From the editors of Computerworld, this enterprise buyer’s guide helps IT staff understand what the various enterprise file synchronization and sharing (EFSS) options can do for their organizations and how to choose the right solution.
Author: Security – Computerworld
22 must-have Android widgets for busy professionals
When wondering about widgets, one would be wise to weigh which widget is a widget worth welcoming.
Apologies for my atrociously annoying alliteration. (Ah, blast. There I go again.) The thing about a widget, though, is — well, it sounds silly. And it’s easy to write off as being irrelevant to your life as an Extremely Serious Smartphone User.
But playful as they may seem — and frivolous as they often appear — Android widgets can actually be a real asset when it comes to mobile productivity. In fact, once you wade through the Play Store’s endless-seeming array of weather widgets, clock widgets, and, uh, more weather widgets, a sea of genuinely useful options awaits.
These standout Android widgets add value to your smartphone setup by putting timely information and complex functions right on your home screen, where they’re always in sight and easy to reach. With a little creative configuring, you can even make any Android widget available on demand from anywhere with a press of your phone’s physical buttons, if you really want to get wild. However you choose to use ’em, they can save you precious steps and help you get more accomplished in less time.
So without any further ado, here they are: the Android widgets you want.
(Note that I’m not including any Android email or messaging apps in this list, as most of the respectable clients in those categories have similarly fine widgets — and there’s really not much to distinguish one from another.)
Android widgets 101
Before we get into the specifics, a quick primer on what, exactly, Android widgets are — and how you can use ’em (and if you’re already an Android widget expert, feel free to skip this section and head straight into the recommendations!):
Android widgets are like specific slivers of apps that show up on your home screen, right alongside your assorted shortcuts and other such items. They’ve been available on Android since the very earliest Android version, and they offer a diverse range of helpful interactive info that’s always available without any app opening or extra steps required — everything from a scrollable view of your notes and agenda to a list of the latest news stories or stock updates of interest.
In most typical Android environments, you can add a new widget by pressing and holding your finger down onto any open space on your screen and then looking for the “Widgets” or “Add a widget” option in the menu that pops up. From there, you can tap any app you see listed to expand its available widgets and then either tap or press and hold any specific widget to add it onto your home screen.
The steps for adding an Android widget onto your home screen, as seen on a Google Pixel phone.
JR Raphael
Once a widget is in place on your home screen, you can press and hold your finger onto it to move, resize, or remove it as well as to access any available settings and customization choices the widget may offer.
Now you know — and now we can get into the best widgets worth your while to weigh over.
Android widgets for note-taking
1. Google Keep
Google Keep is the best Android note-taking app for most people, and its Android widget selection doesn’t disappoint.
First and foremost, Keep’s “Note collection” widget gives you an easy way to scroll through your notes — with the option to view all notes, only those that are pinned, or only those that are associated with a particular label. You can see the first several lines of each note right on your home screen, and it takes just a single tap to open any item in full.
Google Keep’s “Note collection” widget puts your personal notepad on your phone’s home screen.
JR Raphael
Equally advantageous is the toolbar built into the Keep widget, which gives you one-tap commands for starting a new note, starting a new checklist, taking a note by voice, jotting down something in handwriting, and capturing a photo directly into your notes. And if all you want are those commands, you can opt to use Keep’s smaller “Quick capture” widget — which gives you the fast-access shortcuts without any notes attached.
If you’d rather see only a specific single note on your home screen, meanwhile, Keep has a widget for that as well. The “Single note” widget lets you select any individual note you want — a list, a photo, even just a plain text memo with something you routinely need to reference — and have it appear in its entirety on your home screen. You can scroll through it right then and there or tap an icon within the widget’s corner to open the note in full within the actual Keep app.
Google Keep is completely free.
2. ColorNote Notepad Notes
Whether you use a comprehensive note-taking app or not, sometimes all you need is a simple sticky note to remember something simple and keep it placarded prominently in front of your face. ColorNote is an app worth keeping around for that situation — mostly because of its widget.
You can think of ColorNote as a virtual Post-It notepad for your phone: When something noteworthy enters your noggin, all you have to do is add a new ColorNote widget to your home screen, type in whatever you want to remember, and that’s it: The info will then show up on your home screen as if you’d stuck a tiny sticky note right on top of your phone.
Press all sorts of Post-It notes to your screen with ColorNote’s Android widget.
JR Raphael
The app has its own system for backing up to the cloud, if you want to keep your notes synced across multiple devices. You can also change any individual note’s color by opening it within the main app. But it’s the simplicity of being able to put virtual Post-Its on your home screen that makes ColorNote a widget worth having.
ColorNote is free.
3. Ruff Writing App
If you prefer the idea of a single scratchpad instead of a series of individual Post-Its, Ruff is the tool for you. The amusingly canine-themed app is designed to bring a single, delightfully simple scrolling sheet of text to your phone. Anything you type into that sheet is automatically saved locally on your device and can easily be archived for later reference or sent anywhere else for sharing or external storing.
Ruff’s widget puts a personal scratchpad on your home screen.
JR Raphael
Ruff is free to use, though certain features — including the scrolling widget capability — require a one-time $4 in-app purchase to access.
Android widgets for task and agenda management
4. Todoist
When it comes to managing to-do lists, Todoist is a cut above the rest across any platform or type of device you might be using — and its presence on Android is certainly no exception, in general or specific to the domain of worthwhile widgets.
