wait a little longer. Oppo's ColorOS 16 update will be first available on the Find N5, Find N3, Find N3 Flip, the Find X8 series, Reno 14 lineup, Reno 13 series, and the Pad 3 Pro in November.

Honor launched the Magic8 and Magic8 Pro in China earlier this month, but it's also rumored to be working on the Magic8 Ultra that will arrive at some later point, probably early next year. This is now said to be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC, unsurprisingly. It allegedly boasts a quad-curved 6.71" LTPO OLED screen with "1.5K" resolution, with an ultrasonic embedded fingerprint sensor and support for 3D face recognition.

Earlier this month, Motorola listed the X70 Air on the Lenovo China website, but did not reveal pricing or availability details. The company has now confirmed the pricing of its new 'Air' phone. The Moto X70 Air is priced at CNY 2,399 ($340) for the 12GB/256GB variant, whereas the 12GB/512GB option will cost you CNY 2,699 ($380). The phone is available in Bronze Green, Gadget Gray, and Lily Pad colors.

However, this is now very unlikely to happen, a tipster on X says. The rollout is delayed, and it's all connected to the Galaxy S26+. This model was initially scrapped by Samsung, only to be brought back to life recently in the face of the Galaxy S25 Edge's dismal sales (the S26 Edge was supposedly replacing the S26+, but now the S26 Edge has been canceled and the S26+ is back on track).