Android 15 will be available on supported Pixel devices in the coming weeks

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Image Credits: Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images

Google announced on Tuesday it’s releasing Android 15 and making its source code available ahead of the coming consumer launch, which will bring the new mobile operating system to supported Pixel devices in the coming weeks. The company also revealed that Android 15 will launch on select devices from Samsung, Honor, iQOO, Lenovo, Motorola, Nothing, OnePlus, Oppo, realme, Sharp, Sony, Tecno, vivo, and Xiaomi in the coming months.

The Android update will bring new additions like Private Space, a feature that lets users silo a portion of the operating system for sensitive information. The software update will also allow users to save their favorite split-screen app combinations for quick access and pin the taskbar permanently on the screen. Other additions include partial screen recording and more convenient passkeys.

As part of Tuesday’s announcement, Google revealed that it’s making Android 15 available on the Android Open Source Project, which provides the information and source code needed to create custom versions of the Android OS, port devices, and accessories to the Android platform and ensure compatibility requirements.

Google says Android 15 gives developers more ways to further tune their app experience to improve the way their apps run on any platform release. It’s also making improvements in areas like typography, internationalization, media and camera experiences, the user experience, privacy and security, Google says. On the latter, Android 15 will support sign-in with passkeys with a single tap, and other new protections against malicious actors.

As part of its developer outreach, Google will launch an educational series called Spotlight Weeks, where the company will delve into technical topics around building for Android, starting with a week of content about Android 15.

“Android 15 continues our mission of building a private and secure platform that helps improve your productivity while giving you new capabilities to produce beautiful apps, superior media and camera experiences, and an intuitive user experience, particularly on tablets and foldables,” wrote McCullough, VP of Product for Android Developer, in a blog post.

Android 15 gives developers access to improved typography and internalization, along with camera and media improvements. Google is also making most app-facing changes opt-in to give developers more time to make necessary app changes before their app targets SDK version 35.

Apple Intelligence features will be available on iPhone 15 Pro and devices with M1 or newer chips

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Apple Software Engineering SVP Craig Federighi, seen presenting Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2024

Image Credits: Apple

Apple announced a ton of new AI features under the new Apple Intelligence moniker at WWDC 2024. While the features are free to use, only a limited number of devices will get access to them.

These devices include iPhone 15 Pro along with iPad and Mac with M1 or newer chips. So older iPhones or iPhone 15 users won’t be able to use these features.

The company said that features under Apple Intelligence will be available to try out in U.S. English in beta as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia this fall, with some features and additional language support slotted for the next year.

The new Apple Intelligence features include revamped Siri, writing features across the system, image generation capabilities and GenAI-powered emoji.

Copilot logo

Microsoft Copilot is now available on iOS and Android

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Copilot logo

Image Credits: Microsoft

Over the holiday season, Microsoft quietly launched its Copilot app on Android and iOS, along with iPadOS. The app gives users access to Copilot, formerly known as Bing Chat, which operates similarly to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Like other AI chatbot, you can type in a question or a prompt and receive responses generated by artificial intelligence. Users can leverage the AI assistant to draft emails, compose stories or scripts, summarize complex texts, create personalized travel itineraries, write and update job resumes and more. Plus, You can use the app’s Image Creator feature, which is powered by DALL·E 3, to explore new styles and ideas, curate social media content, develop brand motifs, generate logo designs, create custom backgrounds, build a portfolio, visualize film and video storyboards and more.

Three screenshots of the Copilot iOS app
Image Credits: Microsoft

“By combining the power of GPT-4 with the imaginative capabilities of DALL·E 3, Copilot not only enhances your design workflow, but can also bring your creativity to inspiring new heights,” the app’s description reads.

Since the app’s launch over the holidays, Copilot been downloaded more than 1.5 million times so far worldwide across both Android and iOS, according to data provided to TechCrunch by mobile intelligence provider, data.ai.

With Copilot, you’re getting access to OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology for free, which is pretty significant because OpenAI’s GPT app runs on GPT-3.5 technology and charges for access to GPT-4.

The launch of Copilot on mobile comes as Microsoft rebranded Bing Chat to Copilot back in November. It’s worth noting that prior to the launch of Copilot on mobile, you could access similar functionality via the Bing Chat feature on the Bing app. It’s possible that Microsoft may plan to replace the Bing app with the Copilot app, but the tech giant hasn’t shared anything on that front so far.

The mobile launch also comes as Copilot has already been available on the web for some time now. With this latest launch, Microsoft is looking to offer Copilot as a standalone service and expand its reach even more.

Microsoft brings Copilot to Windows 10

Google's 'Circle to Search' feature illustrated on a smartphone image

Google's 'Circle to Search' feature is now available on the Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S24 series

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Google's 'Circle to Search' feature illustrated on a smartphone image

Image Credits: Google

Google announced today that its new Circle to Search feature is rolling out globally on the Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S24 series. The new feature, which was unveiled earlier this month, lets users search from anywhere on their phone using gestures like circling, highlighting, scribbling or tapping.