The main Todoist widget is a simple but effective scrolling list of your tasks within whatever view you choose — your main Todoist inbox, your list of tasks due today, your complete list of upcoming tasks, or a collection of tasks related to one specific project.
You can even create multiple Todoist widgets for different purposes, if you want, and you can customize each of ’em to give it its own distinctive appearance — with a variety of different themes and the option to have the widget dynamically adjust its coloring to match your wallpaper at any given moment.
Todoist’s Android widgets put interactive views of your most important tasks front and center.
JR Raphael
With whatever widgets you select, you can see and scroll through a live view of all the tasks associated with that area and check off any items right from your home screen, without ever having to open up the app. You can also add new tasks via a convenient pop-up that appears when you tap the plus icon within the widget — relying on either built-in buttons for specifying things like the due date, priority, and any required reminders or using Todoist’s simple shortcuts or natural language processing for inputting such info as you go.
Todoist is free in its base form with an optional $48-a-year Pro plan that removes a variety of limitations and a $72-per-user-per-year business plan that adds a bunch of extra team features into the mix.
5. Google Calendar or Business Calendar 2
Tasks aside, keeping your calendar in plain view is one of the easiest ways to increase your efficiency on Android — and two of the best Android calendar apps around have exceptional options for making your agenda readily available.
Google’s own Google Calendar app has come a long way with its widget selection over the years and now boasts a pair of simple, nicely designed options for putting a scrolling view of your agenda or a month-long overview on your home screen.
The more advanced and customizable Business Calendar 2, meanwhile, has a whole host of widget options for practically any calendar-related purpose imaginable — and each offers a sprawling array of choices for exactly what type of info you want to be shown and how you want it to look.
The Google Calendar (left) and Business Calendar (right, in agenda view) widgets are among Android’s best calendar widget options.
JR Raphael
(Business Calendar automatically syncs with your device’s system-level calendar, which means it’ll effectively sync with Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, or any other calendar system you’re using.)
Google Calendar is completely free, while Business Calendar 2 is free with an optional $7 Pro upgrade that removes ads and unlocks certain advanced features.
6. Calendar Notification
Why limit widgets only to your home screen?
Our next standout selection stretches the definition of what a “widget” can even mean by bringing the same exact concept into your Android notification panel.
The aptly named Calendar Notification puts a persistent view of your agenda right into that area of the Android interface — which means you can get a glimpse at your upcoming events or even a monthly calendar view anytime, anywhere, without even having to stop whatever else you’re doing and head back to your home screen.
Calendar Notification essentially puts a widget into your Android notification panel — with ample room for customization.
JR Raphael / IDG
You can tap any individual event within the notification-based widget to view more details about that appointment or edit it — and tap an icon at the top of the widget to switch between different views.
Calendar Notification is free to use with its monthly view only. An optional $5 upgrade adds in all the other views, along with some advanced customization options.
7. Sectograph Planner & Time Manager
For a truly original and effective single-day overview widget, check out Sectograph — an app that shows the next 12 hours of your day in a clever pie chart format. It’s almost like having a smartwatch on your home screen, with your schedule mapped out by the hour.
And the widget is interactive, too: If you tap on any event within it, the entire circle fills up with detailed info about that appointment and how long you have left until it begins.
Sectograph divides your day up into slices and gives you a great visual overview of your plans.
JR Raphael
Sectograph has options for customizing almost every aspect of its appearance — and if you pay $8 to upgrade to the app’s Pro version, you can change its color palette as well as bump up to a 24-hour clock and even create separate, individual widgets for different calendars on your device.
8. Hurry Day Countdown & Reminder
Got an important deadline on the horizon — or maybe an upcoming company trip? The delightfully simple Hurry Day Countdown app does one thing and does it well: It lets you create eye-catching countdown widgets for specific events and then keep an eye on exactly how long is left before the moment arrives.
All you do is input your event’s title, date, and time into the app, then select an image for the background, if you’re so inspired — and when you go to add the app’s widget onto your home screen, your info will be there and waiting to be selected.
Count down the time to important events with the Hurry Day Countdown & Reminder widget.
JR Raphael
Hurry Day Countdown is completely free to use.
9. TripIt
TripIt is the Swiss Army knife of Android travel apps, and its widget is worth every inch of space on your phone’s home screen whenever you have a trip on the horizon.
TripIt serves as a central organizer for all of your travel-related plans (after you either forward your itineraries to a specific email address or authorize the app to access your email directly to find such messages). Its $49-a-year TripIt Pro service then gives you real-time flight updates all throughout your trip — often even beating notifications by airlines’ own apps.
The widget puts all of TripIt’s knowledge into an easily glanceable space on your home screen, allowing you to see and scroll through your plans anytime without having to dig around. And, of course, you can always tap on any element within your plans to jump immediately to a more detailed view.
TripIt’s interactive itinerary widget is invaluable anytime you’re traveling.
JR Raphael
The core TripIt service is free and works well for basic travel organization — with or without the TripIt Pro addition in the mix.
Android widgets for advanced interactions
10. Google Contacts (Individual Contact)
Got someone you communicate with constantly — maybe a boss, an especially important client, or a significant other?
The recently revamped Google Contacts Individual Contact widget gives you a great way to keep that person within arm’s reach all the time. Each widget shows the profile photo of one specific contact, along with icons to start a new call or text with that person — and, in the most useful twist, the widget updates whenever you get a notification associated with that person to show it front and center.
