About Manuel Vonau
Manuel Vonau is Android Police's Google Editor, with expertise in Android, Chrome, and other Google products — the very core of Android Police’s content. He has been covering tech news and reviewing devices since joining Android Police as a news writer in 2019. He lives in Berlin, Germany.
Manuel studied Media and Culture studies in Düsseldorf, finishing his university career with a master's thesis titled "The Aesthetics of Tech YouTube Channels: Production of Proximity and Authenticity." His background gives him a unique perspective on the ever-evolving world of technology and its implications on society. He isn't shy to dig into technical backgrounds and the nitty-gritty developer details, either.
Manuel's first steps into the Android world were plagued by issues. After his HTC One S refused to connect to mobile internet despite three warranty repairs, he quickly switched to a Nexus 4, which he considers his true first Android phone. Since then, he has mostly been faithful to the Google phone lineup, though these days, he is also carrying an iPhone in addition to his Pixel phone. This helps him gain perspective on the mobile industry at large and gives him multiple points of reference in his coverage.
Outside of work, Manuel enjoys a good film or TV show, loves to travel, and you will find him roaming one of Berlin's many museums, cafés, cinemas, and restaurants occasionally.
Latest Articles
Fairphone 5 review: The most uncompromising repairable phone yet
Fairphone learned all the right lessons from its previous phones
Fairphone is probably the company most associated with repairable and environmentally friendly phones, no matter how much Apple and Google want to tell you their latest and greatest smartphones are green. The new Fairphone 5 is more than just a repairable phone, though. For the first time, the company's latest smartphone looks like a product that fits the year it was released in, with a modern design and display combining a device that can be easily fully disassembled.
The Google Pixel 8 leaks once more in ASMR hands-on video
Get a good look at what’s in the box of the Pixel 8
We basically know everything there is to know about the Google Pixel 8 and 8 Pro at this point, but the leaks just keep coming. After a good look at all the first-party cases that Google wants to sell, we’re now in for an ear-soothing unboxing video of the smaller Pixel 8 on YouTube.
How to reset your Google Pixel Buds
If your Pixel Buds don't work as expected, it might be time to factory reset them
Google's lineup of Pixel Buds are among the best true wireless earbuds you can currently get, but sometimes, things don't work as they should. There are a few tips and tricks on how to solve common Pixel Buds problems, but if nothing else helps, a factory reset is still worth a try before chucking your earbuds in the trash. Here's what you need to do to factory reset the Pixel Buds.
How to sync your OneDrive files on your Chromebook
Google and Microsoft have teamed up to add OneDrive to your Chromebook's Files app
Chromebooks may have a reputation as not offering a full desktop OS. Still, Google's operating system has matured in recent years, with tons of great ChromeOS features and tricks to get the most out of your favorite Chromebook. For a long time, ChromeOS and Microsoft Office didn't get along as well as they could have. While you can easily access your Google Drive in the ChromeOS Files app, the same can't be said about Microsoft OneDrive. That's changing, so let's dive into how you can set up OneDrive to sync with your Chromebook's Files app.
Websites can now block Google Bard from using their content
Not every content creator wants to give large language models free training data
A big problem with large language machine learning models right now is the fact that they rely on massive troves of data freely available on the web to become as powerful as they are. In the early days, a lot of this content was and partially still is scraped from websites without their explicit consent, though things are better with new opt-out mechanisms available from Open AI and other AI companies. Now, Google is joining the pack with a way to let website owners opt out of Google Bard — without opting out of Google Search as a whole.
Google Calendar update makes the current date more visible
The button to jump to the current date now actually shows the current date
Google Calendar is one of those invaluable tools that helps you organize your day and schedule important events. It’s pre-installed on pretty much all great Android phones out there, so changes to the app can have a positive or negative effect on many people’s lives. The latest small tweak should fall into the positive side of things, though, with Google adding a current date indicator to the interface.
What is Health Connect and how do I use it?
What you need to know about the local Android service that connects all your fitness apps
The best health and fitness apps come in different forms and shapes, performing better in some functions than others. When you use more than one, keeping your health data in sync can be a hassle, often with no central place to collect it all. Google's new Health Connect service aims to fix that. It offers a single, streamlined hook that all health apps can use, making it easy for them to share data.
Your Chromebook’s interface now looks a lot more like Android
The big ChromeOS Material You redesign is here
Google has started rolling out ChromeOS 117 to Chromebooks widely, and along with a bunch of interesting new features, a big change to the interface is going live with it: Material You as you know it from Android is making its way to Google’s desktop operating system. This means that many interface elements like window title bars and backgrounds in system settings will take on the dominant colors from your wallpaper.
Google’s new At a Glance widget is rolling out more widely
The company announced it as part of the latest Android feature drop
Google’s At a Glance widget can be an invaluable tool that helps you stay you up to date with your next appointments, weather alerts, commute information, and flight details, but its design has become a little long in the tooth. While Google updated the widget with a left-aligned look on Pixel phones with Android 12, other great smartphones were long left with the outdated-looking design that stems back from Android 11. Google announced that it would change that in the latest feature drop, and today, we’re seeing reports of the new widget rolling out more widely.
