Android has its own AirDrop-like feature called Quick Share (formerly Google Nearby Share), but until recently, it couldn’t communicate with Apple’s AirDrop. As we reported in November, the European Union required Apple to implement the Wi-Fi Aware standard in AirDrop, which enabled Google to add support for the Pixel 10 lineup. Google confirmed it didn’t need to work with Apple at all to make that happen.

As part of the Quick Share updates, Google has added an extension to the Play Store that allows Quick Share to operate as a full, updatable APK rather than an element of Play Services. That should make it easier to roll out new features to the entire Android ecosystem. Currently, the extension only supports a smattering of Android phones, but we can expect that list to expand as AirDrop comes to more devices this year.

With AirDrop support, Android devices can send files to iOS and macOS devices without downloading third-party apps. However, the functionality requires Apple users to enable the “Everyone for 10 minutes” connectivity option. While Google can shoehorn Android into the Wi-Fi Aware system, it cannot use Apple’s contact-based sharing options. That probably won’t change with the pending update.

Of course, “very soon” in Google-speak can mean many things. The company does like to pair Android ecosystem updates with Pixel Drops, and the next one of those is expected in March, with changes to location privacy, At a Glance, and more.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/google-hints-at-big-airdrop-expansion-for-android-very-soon/

30 years of animation

Animate debuted in 1996 as FutureWave Software’s FutureSplash Animator. After a 1997 acquisition by Macromedia, FutureSplash Animator became Macromedia Flash. In 2005, Adobe bought Macromedia and renamed Macromedia Flash to Adobe Flash Professional. In 2015, the software became Adobe Animate CC. In its nearly 30 years of use, Animate has been used in numerous popular animated films and shows, including Star Trek: Lower Decks. Still, Adobe said on Monday that “new platforms and paradigms have emerged that better serve the needs of the user.”

Based on the response to Monday’s announcement, not everyone agrees that Animate is obsolete. Adobe’s announcement has also drawn increased scrutiny because of the company’s growing focus on AI-based tools, which have led to higher subscription fees.

“Shutting down Animate and cutting off users from decades worth of work, while simultaneously focusing on anti-artist AI technology, is incredibly disrespectful to your users. Make the software open-source if you’re not going to do the work yourself,” a user on Adobe’s forum going by “FFFlay” wrote in response to Monday’s announcement.

Although Adobe has shown an ability to respond to customer frustration and will allow people to use Animate for the foreseeable future, people who depend on the software, including for animation and education, are concerned about relying on a program that Adobe almost discontinued.

In a post today, an Adobe community member going by the username rayek.elfin wrote, “The damage is done in my opinion. The news of Adobe discontinuing Animate went viral and probably created so much anxiety and uncertainty that studios and indie animators are already looking to replace Animate in their pipelines.”

When asked how Adobe will try to rebuild trust among users, Chambers said, “Trust doesn’t come beforehand, it comes after (and has to be earned). We say what we will do, and if we consistently do it, we gain trust. We are at the ‘we say what we will do’ part for a lot of people.”

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/adobe-reverses-decision-to-discontinue-animate-after-a-lot-of-confusion-and-angst/

There is concern that subscribers might be negatively affected if Netflix acquires Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD’s) streaming and movie studios businesses. One of the biggest fears is that the merger would lead to higher prices due to Netflix having less competition. During a Senate hearing today, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos suggested that the merger would have an opposite effect.

Sarandos was speaking at a hearing held by the US Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, “Examining the Competitive Impact of the Proposed Netflix-Warner Brothers Transaction.”

Sarandos aimed to convince the subcommittee that Netflix wouldn’t become a monopoly in streaming or in movie and TV production if regulators allowed its acquisition to close. Netflix is the largest subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) provider by subscribers (301.63 million as of January 2025), and WBD is the third (128 million streaming subscribers, including users of HBO Max and, to a smaller degree, Discovery+).

Speaking at today’s hearing, Sarandos said:

Netflix and Warner Bros. both have streaming services, but they are very complementary. In fact, 80 percent of HBO Max subscribers also subscribe to Netflix. We will give consumers more content for less.

During the hearing, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) asked Sarandos how Netflix can ensure that streaming remains “affordable” after a merger, especially after Netflix issued a price hike in January 2025 despite it adding more subscribers.