The Google Contacts widget puts important people on your home screen — with easy access to call and message them (left) as well as interact with their incoming notifications (right).
JR Raphael
You can tap the notification to interact with it and even send suggested replies right from your home screen, whenever such options are available.
Google Contacts is free and readily available (and entirely advisable!) to install on any device where it wasn’t already present out of the box.
11. Notification Widget
Don’t stop with your contacts: With the right Android widget addition, you can put all of your incoming notifications on your home screen — keeping that pertinent info in a prominent place, where you’ll never miss it, and saving yourself from having to swipe down from the top of your screen to open your full notification panel 7,000 times a day.
That’s what Notification Widget is all about. It shows your notifications wherever you want ’em and also gives you fast on-demand access to an expanded view of Android’s notification history (which is typically tucked away and tricky to find). You can even use it as part of a versatile custom command center on your home screen for extra-efficient access to especially important info.
You can see all of your incoming notifications right on your home screen with the simply named Notification Widget.
JR Raphael
Notification Widget is free for its core functions, with an optional $4 upgrade that unlocks an expanded notification history view along with other advanced features.
Android widgets for news and information
12. Google News
Keep the latest headlines at your fingertips with Google’s smartly designed News app and its simple but effective widget. The widget shows a scrollable view of the top five stories in your personalized view at any given moment. You can tap any story to read it or tap the “More news for you” button to see more.
The Google News widget puts a mix of current events and items of interest on your home screen.
JR Raphael
It’s an easy way to stay in the loop on the most pressing headlines throughout the day — and, as you’d expect, it’s completely free to use.
13. Inoreader
If you have a specific set of sources you need to keep track of for your job — company blogs, industry news sites, or other publications relevant to your interests — Inoreader is a fantastic way to make sure nothing slips past your attention.
All you do is add whatever sources you want into the app and then place the widget on your home screen, and all the latest articles from those outlets will always be there and waiting for you in a regularly refreshed, scrollable box.
Track your own custom set of sources with minimal effort with Inoreader on your home screen.
JR Raphael
You can even access your list from a computer, using the Inoreader web app, and the service will keep track of which articles you’ve read in either place so you’ll always know where you left off. Inoreader is free to use with an optional $90-a-year professional plan that lifts a 150-source limit on your subscriptions and adds advanced features such as offline reading and an in-app translation option.
14. Google Maps (Nearby Traffic)
One of the most powerful Android widgets out there is an unassuming option buried within Google Maps. It’s called Nearby Traffic, and it gives you a live view of traffic in your current area.
It’s a helpful way to check in on road conditions and see if it’s a good time to head out the door for your evening commute — or if it’d be worth waiting a while or finding an alternate route.
The Maps Traffic widget is free and bundled into the main Google Maps app.
15. Google (Finance Watchlist)
Investors, take note: You’ve got a splendidly easy way to keep tabs on stocks of interest right from your phone’s home screen — and it’s already on your device and just waiting to be found.
Google added an excellent Finance Watchlist widget into its self-named Google Android app a while back, but you’d really have to go out of your way to even realize it’s available.
Once you add it onto your home screen, though, you can add any specific investments into its list — stocks, mutual funds, even cryptocurrency, if that’s your jam — and then see each item’s up-to-the-minute status at a glance anytime.
Keeping up with investments is easy with the customizable Google Finance Watchlist widget.
JR Raphael
The Finance Watchlist widget is bundled into the Google app that’s preinstalled on all Android devices, and it’s free to use.
Android widgets for advanced functions
16. Authy
Keep your two-factor authentication codes handy with Authy’s immensely practical widget, which puts a scrollable list of your 2FA-enabled accounts on your home screen and then lets you pull up and copy codes for any account with a quick tap. (If you keep your 2FA data password- or fingerprint-protected — which you most certainly should — you’ll have to provide authentication before any codes are accessible.)
Authy, if you aren’t familiar, is essentially a more fully featured version of Google’s own Authenticator app. And two-factor authentication is something you should absolutely be using wherever possible.
17. Google Drive (Scan)
The next time you find yourself holding a piece of physical paper you need to save — be it a receipt, a business card, or even a bar napkin on which someone’s written incredibly important information (as one does) — the Google Drive Scan widget will be your new best friend.
The widget, part of the main Drive app, doesn’t look like much on your home screen. But tap it, and a camera viewfinder will immediately appear. Hold your phone over your paper, hit the shutter icon on your screen, and that’s pretty much it: Tap once more to confirm, and the image will be saved as a PDF to your Drive storage — in whatever folder you specified when you first set the widget up.
(You can also opt to crop the image, if needed, or “scan” additional images to be attached as extra pages in the PDF.)
The best part? Thanks to Google’s character recognition system, you can then search Drive for any word shown on the paper to quickly find the PDF in the future. And if you ever want to convert all of the image’s text into plain, editable text within a document, you can do that, too.
There are other apps that offer a more feature-rich Android scanning experience, but when it comes to quick capturing with one-tap access, Google Drive’s widget is the way to go.
18. Google Home (Favorites)
Don’t let this next knockout’s name fool you: While the Google Home Favorites widget is part of the Google Home app, it’s really more of an all-purpose connected-device control widget that can be handy for any purpose — home, home office, or even a more traditional workplace (so long as it has smart devices inside!).
The Home Favorites widget puts one-tap toggles for any and all Google-Home-connected gizmos on your home screen for easy ongoing access. That could include anything from connected cameras and thermostats to smart lights and Google-Assistant-associated screens and speakers (which are great office-side companions, by the way).
