Gear News of the Week: Samsung Sets a Date for Galaxy Unpacked, and Fitbit’s AI Coach Comes to iOS

-


Samsung will unveil its next flagship smartphone lineup on February 25 at its Galaxy Unpacked event in San Francisco. The company sent out invites earlier this week. The event will begin at 10 am Pacific (1 pm Eastern), and it’ll be livestreamed here.

Rumors abound that suggest the Galaxy S26 series—which will include the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+, and Galaxy S26 Ultra—won’t have any major changes from their predecessors. They’ll likely be powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, with some minor charging speed improvements and minor upgrades to the camera hardware.

Courtesy of Samsung

Artificial intelligence features will likely sit at the forefront, likely with a few new Gemini tricks. However, one big new feature is a privacy screen built into the smartphone itself. It’ll let you selectively block parts of the display from people around you. Unfortunately, even with only minor upgrades, there may be a price increase for these phones stemming from the RAM shortage. As usual, Samsung is letting you reserve a Galaxy S26 device right now. You’ll get a $30 credit to use when preorders open up, and a chance to win a $5,000 gift card at Samsung.com.

Don’t expect to see a Galaxy S26 Edge. Samsung’s super-slim Edge phone from 2025 wasn’t a hit, and leaks suggest a successor has been canceled. Still, the Edge debuted in May 2025, so we could still see a follow-up around then. All we know is that it likely won’t make a showing at this Unpacked event. Samsung usually announces other products outside of smartphones, and this year, that may be a new pair of Galaxy Buds wireless earbuds.

We’ll be on the ground bringing the news to you live.

Fitbit’s Personal Health Coach Arrives on iOS

Image may contain Electronics Phone Mobile Phone Baby and Person

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Months after Fitbit’s Personal Health Coach launched in public preview for Android users, the Gemini-powered health service is now finally available to iOS users. To try it out, you must have an active paid or trial Fitbit Premium subscription and a phone that runs iOS 16.4 or higher. (You can check out the full list of requirements here.) Personal Health Coach is also expanding to English speakers in other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.

As I mentioned in my preview of the service, I would be wary of divulging too much personal health information to a large corporation, even one that promises not to use it for advertising. I also found that it’s easy to start consulting with the Coach for advice on every part of your day, which your IRL family and friends will find weird and annoying. However, it is the easiest, most helpful, and most accommodating of the AI coach services that I’ve tried so far, and $10/month for Fitbit Premium is cheaper than a real running coach. As always, your mileage (literally) may vary. —Adrienne So

iOS 26.3 Makes It Easy to Switch to Android

iPhone showing a prompt to delete data beside an Android phone showing a welcome message

Photograph: Simon Hill

Apple released iOS 26.3 this week for the iPhone, and the hot new feature might surprise you. The company is making it easier to switch to Android phones, thanks to a collaboration with Google, which also recently added a similar feature for switching from Android to iPhone.



Source link

Ariel Shapiro
Ariel Shapiro
Uncovering the latest of tech and business.

Latest news

The Iran War Is Throwing Global Shipping Into Chaos

After years of chaos in the global supply chain, Ryan Petersen, CEO of the logistics company Flexport, felt...

The Best Outdoor Deals from the REI Member Days Sale

REI's Member Days sale starts today and runs through March 23, 2026. As the name implies, the bulk...

Toss Your Not-Quite-Clean Clothes on Simone Giertz’s Laundry Chair

Do you have a shirt or a pair of pants that are not quite clean but also not...

Google’s AI Searches Love to Refer You Back to Google

Google seems to have a Google addiction. If you click on a hyperlink in Google’s chatbot-style search tool,...

China’s OpenClaw Boom Is a Gold Rush for AI Companies

George Zhang thought OpenClaw could make him rich, even though he didn’t really understand how the viral AI...

Logitech Finally Made a Keyboard to Pair With Its Top Mouse

Options, of course, also has built-in integration for AI assistants like ChatGPT, with a dedicated “Prompt Builder” UI...

Must read

You might also likeRELATED
Recommended to you