Sarandos said the streaming industry is still competitive. The executive claimed that previous Netflix price hikes have come with “a lot more value” for subscribers.

“We are a one-click cancel, so if the consumer says, ‘That’s too much for what I’m getting,’ they can cancel with one click,” Sarandos said.

When pressed further on pricing, the executive argued that the merger doesn’t pose “any concentration risk” and that Netflix is working with the US Department of Justice on potential guardrails against more price hikes.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/netflix-claims-subscribers-will-get-more-content-for-less-if-it-buys-hbo-max/

Although it was finally replaced last year by the new Switch 2, the orginal switch isn’t done just yet. Many recent Switch games (and a handful of major updates, like the one for Animal Crossing) have been released in both Switch and Switch 2 editions, and Nintendo continues to sell all editions of the original console as entry-level systems for those who can’t pay $450 for a Switch 2.

The 9-year-old Switch’s continued availability has helped it clear a milestone, according to the company’s third-quarter financial results (PDF). As of December 31, 2025, Nintendo says the Switch “has reached the highest sales volume of any Nintendo hardware” with a total of 155.37 million units sold, surpassing the original DS’s lifetime total of 154.02 million units. The console has sold 3.25 million units in Nintendo’s fiscal 2026 so far, including 1.36 million units over the holidays. Those consoles have sold despite price hikes that Nintendo introduced in August of 2025, citing “market conditions.”

That makes the Switch the second-bestselling game console of all time, just three years after it became the third-bestselling game console of all time. The only frontier left for the Switch to conquer is Sony’s PlayStation 2, which Sony says sold “over 160 million units” over its long life. At its current sales rate (Nintendo predicts it will sell roughly 750,000 Switches in the next quarter), it would take the Switch another couple of years to cross that line, but those numbers are likely to taper off as we get deeper into the Switch 2 era.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/original-nintendo-switch-passes-the-ds-to-become-nintendos-bestselling-console/

Technology companies spent part of the 2010s trying to convince us that we would want an 8K display one day.

In 2012, Sharp brought the first 8K TV prototype to the CES trade show in Las Vegas. In 2015, the first 8K TVs started selling in Japan for 16 million yen (about $133,034 at the time), and in 2018, Samsung released the first 8K TVs in the US, starting at a more reasonable $3,500. By 2016, the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) had a specification for supporting 8K (Display Port1.4), and the HDMI Forum followed suit (with HDMI 2.1). By 2017, Dell had an 8K computer monitor. In 2019, LG released the first 8K OLED TV, further pushing the industry’s claim that 8K TVs were “the future.”

A marketing image for 8K TVs that’s (still) on LG’s US website.

Credit: LG

However, 8K never proved its necessity or practicality.

TV companies are quitting 8K

LG Display is no longer making 8K LCD or OLED panels, FlatpanelsHD reported today. Earlier this month, an LG Display representative told FlatpanelsHD that the panel supplier is “taking a comprehensive view of current display market trends and the trends within the 8K content ecosystem.”

“As our technical readiness is already complete, LG Display is fully prepared to respond immediately whenever the market and customers determine that the timing is right,” LG Display’s representative said.

LG Electronics was the first and only company to sell 8K OLED TVs, starting with the 88-inch Z9 in 2019. In 2022, it lowered the price-of-entry for an 8K OLED TV by $7,000 by charging $13,000 for a 76.7-inch TV.

FlatpanelsHD cited anonymous sources who said that LG Electronics would no longer restock the 2024 QNED99T, which is the last LCD 8K TV that it released.

LG’s 8K abandonment follows other brands distancing themselves from 8K. TCL, which released its last 8K TV in 2021, said in 2023 that it wasn’t making more 8K TVs due to low demand. Sony discontinued its last 8K TVs in April and is unlikely to return to the market, as it plans to sell the majority ownership of its Bravia TVs to TCL.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/lg-joins-the-rest-of-the-world-accepts-that-people-dont-want-8k-tvs/

The best example of Nvidia’s passion for support is, believe it or not, a two-year gap in updates.

Across the dozens of Shield TV updates, there have been a few times when fans feared Nvidia was done with the box. Most notably, there were no public updates for the Shield TV in 2023 or 2024, but over-the-air updates resumed in 2025.

“On the outside, it looked like we went quiet, but it’s actually one of our bigger development efforts,” explained Bell.