All sorts of connected device controls are a tap away with the Google Home Favorites Android widget.
JR Raphael
The app and widget are free to use and compatible with a wide range of both Google-made and third-party products.
19. Widgetify
Turn any website into your own custom widget with the wondrous Widgetify Android widget wizard.
It couldn’t be much easier to use: You just type or paste in whatever website you want into the Widgetify setup interface, adjust any options you want — including how often the site refreshes — and that’s it: You’ve got a live view of that web page in a place you can always peek in at and see exactly what’s going on.
Widgetify makes it simple to see a live view of any web page on your home screen.
JR Raphael
It’s a fantastic way to keep any site you peek at frequently in easy view — whether it’s your own company website, a forum you frequent, or even a favorite news source of some sort. And it’s completely free to use.
20. IFTTT
IFTTT is short for “If This, Then That” — and its Android widget is overflowing with productivity-oriented possibilities.
The IFTTT widget can be configured to perform dozens of different time-saving tasks. You could create an IFTTT widget that serves as a quick-add function for Google Calendar events, for instance, and one that gives you a one-tap command for quickly posting messages to a specific Slack channel.
IFTTT’s widget can automate and simplify all sorts of time-consuming tasks.
JR Raphael
There’s a widget for tracking your work hours in Google Sheets and another for emailing a fast note to yourself. There’s even an IFTTT widget for making your phone ring in case you ever need an excuse to shuffle out of an endless meeting. (Don’t worry — I won’t tell.)
Install the app, add a widget, and start exploring. The options are practically endless.
IFTTT is free with up to two active applets (the underlying recipes, or automations, that make each widget work) at a time. You can raise that restriction and enable a variety of advanced features with a $3.50-a-month or $35-a-year Pro subscription.
21. Easy Drawer
Who says your Android app library has to live within a traditional “drawer”?
With Easy Drawer, you can put your entire app collection right on your home screen in a way that’s both efficient to access and delightfully tidy.
The entire widget just looks like a keyboard to start. But when you tap any letter within it, it updates to show you every app that begins with that letter.
Access your apps at record speeds with the clever Easy Drawer Android widget.
JR Raphael
No searching, no scrolling — just one tap of a letter, and boom: You’ve got whatever you want in front of you and ready to open.
You can set frequently used apps as favorites, too, which makes them immediately available at the top of the Easy Drawer interface. And, if you want to make the widget even more useful, you can set it up to surface contacts as well — with one tap to find any person in your phone and then one more tap to call or text them.
Easy Drawer is free with an optional $2 upgrade for its premium version, which adds in some extra customization options.
22. Sesame Universal Search and Shortcuts
Last but not least is perhaps the most powerful and versatile Android widget of ’em all — a search bar called Sesame.
You can think of Sesame as a continuation of the same concept shown in Easy Drawer, only without the keyboard and with even more oomph. It’s also like a pumped-up version of the regular Google search bar that’s present on many Android home screens: In addition to searching the web, as the Google widget does, Sesame’s widget will let you search your apps, your contacts, and even your calendar events. It indexes specific areas within apps, too — so you could start typing the first couple letters of a Slack team, for instance, and it’d pop up a direct link to take you right to that part of Slack.
Tap the Sesame bar (as seen at the top of the left image) and type in one or two letters, and you’ll be able to get to almost any part of your phone in a flash (as illustrated in the image at right).
JR Raphael
The widget itself just looks like a search bar, and you can customize its appearance however you like.
Sesame comes with a free two-week trial. After that, it costs $3.50 to continue using — money that’s arguably well spent for all the seconds you’ll save.
This article was originally published in August 2018 and most recently updated in September 2024.
OpenAI plans ‘for-profit’ shift amid leadership departures and restructuring
OpenAI is set to transition from its nonprofit roots to a for-profit model amid significant leadership changes, including the abrupt resignation of top executives on Wednesday.
The San Francisco-based startup is planning to restructure as a for-profit public-benefit corporation, ending its oversight by a nonprofit board, according to a Reuters report.
This shift comes as three key technical leaders — Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, Vice President of Research Barret Zoph, and Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew — announced their resignations.
At the same time, OpenAI is reportedly negotiating a $6.5 billion funding round that would value the company at $150 billion. The deal may be contingent on the restructuring of its corporate structure.
Implications of the change
Founded in 2015, OpenAI was initially dedicated to developing AI “to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return,” according to its original mission statement.
The company gained global attention after the successful release of ChatGPT in late 2022, which showcased AI’s potential to reshape industries and society. In response, OpenAI expanded its product offerings for both consumers and enterprise clients.
The shift sparked concerns, with early investor Elon Musk filing a lawsuit against the company, accusing CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman of misleading him into believing OpenAI would remain a nonprofit.
However, as the company now eyes a fresh round of investment and with generative AI capturing the interest of enterprises globally, investors may view the restructuring in a more favorable light.
“The idea of OpenAI becoming an explicit for-profit organization makes things easier for potential investors, as it allows them to have a normal expectation of pursuing profit from AI,” said Hyoun Park, CEO and chief analyst at Amalgam Insights.
Notably, this comes as unit costs and price-to-performance ratios for large language models (LLMs) have been dropping significantly, while open-source LLMs have also gained momentum, according to Leslie Joseph, principal analyst at Forrester.
“Against this backdrop, OpenAI’s shift to a for-profit structure could allow it to diversify and strengthen its partnerships with major tech giants like Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia in pursuit of a broader charter,” Joseph said.
