About Jules Wang
Jules joined the Android Police team in 2019. He currently contributes art for our stories and edits our podcast. Before that, he managed weekend news and wrote AP's newsletter.
Jules also contributes to our sister sites XDA-Developers and Pocket-lint. He also was editor at our now-sister site, Pocketnow.
Latest Articles
What will make the Pixel 8 great, as told by the Android Police podcast
Plus, a cracker of a trailer for a berry good movie
It's been a week for the Pixel speculators out there as a flood of Pixel 7a and Pixel 8 intelligence has spilled and thrilled all of us. We'll be picking through the details on the Android Police podcast plus a Samsung non-controversy, a real Samsung controversy, a new Samsung phone, and... just a lot. It's everything, everywhere, all at... okay, maybe not so much that. No multiverse here. But we do fit in a blissful mention of the upcoming BlackBerry movie on this episode of the show.
Severe exploit could expose sensitive data on Pixel screenshots previously cropped
While patched, years of images could be at risk
Pixel owners have suffered editing their screenshots using the default markup tool. The paint inputs aren't great at redacting anything, even if you scrub a spot real hard, and the crop tool is hilariously lacking any preset aspect ratios. But there's another reason why you shouldn't use markup and it's the reason why you might want to take a look at where or who you've sent your images to.
HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook review: Not a black-and-white decision
ChromeOS's growing pains complicate a low-profile, but highly capable $999 laptop
HP thinks freelancers want a sturdy premium Chromebook. Okay, let’s unpack that: the computer maker cites a projection from Statista indicating 86.5 million workers — or 50.9% of the US labor force — will be juggling gigs by 2027. And because Hewlett-Packard likes to go where the wind blows, it wanted to have a spotlight product that can reliably play hard and work hard, while remaining easy to maintain and troubleshoot. Apparently, that’s all in a Chromebook — specifically, the HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook.
Android 14 will bring us 'back' to the future, the Android Police podcast predicts
Also, a killer Android phone we're all sleeping on
Whip out the Dole Whip and relax with the Android Police podcast! This week, we cover the usual grounds with the I/O event announcement and more progress on Android 14. Spotify plans to clean up the mess it's made out of its app with a tiny cotton swab, YouTube cleans up its language about bad language, and Sonos shapes up with some speakers coming out of its comfort zone. All that and more in the next 54 minutes.
Google One expands VPN to 100GB planholders, offers new dark web ID fraud monitoring
More VPN for everyone!
Read update
Google really wants people to sign up and pay for Google One — in addition to cloud storage, a subscription offers credit rebates for Google Store purchases, discounts at hotels, premium features in Google Meet calls and Google Photos editing, and, if you pay for 2TB or more of that storage, a VPN service. Today, though, more people will be able to use that VPN and every Google One member will be able to keep tabs of whether their personal information is circulating around the dark web.
Google gives Wear OS app makers a reason to update more often
A dedicated release track for watch apps
iPhone owners have been able to rely on the Apple Watch as a competent wrist-worn extension of their digital lives for a long time. Those with Android have struggled, however, with Wear OS in its latent years thanks mostly to unfocused and uninspired software. Its current era is starting to make up for that, though: with some help from Samsung, Google has been able to inject some new excitement into the platform, especially by launching the Pixel Watch. But besides the base operating system, it'll take app makers to keep this place alive and flourishing. Thus, Google is making an important change that may open up the path to more apps coming out and more updates to the ones already out there.
Data breach exposed millions of Verizon customers' account info
Carrier says no personally identifiable info leaked, blames outside vendor
Read update
When it comes to telecom companies and consumer data breaches, you'll most likely have seen T-Mobile in the headlines way too many times in recent years. The self-titled Un-carrier has been attacked time and again with disastrous results. But now, the carrier (and its customers) won't be alone in victimhood this year — newly-released intelligence alleges millions of Verizon subscribers have had their information leaked out into the open internet.
Samsung's February 2023 security patch now on Galaxy S20 and Z Flip 4 in the US
And a whole bunch of other carrier-locked phones
For many great Samsung devices, February's monthly software update not only brings new security patches, but also a major move up to One UI 5.1. And, as we've come to expect in recent times, the company is doing a spectacular job at getting their updates around quickly. But it can't be instant gratification all over the place — we've got our eye on when American carriers are pushing the February 2023 monthly update to your Galaxy device.
Chances of a national TikTok ban grow with upcoming bill in Senate
It's got bipartisan support
TikTok might just be a time sink full of outrageous looping videos to the average person, but to the United States and Canadian governments, it could be a national security threat. Orders have come down prohibiting workers under both regimes from having the app installed on work devices in the wake of the revelation that the company spied on journalists. But the possibility of a national ban has been around since the Trump administration took a tougher stance against China. We're now hearing that a powerful Senator is openly considering moving such a ban forward.
Health data privacy is the focus of a new bill in Congress
Preventing your info from being sold for targeted ads
The overturning of Roe v. Wade last year opened up major concerns about the privacy of personal health data and whether health care services could be compelled to disclose it to the government or, perhaps worse, sell it to ad buyers. The right to privacy, at least in this very specific situation, could be reinstated not by case law, but by Congress — a new bill has been introduced in the Senate that will prohibit any personally identifiable health and location data from being sold for advertising purposes.