The origins of that effort, surprisingly, stretch back years to the launch of the Nintendo Switch. The Shield runs Nvidia’s custom Tegra X1 Arm chip, the same processor Nintendo chose to power the original Switch in 2017. Soon after release, modders discovered a chip flaw that could bypass Nintendo’s security measures, enabling homebrew (and piracy). An updated Tegra X1 chip (also used in the 2019 Shield refresh) fixed that for Nintendo, but Nvidia’s 2015 and 2017 Shield boxes ran the same exploitable version.

Initially, Nvidia was able to roll out periodic patches to protect against the vulnerability, but by 2023, the Shield needed something more. Around that time, owners of 2015 and 2017 Shield boxes had noticed that DRM-protected 4K content often failed to play—that was thanks to the same bug that affected the Switch years earlier.

With a newer, non-vulnerable product on the market, many companies might have just accepted that the older product would lose functionality, but Nvidia’s passion for Shield remained. Bell consulted Huang, whom he calls Shield customer No. 1, about the meaning of his “as long as we shall live” pledge, and the team was approved to spend whatever time was need to fix the vulnerability on the first two generations of Shield TV.

According to Bell, it took about 18 months to get there, requiring the creation of an entirely new security stack. He explains that Android updates aren’t actually that much work compared to DRM security, and some of its partners weren’t that keen on re-certifying older products. The Shield team fought for it because they felt, as they had throughout the product’s run, that they’d made a promise to customers who expected the box to have certain features.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/inside-nvidias-10-year-effort-to-make-the-shield-tv-the-most-updated-android-device-ever/

Complaining about Windows 11 is a popular sport among tech enthusiasts on the Internet, whether you’re publicly switching to Linux, publishing guides about the dozens of things you need to do to make the OS less annoying, or getting upset because you were asked to sign in to an app after clicking a sign-in button.

Despite the negativity surrounding the current version of Windows, it remains the most widely used operating system on the world’s desktop and laptop computers, and people usually prefer to stick to what they’re used to. As a result, Windows 11 has just cleared a big milestone—Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on the company’s most recent earnings call (via The Verge) that Windows 11 now has over 1 billion users worldwide.

Windows 11 also reached that milestone just a few months quicker than Windows 10 did—1,576 days after its initial public launch on October 5, 2021. Windows 10 took 1,692 days to reach the same milestone, based on its July 29, 2015, general availability date and Microsoft’s announcement on March 16, 2020.

That’s especially notable because Windows 10 was initially offered as a free upgrade to all users of Windows 7 and Windows 8, with no change in system requirements relative to those older versions. Windows 11 was (and still is) a free upgrade to Windows 10, but its relatively high system requirements mean there are plenty of Windows 10 PCs that aren’t eligible to run Windows 11.

Windows 10’s long goodbye

It’s hard to gauge how many PCs are still running Windows 10 because public data on the matter is unreliable. But we can still make educated guesses—and it’s clear that the software is still running on hundreds of millions of PCs, despite hitting its official end-of-support date last October.

Statcounter, one popularly referenced source that collects OS and browser usage stats from web analytics data, reports that between 50 and 55 percent of Windows PCs worldwide are running Windows 11, and between 40 and 45 percent of them run Windows 10. Statcounter also reports that Windows 10 and Windows 7 usage have risen slightly over the last few months, which highlights the noisiness of the data. But as of late 2025, Dell COO Jeffrey Clarke said that there were still roughly 1 billion active Windows 10 PCs in use, around 500 million of which weren’t eligible for an upgrade because of hardware requirements. If Windows 11 just cleared the 1 billion user mark, that suggests Statcounter’s reporting of a nearly evenly split user base isn’t too far from the truth.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/windows-11-has-hit-1-billion-users-just-a-hair-faster-than-windows-10-did/

System requirements and other restrictions

Apple outlines detailed system requirements for each app on its support page here. For most of the Mac apps, all you need is a Mac running macOS 15.6 Sequoia or later; the only Mac app that requires macOS 26 Tahoe is Pixelmator Pro. Most of the apps will also run on either Intel or Apple Silicon Macs, though MainStage is Apple Silicon-exclusive, and “some features” in Compressor may also require Apple Silicon.

The requirements for the iPad apps are a little more restrictive; you generally need to be running either iPadOS 18.6 or iPadOS 26, and both Final Cut Pro and Pixelmator Pro either want an Apple M1, an Apple A16, or an Apple A17 Pro (in other words, it will work on every iPad Apple currently sells, but older iPad hardware is more hit or miss).