Concerns on AI safety and ethical use
An OpenAI spokesperson said that the company remains “focused on building AI that benefits everyone and as we’ve previously shared, we’re working with our board to ensure that we’re best positioned to succeed in our mission,” according to the Reuters report.
However, businesses concerned with the ethical use of AI, particularly in areas such as compliance, may view OpenAI’s shift in its corporate structure with caution.
“OpenAI has already shifted away from its initial goals of trust and safety to the point where organizations like Anthropic and Cohere are probably more attractive options for those solely focused on governance, trust, and cultural ethos,” said Park.
Impact of leadership change
The resignation of top executives is also a major concern for investors and enterprise partners as this could affect OpenAI’s innovation trajectory and its competitiveness in the enterprise AI space.
Park noted that in the short term, OpenAI is likely to concentrate on commercializing its existing models and capabilities. This will be a significant challenge for many who originally joined OpenAI to pursue artificial general intelligence (AGI) from a nonprofit perspective.
“[But] with over a $100 billion valuation, it is hard to escape the need to make money and pursue practical solutions that compete with the likes of Salesforce’s Agentforce or Microsoft Copilot in a role and business-focused way,” Park said.
Joseph suggested that with several of the founding members now gone, Sam Altman’s control over the company may further consolidate, potentially leading to even less transparency.
However, Park emphasized that OpenAI needs a strong leadership team and cannot rely solely on a “cult of personality” centered around Altman’s vision. “With the shift towards a for-profit focus, open AI is now free to hire a CTO or a chief product officer or chief revenue officer, who is more focused on fully extracting the value associated with open AI models,” Park said. “And they should be attractive roles for software veterans with a strong track record of translating technology into enterprise products. It would not be a surprise to see pros from open source companies or security and governance-focused companies come into OpenAI to lock down models and support enterprise and government-grade products.”
How soon will AI PCs replace traditional PCs in the enterprise?
There’s much anticipation among enterprises and consumers alike for AI PCs, the evolution of computing that integrates dedicated AI hardware and software into everyday machines.
But as with any new technology, it’s unclear when AI PCs will finally have their moment. Top analyst firms, including Gartner and IDC, certainly have high expectations for the technology, based on new reports out this week.
Gartner forecasts that 43 million AI PCs will be shipped this year. Similarly, IDC predicts that 57 million units will be shipped in 2024, and by 2028, AI PCs will represent 92% of all PC shipments worldwide.
However, “while AI has been a buzzword of late, it has yet to be a purchase driver among PC buyers,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s worldwide mobile device trackers division. “Businesses certainly recognize the importance of AI, though many struggle to see the immediate use case and instead are opting for AI PCs as a means to futureproofing.”
An ‘onslaught’ of AI PCs
Gartner predicts that by 2026, AI laptops will be the only choice of laptop available to large enterprises (compared to less than 5% availability just three years prior). Further, AI PCs, including both desktops and laptops, will represent 43% of all PC shipments by 2025 (compared to 17% this year).
IDC also predicts that shipments of AI PCs will grow from nearly 57 million units in 2024 to more than 258 million in 2028. Still, the firm tempered its short-term assessment of the market, calling it “modest.” But, Ubrani noted, long-term, there will be an “onslaught” of AI PCs as NPUs are integrated into lower-tier hardware, and producing processors without NPUs becomes cost prohibitive.
North America, major countries in Asia Pacific (APAC), and some western European countries will lead AI PC adoption, IDC predicts, although the firm points out that this will largely be driven by the need for new PCs, rather than need for AI PCs specifically.
Gartner Director Analyst Mika Kitagawa noted that most enterprise-grade laptops will have an NPU core by 2026, which will be a major push from the supply side. From the demand side, on-device AI will be a standard requirement for the enterprise, as more AI functionality shifts from cloud-based to on-device-based; NPUs will speed up on-device AI tasks.
Also, while in 2025, Windows x86-based AI laptops will lead the business segment, that dominance eventually will reduce over time, Gartner said. However, this will not occur in the next five years.
While Arm-based laptops have benefits — they are usually quiet, because they do not need a fan to cool the processor, and have low power consumption, thus extending battery life, there are software incompatibilities on Arm-based Windows devices. This is because not all business applications are natively written for Arm and must use an emulator, Kitagawa explained.
“This could create limited user experiences,” she said. “The majority of enterprises will keep using x86 in the next five years.”
We’re not quite at the tipping point yet
A big reason behind the shift to AI PCs is the arrival of language models that are “distilled, fine-tuned and pruned” into small language models (SLMs) and tiny language models (TLMs) that are able to operate on AI PCs where large language models (LLMs) can’t, explained Jon Nordmark, CEO at enterprise AI platform company Iterate.ai. AI PCs can operate without needing to connect to the internet, and an SLM can be utilized when the computer is plugged in; users can opt to leverage a TLM when on battery to save power.
For companies and consumers, operating AI on a PC is more sustainable, Nordmark explained. Each query or prompt requires about 10 times less energy compared to on the cloud. Privacy is also a big part of demand.
“The AI PC generative AI experience can really be an oracle that users can ask complex business questions and trust to help navigate key decision making,” said Nordmark. This could include, for instance, finding effective SEO keywords, or getting advice on a specific business decision.
