Mobile

The Pixel 5 is a solid if slightly overpriced and unspectacular device, but early issues are already manifesting. The latest shows that some Pixel 5 owners are unable to make payments using NFC and, therefore, Google Pay. As Google Pay is effectively baked in to Android 11 thanks to the Cards & Passes feature, this issue is quite pronounced if you do choose to leave your wallet at home – and…

After adding Samsung devices to its online store, Google Fi is now launching a Phone subscription program. The Pixel 4a is the first device available, with buyers saving “$133 over two years.” Google’s MVNO is advertising this program as an alternative to the “time consuming, complicated and expensive” process of “choosing and upgrading to a new phone.” For $15 per month, you get the…

In addition to announcing a Phone subscription program, Google today emailed Fi subscribers about how to “Move [their] conversations to Messages by Google.” Support documents lay out in detail what to expect and that Fi texting in the Hangouts app will stop working at the start of next year. Hangouts users are encouraged to start using the Messages app. Google announced as much last week (and…

Google Chrome’s new tab page is clean and simple on computers, but it seems that may soon change. An experiment in newer versions of Chrome shows that Google is working on a widget for the new tab page that would show, possibly among other things, what are essentially shopping ads. First spotted and enabled by the folks over at TechDows, a new flag has shown up in Chrome Canary. “NTP…