Happy 25th birthday: How Google changed the world in the past quarter-century
25 years later, we can't imagine a world without Google
It's hard to believe, but Google turned 25 today. Depending on how old you are, this may either seem like a much longer time than you expected or much shorter than you thought. As someone who grew up with Google (I turned 29 this year), it's definitely hard to imagine that there ever existed a world without the internet-defining search engine. Yet here we are, only 25 years later. So, it's time for a look back at how Google became the internet behemoth it is today.
Google Podcasts will die in 2024
The dedicated app will be replaced with YouTube Music's podcast abilities
Google has announced today that it will discontinue Google Podcasts in favor of YouTube Music, which will be the company's "centralized podcast destination." The business hasn't shared a firm shutdown date just yet, but mentioned that it will happen sometime in 2024. Google Podcasts will continue to function normally until that time.
Leaked UK Google Pixel 8 pricing corroborates higher US prices
It’s still unclear if the Google Pixel 8 series will see higher prices across the board
Google’s October 4 launch event is approaching fast, and thus, the Google Pixel 8 leaks are pouring in like crazy. We’ve only recently learned all about the Google Pixel 8 and 8 Pro’s camera and specs, and we’ve seen two sources claim different US prices for the upcoming Google devices, slated to become some of the best phones you can get. Another leaker has now published potential UK prices, and they corroborate the bad news we’re in for in the US.
The Tecno Phantom V Flip is here to bring folding phones to the budget masses
Tecno’s first entry to the flip-style foldable is a promising budget option
Read update
You may not have heard about Tecno just yet, but the company has been making a name for itself with strikingly designed phones and an impossibly cheap foldable for a while now. The latest to come from the Chinese upstart is a flip-style phone, which was introduced during its big “Flip in Style” Singapore launch event today. The Phantom V Flip wants to undercut the competition in price, all while still providing an uncompromised experience. I’ve gone hands on with the incredibly priced V Flip — roughly $600 — to find out if that’s indeed the case.
The Notion-ification of Google Workspace
Google Docs and its peers are starting to feel like Notion clones
A good office suite isn't only a set of quality tools. These workspaces are interconnected multimedia powerhouses. Google Workspace was a pioneer in bringing that interconnectivity aspect to the office world. Still, a young competitor with a novel approach to office documents became one of the best note-taking apps: Notion.
How Google developed and evolved the Pixel camera bar
How Google developed and evolved the Pixel camera bar
The Google Pixel 6 and Google Pixel 6 Pro were a new start for Google in many ways. They were the first to introduce the company’s home-made Tensor chipset and the first to use the new Pro model moniker, replacing the XL versions of old. The new release also brought a new design language dominated by a camera bar that stretches across the top of the back of phones from the Pixel 6 onwards. Google has now spilled some beans on the design process, the challenges, and the tweaks it made to the camera bar over the years.
What are hearables?
A guide to the emerging form factor for those who want to augment their hearing
You likely know what hearing aids are, and you've probably seen a few of the best wireless earbuds out there. However, an emerging product category combines these two devices into one device called a hearable. These new products promise to bring some of the best qualities of hearing aids and in-ear headphones to consumers, along with the ability to stream and listen to audio like you would with your preferred Bluetooth codec. Let's dive into what makes them special.
The Play Store rolls out auto app archiving option for everyone
You previously could only enable it when your storage was almost full
Over the years of owning a phone, no matter which great smartphone option out there you choose, your storage can get pretty cluttered. Google combats that with a variety of measures, including a recently introduced app archiving option that automatically reduces storage usage for apps you haven’t used for a long time. While you had to jump through some hoops to activate it in the past, Google is now rolling out a simple toggle for this on the Play Store.
The Google Pixel Watch 2’s most unique strap yet leaks
The metal slim strap gives Google’s smartwatch a totally different look
The Google Pixel Watch 2 is confirmed to be presented alongside the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro in Google’s October 4 event, but that doesn’t mean we already know everything there is to know about all these products. While we’ve had a good idea of which sport bands and which casing colors we can expect, there are also rumors that Google will present metal bands for the Watch 2. Some of these have now shown up in a new leak, giving us a look at the Pixel Watch 2’s most unique strap yet.
The Google Pixel Tablet is emptier inside than you would think
A teardown reveals lots of empty space and some filler material
The Google Pixel Tablet is the first tablet the company released in years, and while it has some issues, it’s generally a good entry for the race to the best Android tablets out there. Google had quite a weird approach to the device’s launch, though, with the company first teasing it more than a year before it finally graced the markets. It’s possible that there were some last-minute changes or other hardware issues involved, as a teardown has revealed that the device is unusually empty inside.
Your next Chromebook will get updates for 10 years
Google is bumping up support by two years for Chromebooks released from 2019 onwards
Pick any great Chromebook out there, and it’s likely to receive full feature and security updates for a longer time than many phones out there, all while maintaining an impressive four-weekly release cycle. Google has now announced that it's upping this maintenance window to 10 years for devices released from 2019 onwards, up from eight years previously.