AI PCs could “substantially change computing” as they enhance tasks such as real-time language translation, advanced content creation, and workflows, leading to improved productivity, creativity, and personalization, agreed Matt Hasan of aiResults, which specializes in AI for marketing and customer lifecycle optimization (CLO).
With AI hardware built-in, he pointed out, users can run complex algorithms such as image recognition or natural language processing (NLP) locally, providing better speed, security, and the convenience of offline processing.
Still, “while AI PCs are exciting, they may not become the norm as quickly as some predict,” said Hasan. Challenges include the high cost of integrating AI chips, not yet proven everyday use cases, and concerns about data privacy and AI misuse. But “the current hype does suggest that AI-powered computing will eventually become an integral part of the future, even if the transition takes longer than the optimists claim.”
Instead of being passive tools, AI PCs are designed to anticipate needs, automate repetitive tasks, and make decisions based on user habits, said Jon Morgan, CEO and editor-in-chief of business advisory firm Venture Smarter.
“It’s a major leap from the static machines we’ve been using, making computing far more personalized and efficient,” he said. The allure is that AI integration isn’t just about “raw power,” but enhancing experience and adapting to individual workflows.
“We’re not quite at the tipping point yet, but I don’t think it’s far off,” said Morgan. “Once the early adopters demonstrate the practical benefits, the shift could happen faster than expected.”
Microsoft claims new ‘Correction’ tool can fix genAI hallucinations
Generative AI (genAI) and “hallucinations” go hand in hand, regardless of how well the large language models behind genAI tools are trained.
So, Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled Correction, a new capability within its existing Azure AI Content Safety tool that it said can ferret out, then correct, genAI responses that aren’t directly connected to data sources used to train an LLM — in other words, hallucinations.
“Empowering our customers to both understand and take action on ungrounded content and hallucinations is crucial, especially as the demand for reliability and accuracy in AI-generated content continues to rise,” Microsoft said in a blog post.
While “add-on tools” can help double-check the accuracy of the LLM outputs, Gartner has found that using better search techniques for Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) or grounding should be a first step to mitigate hallucinations. “We advise clients to use search to provide information to ground the LLM response in an enterprise context,” said Gartner Distinguished Vice President Analyst Jason Wong.
RAG is a method of creating a more customized genAI model through a series of questions and answers provided to an LLM that enables more accurate and specific responses to queries.
Microsoft
Along with Google, a number of startups and other cloud service providers have been offering tools to monitor, evaluate and correct problems with genAI results in the hopes of eliminating systemic problems.
Microsoft’s Correction tool was among several AI feature updates that included Evaluations in Azure AI Studio, a risk assessment tool, and Hybrid Azure AI Content Safety (AACS), an embedded SDK for on-device AI processing.
Correction is available as part of Microsoft’s Azure AI Content Safety API, which is currently in preview; it can be used with any text-based genAI model, including Meta’s Llama and OpenAI’s GPT-4o.
Analysts, however, are skeptical about how effective Correction will be at eliminating errors. “Hallucinations continue to dog generative AI implementations,” said Wong. “All the hyperscalers have launched products to mitigate hallucinations, but none promise eliminating [them] all together or even reaching certain thresholds of accuracy.”
Microsoft first introduced its “groundedness” detection feature in March. To use it, a genAI application must connect to grounding documents, which are used in document summarization and RAG-based Q&A scenarios, Microsoft said. Since then, it said, customers have been asking what they can do once erroneous information is detected, besides blocking it.
“This highlights a significant challenge in the rapidly evolving generative AI landscape, where traditional content filters often fall short in addressing the unique risks posed by generative AI hallucinations,” Microsoft Senior Product Marketing Manager Katelyn Rothney wrote in a blog post.
Building on the company’s existing groundedness detection, the Correction tool allows Azure AI Content Safety to both identify and correct hallucinations in real-time — before users of genAI applications encounter them. It works by first flagging the ungrounded content. Then the Azure Safety system initiates a rewriting process in real-time to revise the inaccurate portions ensure alignment with connected data sources.
Microsoft
“This correction happens before the user is able to see the initial ungrounded content,” Rothney said. “Finally, the corrected content is returned to the user.”
The hallucinogenic nature of genAI technology, like OpenAI’s GPT-4 — the basis for Microsoft’s AI — Meta’s Llama 2 and Google’s PaLM 2, occurs because their foundational models are based on massive, amorphous, unspecific parameters or options from which the algorithm can choose answers.
While genAI is most often highly accurate in providing answers to queries, it is also prone to gathering information from places it was never meant to go, just so it can provide a response, any response.
In fact, LLMs have been characterized as stochastic parrots — as they get larger, they become more random in their conjectural or random answers. Essentially, the “next-word prediction engines” just continue to parrot what they’ve been taught, but without a logic framework.
One study from Stanford University this year found genAI makes mistakes when answering legal questions 75% of the time. “For instance,” the study found, “in a task measuring the precedential relationship between two different [court] cases, most LLMs do no better than random guessing.”
Optimizing the search infrastructure by incorporating both lexical and semantic search increases the likelihood that only relevant information is passed to the LLM, Wong said.
“While this can significantly reduce the likelihood of hallucinations, it still cannot eliminate them,” he said. “The quality of the information retrieved for RAG largely determines the output quality, making content management and governance essential as a starting point for minimizing hallucinations.”
Kandji offers up its take on AI to Apple IT
At the risk of stating the obvious, artificial intelligence (AI) is coming to enterprise IT. Deployment begins with tools to help admins manage their fleets, fix common faults, and optimize existing assets.
