Despite lagging behind music streaming juggernauts like Spotify and Apple Music, YouTube Music has come along quite nicely over the past few years. However, some of the app's features aren't consistent across all platforms. For example, while the Android and iOS versions of YouTube Music can pick up where you left off after closing and reopening the app including for songs and podcasts this functionality does not currently exist for the app's web version. Thankfully, that appears to be changing now as part of a recent change.

If you've been following the Android smartphone industry closely, you will know that it's all about performance and speed, particularly with high-end devices. Almost every major Android flagship today barring the Google Pixel 8 series is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, with Samsung using a special "For Galaxy" version of the SoC in its high-end phones. We've recently learned that Qualcomm will debut its next-gen chip, aptly named the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, during the annual Snapdragon Summit in October. We're now gaining some early intel on this upcoming chipset, specifically about its GPU performance.

Google Messages rolled out a big redesign for its text field back in January, with the field being split into two lines rather than just one. The idea here was to give users easy access to the multiple shortcuts available in the messaging app while also trying to retain the same text field size. However, this change didn't go down well with many of the app's users. Back in April, we learned that the company may be working on a reversal of this particular text-field redesign. It now looks like the single-line text field is rolling out to some users with the Google Messages beta release.

WhatsApp betas give us an excellent idea about upcoming feature additions. While not all of them make it to the stable version of the app, features that are designed to improve existing functionality generally get the green light. Similarly, we recently came across a WhatsApp beta that revealed work on revamping how people search for new Channels with the help of categories. A follow-up update is now providing additional info on this front.

WhatsApp betas give us an excellent idea about upcoming feature additions. While not all of them make it to the stable version of the app, features that are designed to improve existing functionality generally get the green light. Similarly, we recently came across a WhatsApp beta that revealed work on revamping how people search for new Channels with the help of categories. A follow-up update is now providing additional info on this front.

The Big Three US mobile carriers AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are constantly at odds with each other, trying to outmaneuver and undercut their rivals with attractive pricing and promos. Although these brands spend big on marketing dollars, sometimes they can go a little overboard with their promises. A multistate investigation between 50 state attorneys general has now found that all three carriers practiced deceptive advertising to lure customers.

The Google Wallet app has undergone a few changes over the last several weeks. Last month, the app added an extra layer of verification for transit payments. Not much later, Google began asking Wallet users on Android phones to re-verify their identity after three minutes, regardless of whether the phone was in use or not. It now looks like this phenomenon could also spread to Wear OS devices, at least based on multiple user reports on Reddit.

Android 14 QPR3 won't be out for the masses until June, but we already have a decent idea about what it will bring to the table, thanks to beta releases. The second Android 14 QPR3 beta dropped this week, and although some are experiencing bricked devices while sideloading the update, we've learned a fair bit more about what the next quarterly platform release (QPR) will look like. Android sleuth Mishaal Rahman has detailed several of the changes, both big and small, included with the new release. We can now add another to the list, focusing on physical keyboards.

While YouTube Music may not be as big as Spotify or Apple Music, the service continues its efforts to become a viable competitor. Although big features like podcasts only made it to the app less than a year ago, developers behind the streaming service have been busy at work testing new visual elements for YouTube Music. Then in December, we learned that Google could introduce large buttons in the overflow menu to shrink the long list of controls. These enlarged buttons for Play next, Save to playlist, and Share, are now widely making it to YouTube Music on Android.

The YouTube app frequently picks up new updates, while the company also likes to keep its other services, like YouTube Music, up to date. Over the past year or so, the video streaming service has worked on revamping some elements of the channel page, making it easier for both creators and viewers. The video platform has now announced a redesigned channel page for the YouTube app on TVs.