The tech giant believes the new feature aims to make it more natural to engage with Google Search whenever a question pops into your head, like when you’re watching a video or looking at an image on a social app. For example, if you’re watching a video where someone is eating a Korean corn dog, you could circle the corn dog and ask, “Why are these so popular?”

Image Credits: Google

The feature can be engaged through other gestures, as well, not just circles. If you’re chatting in a messaging app with a friend about a restaurant, you could simply tap on the name of the restaurant to see more details about it without having to leave the app.

Circle to Search also makes it easier to look up definitions of words or phrases. Say you’re watching a video featuring a drink with the word “prebiotic” on it, but you don’t know what it means or how it’s different from “probiotic.” In the past, you would have to leave whichever app you’re using and go to your browser to search for the word. Now, you can long-press the home button or navigation bar to activate Circle to Search and highlight “prebiotic” to learn more about it. When you’re done, you just need to swipe away and resume the video.

With Circle to Search, you will be able to access search from any app, which means you no longer have to stop what you’re doing to start a search in your browser. Plus, if you’re someone who takes a screenshot to remind yourself to search something later, you no longer have to do that as you can search right away without interrupting what you’re currently doing.

Google introduces ‘Circle to Search,’ a new way to search from anywhere on Android using gestures

X makes Grok chatbot available to premium subscribers

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The xAI Grok AI logo

Image Credits: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Social network X is rolling out access to xAI’s Grok chatbot to Premium tier subscribers after Elon Musk announced the expansion to more paid users last month. The company said on its support page that only Premium and Premium+ users can interact with the chatbot in select regions.

Last year, after Musk’s xAI announced Grok, it made the chatbot available to Premium+ users — people who are paying $16 per month or a $168 per year subscription fee. With the latest update, users paying $8 per month can access the chatbot.

Users can chat with Grok in a “Regular mode” or a “Fun mode.” Just like any other large language model (LLM) product, Grok shows labels indicating that the chatbot would return inaccurate answers.

We have already seen some examples of that. Earlier this week, X rolled out a new explore view inside Grok where the chatbot summarizes trending news stories. Notably, Jeff Bezos and Nvidia-backed Perplexity AI also summarizes news stories.

However, Grok seems to go one step further than just summarizing stories by writing headlines. As Mashable wrote, the chatbot wrote a fake headline saying “Iran Strikes Tel Aviv with Heavy Missiles.”

Musk likely wants more people to use the Grok chatbot to rival other products such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini or Anthropic’s Claude. Over the last few months, he has been openly critical of OpenAI’s operations. Musk even sued the company in March over the “betrayal” of its nonprofit goal. In response, OpenAI filed papers seeking the dismissal of all of Musk’s claims and released email exchanges between the Tesla CEO and the company.

Last month, xAI open sourced Grok but without any training data details. As my colleague Devin Coldewey argued, there are still questions about whether this is the latest version of the model and if the company will be more transparent about its approach to the development of the model and information about the training data.

Why Elon Musk’s AI company ‘open-sourcing’ Grok matters — and why it doesn’t

Paris transit passes now available in iPhone’s Wallet app

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Apple Wallet Navigo Card

Image Credits: Apple

After multiple delays, Apple and the Paris area transportation authority rolled out support for Paris transit passes in Apple Wallet. It means that people can now use their iPhone or Apple Watch as a Navigo pass to ride the metro, train, tram or bus.

This is important news for Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) — the transportation authority — as millions of people are expected to come to Paris this summer for the Olympic Games. Android users have been able to use their phone as a Navigo pass for a while.

The Apple integration is also the result of years of negotiations with the tech company as IDFM doesn’t rely on Apple Pay, Visa or Mastercard to enable this feature. Instead, the iPhone emulates a Navigo card using the built-in NFC chip.

Yesterday, I created a virtual Navigo pass and used it to ride the metro, and it worked as expected. There are two ways to create a virtual Navigo pass. You can either do it from the official transportation authority app or directly in Apple Wallet.

For tourists who don’t want to download another app, adding a transit pass is pretty easy. You can open the Wallet app, tap the + button and add a Navigo card. After that, you can buy one ticket or more and pay with Apple Pay.

When you’re entering the metro, you can use your iPhone to “tap to ride.” You can either double-click on the iPhone side button and select the Navigo pass, or enable Express Mode. In the latter case, you can tap your iPhone near a reader, and it’ll select the Navigo pass automatically without having to unlock or wake your iPhone.

Every time you use your iPhone as a transit pass, you receive a notification that informs you how many tickets you have left. You can also see that information in the Wallet app and buy more tickets whenever you want.

The new feature is also compatible with power reserve — if you run out of battery, you can still use your transit pass with Express Mode for a few hours. And if you lose your device, you can remotely lock it using the Find My app from another device — it will disable Express Mode.

So if you’re a tourist and visiting Paris, there’s no need to visit ticketing vending machines anymore. However, if you live in Paris and you have an annual or Liberté+ subscription, you won’t be able to add your transit pass to Apple Wallet until 2025.

In other Paris news, Apple also added real-time transit information. While most people rely on Citymapper or Bonjour RATP to get around the city, you can now tap on a train station or bus stop to see the next departures. This summer, Apple will also add 3D renderings of the Parisian venues for the summer games.