These tools are also coming to the Apple enterprise world in which Cupertino continues to make important investments. Apple device management vendor Kandji has announced its own AI for IT, called Kai. I spoke with Weldon Dodd, senior vice president of global solutions at Kandji, to find out what this new tool offers Apple IT managers who use the device management system.
What is Kai?
“It’s an AI-driven, natural-language query interface that makes it easy for IT team members to get answers to questions about what’s going on in their Apple device fleet,” Dodd explained.
The best way to understand this AI tool is as an intelligent machine that works with Kandji’s Prism, which provides insights into device fleets using syntax-based query search. What Kai adds is that admins can ask questions in ordinary language to generate responses or reports as needed. “It’s built to understand what you need,” said Dodd.
To do this, the system uses the information Prism has already gathered, then combines this with the contextual intelligence of Open AI to make that information actionable, accessible, and useful.
The company says its tool is especially useful for less technical team members, as it helps them get answers on the fly, build reports, and learn on the job. You can find out more about Kai here.
Why is the time right for AI in Apple IT?
There are plenty of reasons vendors in the burgeoning Apple enterprise space want to optimize their tools. One big reason is expertise. With every business now becoming a tech company, demand for human resources in terms of tech skills is intense. That means the most experienced admins are in huge demand. AI can help fill the gap, enabling the most highly skilled staff to sweat more complex tasks.
Look at the scale at which demand for Apple-related skills is increasing. One 2023 survey claimed that 76% of US companies with over 1,000 staff are using more Apple devices than before.
Those two reasons alone — higher demand, strained human resources — make the time ripe for AI productivity tools to invade enterprise IT, which, of course, they are. In the Apple enterprise space, we know Jamf has been working with generative AI (genAI) since last year. As Jamf’s big Apple admins event, JNUC, approaches — I imagine Jamf will have its own AI news to share — Kandji has unveiled its own take.
What about privacy?
Privacy and AI is one thing for consumers, where it matters a lot. But, for industries, it’s of vital importance to ensure information pertaining to an enterprise doesn’t slip out. Kanji’s use of OpenAI might be a red flag for some businesses. I asked Dodd about privacy when it comes to user-owned devices, what barriers are in place between corporate and personal use on managed personal devices, and how is everything secured.
According to Dodd, Kai gets the data about a customer’s fleet just in time. “It has access to that data only when necessary to answer a question,” he said. “Kai uses the same tenant-level security as the rest of Kandji’s products. During a user’s session, Kai cannot access any other tenant’s data.”
He also confirmed that data used is sent to OpenAI using that company’s secure AI. The data is encrypted at rest and in transit, and access to it is strictly controlled. “If AI allows us to make our user’s lives easier and help them be more effective in their jobs, we’ll use it,” he said. “This is a perfect use case for it, and we’ll continue to explore others over time. AI isn’t just there to check a box for marketing.”
What about Apple and AI?
I’m on record pointing out that Apple is now building the world’s most AI-friendly ecosystem across Macs, smartphones, and tablets. Dodd doesn’t entirely agree: “As a consumer brand, Apple will use AI to help its users do everyday things more easily and effectively; in that sense, it isn’t really an ‘AI platform,’” he said.
At the same time, the sheer size of Apple’s user base means it is now bringing AI to the masses in a way no one else can. Many millions of people will be making conscious use of genAI just as soon as iOS 18.1 ships next month — and that base is only going to grow, one Mac, iPhone, or iPad upgrade at a time.
Of course, we’ve all heard the claims that AI is gorging itself on global energy supply. How can anyone ignore reports that, “emissions from in-house data centers of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple may be 7.62 times higher than the official tally.”
One way to reduce that demand is to create AI models that work at low power on people’s devices, which, of course, is precisely what Apple Intelligence aspires to do. Many of its new LLM models will work quite happily on Mac, iPhone, or iPad; doing so vastly reduces the power required to run each task. Apple is able to achieve this through its ownership of the hardware, software, and key components in its devices.
“Apple’s vertical integration is a key advantage here,” Dodd said. “It can build the powerful processors that AI requires into its devices. We may see LLMs begin to run some of their compute loads locally on devices; Apple is well positioned for that.”
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Notion AI can now access Slack chats and Google Drive files
Notion AI is getting several updates, including the ability to connect the AI assistant to third-party apps such as Slack and Google Drive.
Notion was among the first productivity software vendors to add generative AI (genAI) features to its all-in-one document app, announcing a waitlist for access to Notion AI soon after OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3.5 arrived in late 2022.
The first iteration of the AI assistant could be used to draft content inside a Notion workspace such as a blog post or meeting agenda, or, as Notion playfully suggested on its website at the time, write a poem about a burrito. Attitudes have shifted since then, and as the early sense of wonder towards the technology has worn thin, businesses are more focused on the value of genAI investments.
That’s the thinking with the new Notion AI, said David Tibbits, product marketing manager for Notion AI, with the AI assistant able to provide more accurate responses based on information held in third-party apps. “It’s no longer about writing a haiku about burritos,” he said. “You have all of these day-to-day workflows that you need help with, and now Notion AI is able to be a genuinely useful…tool to help you with those day-to-day tasks.”
Two Notion AI third-party app connectors are now in beta. One lets users tap into messages from selected public channels in Slack (private channels and direct messages are not currently accessible); the other accesses files held in Google Drive. (Notion plans to add integrations with Jira, GitHub and other apps soon.)
