Inbox is the tech newsletter that goes beyond the news cycle. We cover the most important 9to5Google stories from the last couple of days along with a few highlights from around the web. We publish every Tuesday and Thursday, and if you like what you read, please subscribe.
Inbox is written by Daniel Bader. Read previous issues here, and then catch up with Ben Schoon’s excellent Weekender column published every Sunday.
⭐️ Starred
Alphabet’s Q3 earnings were interesting. Despite a 25% rise in revenue and a healthy net income of $26 billion, analysts were disappointed with the company’s results, sending the stock down as much as 11% in after-hours trading.
On the plus side, the company’s cloud business is booming, doubling year-over-year revenue to $30 billion as it attracts frontier labs to its data centers. But advertising revenue didn’t meet expectations, and investors appear to be worried that its search advertising business, one of the most efficient sources of recurring revenue in history, is not keeping up with changing user behavior.
As Anthropic gets ready to soar into its IPO later this year, mature businesses like Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon are racing to adapt to a market where demand for AI infrastructure is outpacing compute supply. But investors are looking at the capital expenditure tied up in future data center buildouts and getting nervous that, if the bubble bursts, even these well-capitalized companies will take massive hits.
The biggest question surrounding Google’s stock performance is whether it can sufficiently monetize AI-powered search before demand for its traditional search inventory falls off a cliff. As the company sends less and less traffic to the open web, it’s touting the fact that AI Mode and AI Overviews keep people on Google for three times as long as traditional search.
So it’s no surprise that it’s expanding ads in AI Mode to 10 new markets this week, with more to come by the end of the year. While the post was only a few paragraphs long, expanding its AI ad business may end up being one of the company’s most consequential announcements of 2026.
✉️ Inbox
- Someone is bringing Android Auto back to your phone’s screen, and it actually works. This little sideloaded hack fakes Android Auto on your smartphone for those who don’t want to deal with Google’s current disaster of a solution.
- Gemini Notebook for Android, iOS adds built-in audio recorder. The best tool for
cheating onoptimizing your homework just got even better. - Samsung’s open-ear Galaxy Buds On cost $229 in the US, launching next month. They’re no Beans, and they’re also very expensive. Good luck with these, Samsung.
- Samsung can’t decide between a larger Galaxy Z Fold 9 or one with worse specs, and neither can I. Here’s my hot take: we need fewer, not more, foldable options. Keep the lineup focused.
- Motorola’s flagship Signature 27 sounds quite expensive in retail leak. Motorola is cooking lately, but this phone looks a little too rich for my blood.
- Public Discord messages might start showing up in Google Search, unless users opt out
- RAMageddon is ready to rage on through 2030. We get the world we deserve, and that means more expensive gadgets on which to use many, many AI tokens.
- Amazon’s latest Echo smart displays and speakers reinforce Google Home’s lost lead. I’m no fan of Alexa, but I have to admit Amazon is crushing it on the hardware design front lately.
- Google adding more Connected Apps to Gemini & Search with new dev platform. Android’s Dev Summit yielded some really interesting announcements, and this was top among them.
- Google announces Gemini 4 Carbon with ‘significant gains across coding and agentic tasks’. Two weeks after Argon comes Carbon. What happened to Barium? Guess it was stuck in the loo.
- Some Pixel Watch users report a sudden decrease in battery life
➡️ FWD:
I didn’t get to see either of the first Dune movies on IMAX, but you can bet your ass I’ve already secured opening-day tickets for the third one. Dune: Part Three debuts in December, and we now have the final trailer that showcases the impending showdown between Muad’Dib and Chani as the former realizes the consequences of his galactic war.
On the gadgety side, there’s another impending showdown brewing between XREAL’s Android XR-powered Aura glasses and Meta’s upcoming VR Glasses.
I liked Jasmine Uniza’s video below comparing the two because, until I watched it, I didn’t realize the extent of the diverging approaches to reality they’re each taking. The Aura glasses are more traditionally translucent and somewhat awkwardly project two OLED screens on top of the dimmed lenses, allowing the outside world to filter through. Meta’s VR Glasses eschew the traditional headset shape and weight of the Quest but block out far more of the outside world and use external cameras, like their predecessors, to pipe in mixed-reality footage.
Finally, some personal news of a sort: I am now a permanent host of The Sideload. If you know me at all, you know I love a podcast, and Will Sattelberg was my co-host at the Android Police podcast for three years before he left for 9to5 last year. I’m so excited to be doing this again every week with him, and I hope you’ll tune in to our most recent episode about the death of the web browser and other good news.
🗑️ Trash
If you’ve been patiently waiting for Apple’s top-tier M5 Ultra-powered Mac Studio, fear not: Apple has you covered. From 9to5Mac:
When Apple announced the new M5 Max and M5 Ultra configurations of the Mac Studio in August, it said a configuration with 512GB of RAM would be available in October. Today, the company officially revealed the pricing of that option.
If you head to the Mac Studio configurator on Apple’s website, you’ll see the new 512GB upgrade option. As previously announced, the 512GB option is only available with the top-tier M5 Ultra chip that has a 36-core CPU and 80‑core GPU.
It’s a $15,500 upgrade over the base configuration of that processor, which has 96GB of unified memory.
To put it another way: you’ll pay $22,299 for the Mac Studio with the top-tier M5 Ultra, 512GB of unified memory, and 1TB of storage. You can spec it up all the way to 16TB of storage, which brings the total price to $29,799.00.
Hell yeah.
Like what you just read? Subscribe to Inbox today and get it in your email every Tuesday and Thursday morning. Got feedback? Send us an email.
You can also support us by becoming a 9to5Google Pro member, starting at just $5/month. You get bonus podcast episodes, access to our members-only Discord server, and lots more.
Thanks for reading, and have a great day. I’ll talk to you on Tuesday.
—Daniel
