T-Mobile proves it’s not about that T Life in this week’s top Android news

T-Mobile used to be the people’s champ of carriers, with many happily overlooking its second-rate service for its user-first policies. But as the company continues building out its 5G service — very successfully, to be fair — it has gotten away from its “un-carrier” roots and made some questionable decisions. This week, it signaled that its clunky T-Mobile Tuesdays rebrand was a mistake by effectively killing off the brand-new T Life app, and now the carrier’s beloved perks program has found a new home.

Elsewhere, this week was a busy one in Android news. We’ve seen just about everything there is to see about the Pixel 9 series now, including an Android 15 bombshell. Speaking of, Samsung’s take on the new version showed up in rumors this week, with One UI 7’s release date now seemingly locked in. We even saw a rare Nest leak, and Nothing debuted an interesting take on Plus phones, all in the last seven days.

T-Mobile proves it’s not about that T Life

In January, T-Mobile rebranded its T-Mobile Tuesdays app to “T Life” and introduced a new Magenta Status perks program. Aside from an app redesign, the changes were largely superficial — and the T-Mobile Tuesdays app was still widely beloved, leaving us to wonder why the company was messing with success.

Fast-forward to this week, and it appears some decision makers at T-Mobile had that same question. In an odd change of course, the company decided to make its brand-new T Life app into a clone of the full T-Mobile app — the two are now identical, down to the version number. In doing so, it also moved T-Mobile Tuesdays and Magenta Status perks into the main T-Mobile app, so now there’s no reason to have a second T-Mobile app installed on your phone anymore.

Google seems to care more about the Pixel 9 than Android 15

Last year, we were a little salty that Android 14 was treated like an afterthought when it was announced alongside the Pixel 8 series. To be fair, the new OS version had seen a delay in development during the beta testing phase, pushing its release back at least a month later than originally anticipated. But this year, it really seemed like the timing was lining up for a synergistic co-launch of the Pixel 9 series and Android 15.

Sadly, the latest rumors say that won’t be the case — Google is now expected to launch the Pixel 9 series with Android 14 preinstalled ahead of Android 15’s public rollout in September, meaning only Google’s new hardware will be shown off at its August 13 event. Shifting timelines may have played a role in this decision, with Google moving its main Pixel launch up by two months this year to better accommodate its foldable line. But with Google reorganizing its Android and Pixel teams under one “Platforms and Devices” umbrella earlier this year, we had hoped for a bit more cohesion between the units.

Meanwhile, we saw plenty to get excited about with the new hardware lineup, particularly the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, which hadn’t been leaked nearly as much as the other Pixel 9 models. We learned that it might be a bit on the heavy side for a foldable, but there’s a good reason. Then, leaked marketing materials answered all the other questions we had, leaving little to the imagination. The only trouble is, supply chain issues might force Google to delay shipments for its new foldable into September.

Samsung’s One UI 7 update is coming sooner or later

Judging by a string of One UI 7 leaks over the past two weeks, Google isn’t the only OEM facing uncertainties about Android 15’s release date. In last week’s news roundup, we talked about how the first beta build of Samsung’s skinned version of Android 15 was expected this past Monday. But then Monday rolled around and we heard a new rumor: Samsung’s first One UI 7 beta is now due out in late August as the company finishes up with One UI 6.1.1.

It’s a bit of a disappointment, but the late-July release date would have been earlier than we were expecting anyway, so there’s not much to complain about here. And it seems like the update should be worth the wait, considering it’s expected to bring themeable home screen icons shown off in a video leak. The existence of new icons seems to have been corroborated by an update to Samsung’s Clock app, so get ready for some big visual changes in a few weeks if you’re on Samsung’s beta channel.

Rare Nest leak shows off a stylish new Learning Thermostat

Shifting gears back to hardware, we saw the first signs that Google is working on a new Nest thermostat early in the week. While Google’s hardware normally leaks well in advance, the Nest team has proven to be much more tight-lipped than the Pixel squad, so this was a bit of a treat. We certainly didn’t expect the fourth-gen Nest Learning Thermostat to show up in an early unboxing video weeks ahead of a potential release — but that’s exactly what happened a few days later, giving us a fantastic look at the stylish new thermostat in all its glory.

Nothing has an interesting take on Plus phones

Most phones that use “Plus” branding follow Apple’s naming scheme: The standard model gets no adjectives, while the bigger model uses that same name, but with “Plus” at the end. Nothing, being the outlier it is, decided to take a different approach with its Nothing Phone 2a Plus: Rather than being bigger, the newly released phone has an identical body to the standard Phone 2a, but packs a brand-new chip and shiny colorways.

There are some other marginal upgrades, like 50W wired charging (up from 45W) and an improved selfie camera, helping it earn that Plus moniker. All of this comes at a $50 premium, however, with the price jumping from $350 on the 2a to $400 on the 2a Plus, but don’t get too excited if you live in the US — it’s still only available through Nothing’s Developer Program.