Last year, Apple finally added support for Rich Communications Services (RCS) texting to its platforms, improving consistency, reliability, and security when exchanging green-bubble texts between the competing iPhone and Android ecosystems. Today, Google is announcing another small step forward in interoperability, pointing to a slightly less annoying future for friend groups or households where not everyone owns an iPhone.

Google has updated Android’s Quick Share feature to support Apple’s AirDrop, which allows users of Apple devices to share files directly using a local peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connection. Apple devices with AirDrop enabled and set to “everyone for 10 minutes” mode will show up in the Quick Share device list just like another Android phone would, and Android devices that support this new Quick Share version will also show up in the AirDrop menu.

However, EU regulation introduced in June 2025 requires that all smartphones sold on the European market receive software updates for a long time. The directive does not specify a minimum price for this rule to take effect. The EU explicitly states that software updates must be available for five years after a device is no longer sold.

Motorola’s lawyers have apparently studied that legal text closely, and now the company appears to be ready to confront the EU Commission. Their interpretation is that the EU does not actually require updates to be provided at all, but only requires that if updates are offered, they must be free of charge. However, we are not aware of any case in which a smartphone manufacturer has ever charged money for security patches.

Sony demands big bucks for its latest Xperia flagship, without really justifying why

Pros

• Interchangeable camera bump caps can be cool; the IP68/IP69-rated body is premium and nice to the touch.
• Super-bright high-res OLED display, Dolby Vision capable too.
• All-round excellent battery life, speedy charging.
• Loud and great-sounding speakers.
• Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is fast.
• Thoroughly capable camera system; excellent stills, day and night; great for portraiture, nice closeups.

Cons

• Heavy GPU throttling under continued load.
• Ultrawide camera lacks autofocus, so does the front-facing one.
• The Ricoh GR photo mode has limited appeal to us.
• Video stabilization is suboptimal.

OnePlus delivers its second super-fast phone of 2025.

Scenario in short:

I’m trying to install LineageOS onto a spare phone that I have (redmi note 8T) Hoping to get a daily driver out of it. The installation process requires me to install Android11 to install lineage on top of /over that. Which afaik isn’t directly available outside of some websites that I’ve never heard of.

For safety’s sake: would the install of lineage wipe the install of Android11? Or could there still remain backdoors?

Since the recent update of Android 16, Pixels have a new theme

• symbols are less geometric and hard
• some elements are rounded squares, others are round
• the theme is generally very dark
• the top panel is not visible by default
• the battery looks very different, kinda like on iOS
• the drawers have a blurry background instead of solid colors
• the "recent apps" overview displays the app name in the top left corner of the preview window, instead of a round icon on top
• icons and buttons in apps like GCam are also changed

Generally the theme is way more complex and distracting and has quite some inconsistencies.

While I would like blur, the minimalist side of me is happy not to have it.

The current material theme with lots of high-contrast elements is pretty Google-specific I feel and can be seen as ugly. The new one is way more abstract and in a way pleasing.

I wonder if this is one of the proprietary Pixel additions, or if this will be the default for AOSP too?

Yes the theme is on latest GrapheneOS too. The font may be proprietary though, AOSP uses a different one

I have a Redmi Note 9 (merlinx) and currently have LineageOS 20 (which is the last official ROM). It's generally fine but I have some problems with a couple apps, so I need MicroG to fix this. I don't want to go bunch of hoops to install it on my current system if possible. Would dirty-installing the same ROM with MicroG pre-installed applicable? Or do I need a clean install if I want to go that way?

Edit: It seems it's not so feasible. I guess I'll just do clean install.

Must have: SD card, SIM, Good flashing and root capability, Audio port, 4G

Preferred: Removable battery

Not have: built-in AI bullshit

Thxxx

This page can also be filtered by headphone jack availability

• https://www.gsmarena.com/motorola-phones-f-4-14.php