Android 13 rollout for the OnePlus 10 Pro now in its sixth month
The company is taking an 'incremental' rollout to new lengths
The OnePlus 10 Pro is a decent flagship phone, although we found it lacking when compared to the best phones in the market. While the manufacturer has never been the quickest to roll out software updates, things were looking up in September last year when the company began rolling out OxygenOS 13, its iteration of Android 13, for the OnePlus 10 Pro. But the rollout has yet to reach a good portion of owners nearly six months after its initiation. A thread on the OnePlus Community page details the waiting game customers have been playing since September 2022.
LastPass breach could've been stopped with a 3-year-old Plex update
This story's more than about one employee's Plex account
LastPass has taken a reputational tumble from one of the great password managers out there to becoming mired in infamy after not one, but two massive data breaches last year. We learned more details about the second incident last week — a malicious party installed a keylogger onto a senior engineer's home computer through an exploit in Plex, the personal cloud service for movie storage and streaming, and was able to break into corporate-level caches as a result. But it turns out that the engineer had a big part to play in this major failure as well.
Audiophiles are using Google voice search to track down samples in songs
Even samples that have been 'chopped and screwed'
Sure, you might be humming into voice search or using the handy Now Playing feature on your Pixel to dig up songs playing at the cafe or stuck inside your head. But it can do so much more than just that. Take sampling for instance: prevalent in hip-hop, but found in many genres heavy on post-production, samples can be used as tablesetters to new beats, homages to idols, and even the occasional adversarial callout. Curious legions of listeners have devoted themselves over the years to find where those samples came from. Nowadays, they're taking advantage of a newly-supercharged weapon and that's Google voice search.
How do you pronounce 'Rizr,' the Android Police podcast asks?
It's the invasion of the concept phone
Will, Manuel, and, for the first time, our editor-in-chief James gather for a debrief round robin after a week of MWC 2023 coverage. From spotting Carl Pei at the Unihertz booth to destroying Motorola's rollable phone concept with facts and logic(?), the team's got a lot to talk about. Too bad our expensive audio recorder doesn't like our expensive SD cards. Or that we didn't have a Mini-USB cable. Despite all of that, we hope you enjoy this episode of the Android Police podcast!
Forecast calls for blue skies with Pixel 7a and Pixel Buds color options
Google's bringing blue back, baby
The best Android phones come in the best colors. If I said that sentence out loud, it would be through gritted teeth. Google's had a checkered track record on this, but to be fair, both Pixel 6 and 6a series had wonderful green options and the 6's Kinda Coral was pretty special to us. But we may be headed back to the future on the colorimeter with the Pixel 7a on its way.
Google's getting ready for a new Pixel phone and the FCC has the details
Pixel 7a or Pixel Fold, your guess is as good as ours
The Pixel 7a and Pixel Fold will be Google's most compelling phones of 2023 if we're to believe everything we've seen thus far. One of them brings the most ritz on a A-series mid-ranger to date while the other could set the table for the convertible mobile devices of the future. In any case, there's some new paperwork out of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology and it marks a step forward for either or, perhaps, both devices.
Chromebooks may soon signal the start and end of your day with custom wallpapers
Life is more than just sunrise and sunset
ChromeOS may be about to give us the time of day. Well, rather, more times of day with which to feature different wallpapers. It all began with the long-awaited, much-anticipated debut of automatic dark and light mode cycling last year which allowed not only the GUI to change colors based on the time of day, but also changed the wallpaper as well. But there soon could be more opportunities for users to change their wallpapers without having to lift a finger.
Chrome is showing off new privacy settings for Google's solution to replace cookies
Key options to control how the Topics API works
Read update
A long way to come and a long way to go — for Google, which has been tasked with finding a replacement for privacy-busting tracking cookies to relay web surfers' interests to online ad buyers, the process has been a grueling one with setback after setback coming into play. But after long last, the company is firmly in the testing phase of its Privacy Sandbox suite of tools and that includes its new replacement for cookies. Now, Chrome users on the Canary and Dev channels are seeing a new API roll out and they've got a bunch of new settings to toggle.
Honor pulls flagship Magic 5 Pro and foldable Magic Vs out of its MWC hat
Seeing stars and a whole lot more
Honor is pulling a heck of a follow-through move at MWC 2023. You may still perceive this Chinese brand being overshadowed by its former parent company, Huawei, but ever since its divestiture, Honor has been working on itself. Late last year, it hit out at the foldable market in China with the Magic Vs phablet. Today, the company is not only bringing it over to Europe, but is also launching new flagship-class slabs for its Magic 5 series.
Get a close-up look at how Motorola's rollable phone works
The RIZR gets detailed in photos and videos
Read update
If you've had enough of foldables, you'll be glad to know rollable phones are set to become the hot new thing once they hit the market. But as with most cookery on the R&D stoves, it's the waiting that's always the hardest part: LG (RIP), Oppo, and Samsung have teased us with demos, plans, and expectations, but all of them have yet to get something in our hands. Well, at MWC 2023, Motorola is doing just that. Okay, maybe not your hands per se, but certainly the hands of some people outside of Lenovo.