Apple also outlines a number of usage restrictions for the generative AI features that rely on external services. Apple says that, “at a minimum,” users will be able to generate 50 images, 50 presentations of between 8 to 10 slides each, and to generate presenter notes in Keynote for 700 slides. More usage may be possible, but this depends on “the complexity of the queries, server availability, and network availability.”

These AI features are all based on OpenAI technology, but don’t require users to have their own OpenAI or ChatGPT account (the flip side is that if you already pay for ChatGPT, that won’t benefit you here). Apple also says that the content you use to generate images, presentations, or notes “will never be used to train intelligence models.”

What apps aren’t getting new versions?

There are three major creative apps that Apple offers that haven’t been bundled into Creator Studio, and also haven’t gotten a major new update: iMovie, GarageBand, and Photomator.

There are extenuating circumstances that explain why these three apps haven’t been given a Creator Studio-style overhaul. The iMovie and GarageBand apps have always sort of been positioned as “lite” free-to-use versions of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, respectively, while Photomator is a recently acquired app that overlaps somewhat with the built-in Photos app.

Apple has nothing to share about the future of any of the three apps. Both iMovie and Photomator received minor updates today, presumably related to maintaining compatibility with the Creator Studio apps, and GarageBand was last updated a month ago. Expect them to stick around in their current forms for at least a while.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/seven-things-to-know-about-how-apples-creator-studio-subscriptions-work/

Google began stuffing Gemini into its dominant Chrome browser several months ago, and today the AI is expanding its capabilities considerably. Google says the chatbot will be easier to access and connect to more Google services, but the biggest change is the addition of Google’s autonomous browsing agent, which it has dubbed Auto Browse. Similar to tools like OpenAI Atlas, Auto Browse can handle tedious tasks in Chrome so you don’t have to.

The newly unveiled Gemini features in Chrome are accessible from the omnipresent AI button that has been lurking at the top of the window for the last few months. Initially, that button only opened Gemini in a pop-up window, but Google now says it will default to a split-screen or “Sidepanel” view. Google confirmed the update began rolling out over the past week, so you may already have it.

You can still pop Gemini out into a floating window, but the split-view gives Gemini more room to breathe while manipulating a page with AI. This is also helpful when calling other apps in the Chrome implementation of Gemini. The chatbot can now access Gmail, Calendar, YouTube, Maps, Google Shopping, and Google Flights right from the Chrome window. Google technically added this feature around the middle of January, but it’s only talking about it now.

Gemini in Chrome can now also access and edit images with Nano Banana, so you don’t have to download and re-upload them to Gemini in another location. Just open the image from the web and type in the Sidepanel with a description of the edits you want. Like in the Gemini app, you can choose between the slower but higher-quality Pro model and the faster standard one.

https://arstechnica.com/google/2026/01/google-begins-rolling-out-chromes-auto-browse-ai-agent-today/

LG has launched a subscription program in the UK that allows people to make monthly payments in order to rent LG TVs, soundbars, monitors, and speakers.

LG Flex customers can sign up for one-, two-, or three-year subscriptions to get lower monthly payments.

“At the end of your subscription, you can apply for a free upgrade, keep paying monthly, or return your device,” the LG Flex website says. Subscribers will have to pay a £50 (about $69) fee for a “full removal service,” including dismounting and packaging, of rental TVs.

LG also claims on its website that it won’t penalize customers for “obvious signs of use, such as some scratching, small dents, or changes in the paintwork.” However, if you damage the rental device, LG “may charge you for the cost of repair as outlined by the Repair Charges set out in your agreement.” LG’s subscription partner, Raylo, also sells insurance for coverage against “accidental damage, loss, and theft” of rented devices.

As of this writing, you can buy LG’s 83-inch OLED B5 2025 TV on LG’s UK website for £2,550 (about $3,515). Monthly rental prices range from £93 ($128), if you commit to a three-year-long rental period, to £277 ($382), if you only commit to a one-month rental period. Under the three-year plan, you can rent the TV for 27 months before you end up paying more to rent the TV than you would have to own it. At the highest rate, your rental payments will surpass MSRP after nine months.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/lgs-new-subscription-program-charges-up-to-277-per-month-to-rent-a-tv/