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 Apple is offering U.S. customers who purchase and redeem an Apple Gift Card three months of free access to Apple Arcade. Holiday gift card purchases made before January 6, 2026 are eligible for the ?Apple Arcade? trial, as long as the card is redeemed by January 13, 2026.
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It has been two months since Google released the Pixel Watch 4 and now the company is introducing new updates to the wearable. In our review, Engadget managing editor Cherlynn Low was impressed enough with the watch to give it an 86, but called out the lack of gesture-based interactions. The new one-handed gesture features, like double pinch and wrist turn, should make up for that.
In an industry that involves constant borrowing of ideas, it should come as no surprise that these features are very similar to those available on the Apple Watch. Double pinch works much the same to the Apple Watch's double tap. Pixel Watch 4 users should be able to pinch their fingers together twice on the same hand to do things like answer or end a call and pause timers. The Pixel Watch will also offer "context hints" on its screen about when a person should consider using double pinch.
Then there's wrist turn, Google's answer to Apple's wrist flick. It should allow Pixel Watch 4 users to take actions like dismissing incoming calls by turning their wrist.
Currently, users can rotate their wrist to scroll through notifications. They can also summon Gemini by bringing their wrist to their mouth, but it's a bit finicky, requiring them to start at the homepage and be extremely accurate in their movements. Google is rolling out a new step-by-step tutorial for this raise to talk feature, so
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 iFixit today announced the launch of a new iFixit app that's available to download from Apple's App Store (and the Play Store on Android devices). It includes all of the iFixit repair guides in a format that's ideal for mobile devices, along with a workbench that keeps track of repairs, a battery lifespan predictor, and an AI repair buddy called FixBot.
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 Apple has announced the availability of Tap to Pay on iPhone in Hong Kong, allowing independent sellers, small merchants, and large retailers in the region to use ?iPhones? as a payment terminal.
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Owners of the Porsche Macan and upcoming Porsche Cayenne Electric will be able to unlock and start their cars with their Galaxy phones, Samsung has announced. The cars, alongside other Porsche models, are gaining support for Samsung Wallet's Digital Key feature, which lets users wirelessly control their car over a secure UWB or NFC connection.
Digital Key support will be available in Europe in December, before rolling out globally, "aligned with the launch timeline of Porsche vehicles," Samsung says. Samsung Wallet is available on Samsung devices as old as the Galaxy S20, Note 20, Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Galaxy Flip 5G, and is included on the majority of the company's new phones. Like similar features on Google's Pixels and Apple's iPhones, Digital Key allows Porsche owners with a supported Galaxy phone to unlock, lock and start their car directly from their phone. If your phone is ever taken, you can also remotely lock or delete a Digital Key to keep your car safe.
Samsung added Digital Key support to select Volvo and Polestar EVs in February 2025. The feature
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 Apple Arcade will be adding four new games on Thursday, January 8, including True Skate , Cozy Caravan, Sago Mini Jinja's Garden, and Potion Punch 2 .
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 Google is developing two pairs of smart glasses with artificial intelligence that will launch in 2026, the company said today. The first set of glasses have AI integration and are designed for screen-free assistance with built-in speakers, microphones, and cameras for speaking to Google Gemini.
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Google and Apple have long existed as polar opposites, each ruling over their tech kingdoms with little interest in cooperation. But the latest build of Android's Canary operating system hints at an unusual instance of collaboration between the brands, with a new feature that seems aimed at making data transfer simpler between Android and iOS mobile device during the setup phase. It is expected to also be available in a future developer beta of iOS 26.
A representative for Google confirmed that the report from 9to5Google on this development is accurate, but didn't provide any additional details on how the transfer will work. Each brand already has their own dedicated Switch to Android and Switch to iOS apps for making the swap between ecosystems, but making the transition easier at the operating system level and adding support for moving more types of data certainly sounds promising. That said, features can go through a fair bit of iteration between the dev betas and the final launch, and Android Canary is a very early stage of development, so we'll be curious to see what actually arrives on our smartphones.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/google-and-apple-partner-on-better-android-iphone-switching-204738960.html?src=rss
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 Australia's new social media law goes into effect on December 10, 2025, and ahead of that date, Apple is sharing information on developer tools that are designed to help social media apps adhere to the law.
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 Apple Wallet car key support is coming to Rivian's second-generation R1S and R1T electric vehicles with a 2025.46 software update later this month, according to the company's software chief Wassym Bensaid. He did not provide a specific date.
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Roskomnadzor, Russia's federal agency for monitoring and censoring mass media, has blocked access to Snapchat and FaceTime in the country, Bloomberg reports, citing Russian news service Interfax. The bans were reportedly put in place because the platforms were used "to organize and carry out terrorist acts," and commit fraud.
It's not clear if either service is still accessible by using a VPN, but banning Snapchat and FaceTime fits with Russia's crackdown on communication and social platforms that started after the country's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Facebook and X were blocked in March of that year, and Instagram was added to the ban list not long after. In 2024, the encrypted messaging app Signal was also banned, and more recently in July 2025, Russia threatened to block access to WhatsApp.
Engadget has contacted both Apple and Snap to comment on the Russian bans. We'll update this article if we hear back.
Banning or restricting these platforms is a way to exert control over where and h
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