Google sure is looking a little evil in this week’s top Android headlines

Back in the Larry Page and Sergey Brin days, Google’s mantra of “Don’t be evil” was heard often and permeated all the company’s projects. But this is Sundar Pichai’s Google, and priorities are a bit different nowadays. Increasingly, we’re seeing the company pulled into courtrooms around the world for anticompetitive behavior, and behind-the-scenes looks at business practices revealed by these legal proceedings have shown that backroom deals contribute more to Google’s dominance in search and other areas than many had thought.

This week, that became more evident than ever as a judge’s 277-page ruling was published right as another report revealed shady dealings between Google and Meta on targeting teens. But that didn’t stop us from gawking at the Pixel 9 leaks that kept rolling in, nor did it keep us from getting excited about new smart home hardware from Google. It was a busy week in Android, so we’ll recap the five biggest stories below to get you caught up.

Google sure is looking a little evil this week

On Monday, the judge presiding over the DOJ’s antitrust suit against Google Search dropped a bombshell of a ruling (emphasis ours): “After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.” This came after a 10-week trial at the end of last year that exposed shady dealings like a $20 billion pact between Apple and Google to ensure the latter’s search engine remained the default on the Safari browser.

Later in the week, we caught wind of a upcoming feature for the Play Store that would use your device’s location to recommend local apps. While some might find this helpful for connecting with apps from nearby businesses, most will likely see it as another way to shove ads in our faces.

But perhaps the least not-evil Google news came later in the week when a report revealed that the company had allegedly teamed up with Meta to show ads about Instagram to kids on YouTube. Per the report, Google worked to skirt its own ad safeguards for teens by targeting the ads at users whose age had been labeled as “Unknown” by its system that stores age metrics. Google knew these ads would reach their target audience (teenagers with interest in Instagram) according to the report, because it had “thousands of data points” to indicate that the majority of users in its “Unknown” age bracket were actually teens.

Shut up and take our money

Even with Google making headlines for all the wrong reasons this week, it was hard not to get excited about next week’s Pixel 9 series. We should see it all on Tuesday at 1 p.m. ET even though leaks haven’t left much to the imagination, and a few more details about the new phones rolled in over the course of the week.

For one thing, we saw actual live photos of the devices that look like they were taken at Google’s NYC headquarters, giving us an unprecedented early look at the phones. We also saw leaked US pricing for the Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL, suggesting that Google is using the addition of a new, smaller Pro model as a misdirect while it hikes the price on the Pixel 8 Pro’s real successor by $200. But that leak, which was allegedly from T-Mobile, and another leak of Vodafone pricing later in the week seem to suggest that carriers might be offering a free storage upgrade this year to take the sting out of things.

Pixel isn’t the only hardware made by Google

To be honest, we were getting a little nervous in the Android Police newsroom as we watched all the leaks pile up for August 13’s Made By Google event. It seemed like it would be busier than normal when rumors first said Google’s foldable would be announced alongside its main flagship phones. Then we thought it might be a little crowded when we heard there would be a new, smaller Pro model, and we knew for sure it would be when we caught wind of a larger Pixel Watch 3 variant. But when the rumor mill started rumbling about new Google TV and Nest hardware, we weren’t sure we’d be able to cover it all in one day.

Thankfully, Google decided against the megadump approach and gave us a look at its new non-Pixel hardware exactly one week ahead of its big mobile event. The new fourth-gen Nest Learning Thermostat is quite the piece of wall candy, sporting new AI features and a design that seems inspired by the Pixel Watch series. Meanwhile, Google shocked everyone by killing off the Chromecast and debuting a new living room hub called the Google TV Streamer. While the Streamer is certainly more powerful than past Chromecasts, we discovered shortly after its launch that it’s using the same chip as 2021’s Fire TV Stick 4k Max.

Android 14 takes a curtain

The latest rumors say that Android 15 won’t be launched alongside the Pixel 9 next week as expected, instead coming sometime in September. With the apparent reprieve, it seems that Android 14 is going on a bit of a farewell tour, as 2023’s biggest update has been making a few waves here in mid-2024.

On Tuesday, Google started rolling out its August 2024 security patches, which may very well be the last Android 14-based update for most Pixel phones. Then, just a few weeks ahead of Samsung’s rumored Android 15-based One UI 7 beta launch, the company started rolling out its own August 2024 security patches for Android 14.

And while Wear OS 5 has hardly had any time of its own in the sun yet — the Android 14-based smartwatch operating system is only available on the Galaxy Watch 6 so far — it appears Google is already preparing to switch to an Android 15-based Wear OS 5.1. The change would be a pretty drastic one for the Wear OS update cycle, coming well ahead of when we were previously expecting the OS to turn the page on its Android 14 roots.

T-Mobile reveals you won’t want to revel in your recent Revvl purchase

At the end of the week, a report emerged that T-Mobile was recalling its new Revvl 7 Pro for quality reasons. The company has now confirmed the recall, saying the device wasn’t performing as expected. In a statement to Android Authority, a T-Mobile spokesperson had this to say: “We paused sales on REVVL 7 Pro 5G devices after a small number of customers shared that the devices weren’t performing up to par. We’re working quickly to make them available for sale again and continue to have many device options for our customers.”