Once Notion AI is connected to one or more third-party apps, users can select which source the AI assistant will access, with query responses generated based on this data. To help reduce hallucinations, responses will include citations for information sources.
Access to third-party apps gives users a “complete picture” of what’s going on in projects they’re involved with, said Tibbits. For workers returning from time off, it could help them quickly catch up on what they’ve missed, he said, or quickly update a product manager on progress of projects under way.
The app connector feature builds on last year’s launch of Notion’s Q&A chatbot tool, which lets users ask the AI assistant about information held in a Notion workspace specifically.
Notion also announced that it will combine the Notion AI Q&A and content generation capabilities into a single revamped AI assistant interface; previously, the two functions were accessed separately within the Notion app. This means it’s possible to “not just search and find the answer, but then actually take action…and generate content based on that information that it found,” said Tibbits.
The AI assistant is accessible via both in a Notion workspace – where a user can ask contextual questions about information in a specific document – and in a dedicated chatbot interface within the app.
Other updates to Notion AI include the ability to analyze and summarize PDFs and image files, as well as the ability to direct the AI assistant to generate content that fits a specific style guide.
Notion AI is priced at $8 per user each month on an annual basis.
Microsoft vowed to fight climate change — then genAI came along
For years, Microsoft has prided itself on the time, effort, and money it puts into fighting climate change. In early 2020, Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith promised in a blog post the company would invest $1 billion to make itself carbon-negative by 2030.
Smith vowed Microsoft wouldn’t use deceptive tricks to get there, for example by pouring carbon in the atmosphere, then buying so-called “offsets” that claim to reduce carbon elsewhere, such as planting trees in a rain forest.
Investigations have found that offsets can be a kind of “greenwashing” that allows large companies to surround themselves with the golden halo of fighting climate change, while doing little or nothing to achieve necessary goals. An investigation by The Guardian and others concluded, for example, that “more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by [the] biggest certifier are worthless.”
Kudos to Microsoft for recognizing that. And kudos to the company for beginning to take real action to get to its goal rather than using sleight-of-hand tactics.
But then electricity-hungry generative AI (genAI) came along. Suddenly fighting climate change and bolstering sustainability didn’t seem quite so important to the company.
That’s the message delivered by Microsoft’s spike in water use to cool AI data centers, and the company’s recently proposed deal to reopen Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear power disaster in US history.
All of the reactors at Three Mile Island were shuttered in 2019 because of financial problems. This new deal would restart the complex, with Microsoft paying plant owner Constellation Energy to reopen a nuclear reactor next to the one that melted down and buying all of its electric output for 20 years. That would help deliver a portion of the vast amounts of electricity required to run Microsoft’s AI data centers. Financial terms weren’t released, although Constellation says the plan would cost it $1.6 billion and will require federal tax breaks.
(There’s nothing new with that last bit; nuclear power has been propped up by billions in tax breaks and other government aid since its inception.)
Microsoft will no doubt tout nuclear power as providing clean, carbon-free energy. But that ignores myriad other problems. Accidents at Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island remind us the plants remain vulnerable to disasters caused by both humans and nature. Beyond that, there is still no safe way to permanently store nuclear waste, according to former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Allison Macfarlane, currently director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia.
Then there’s what might be nuclear power’s biggest problem. The same technology used to make fuel for nuclear plants can be used to make nuclear weapons — and nuclear plants are notably insecure. The Union of Concerned Scientists warns: “The NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] has regularly downplayed the threat of nuclear terrorism, relaxing its requirements for security exercises in response to industry pressure to lower costs.”
GenAI and environmental problems
Use of nuclear power isn’t the only environmental issue posed by the rise of genAI tools and platforms like Microsoft’s Copilot. That’s because genAI requires tremendous amounts of computing power compared to traditional technologies. GenAI first needs to be trained. Once it’s trained, it uses complex calculations to handle each incoming request. That, in turn, requires building massive data centers, which use tremendous amounts of electricity.
Scientific American reports that researchers say OpenAI’s GPT-3, on which Copilot is based, “has 175 billion parameters, consumed 1,287 megawatt hours of electricity and generated 552 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, the equivalent of 123 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for one year. And that’s just for getting the model ready to launch, before any consumers start using it.”
Keep in mind that GPT-3 has been superseded by GPT-4 and GPT-4o, which are more powerful and require even more computing power — and therefore more electricity — than GPT-3.
Providing all that electricity is just the start of genAI’s — and Copilot’s — environmental impact. Data centers need to be cooled down because of the heat produced by tightly packed chips. Thanks largely to AI, Microsoft’s water use spiked 34% between 2021 and 2022 — and that was before genAI took off.
All this doesn’t take into account the manufacturing and transportation of the high-end chips that do all the data crunching. And it doesn’t account for how much extra e-waste will be created — older generations of chips and hardware will be continually discarded when they’re replaced by increasingly powerful new generations.
What should Microsoft do?
In the past, Microsoft has shown it’s serious about fighting climate change. AI, especially genAI, might change that. But Microsoft can’t solve the issue by itself. If the company reduces its electricity use by cutting back on its genAI plans, rival companies such as Google, Amazon, OpenAI, Meta and others will fill the breach. The same amount of carbon will still be released into the atmosphere. As evidence, Google already has fallen short of its climate change goals: in 2023 its electric use jumped 13% thanks to its use of AI, rather than fall as Google had projected.
The problem of AI accelerating climate change can’t be solved by Big Tech itself. Governments need to step in and establish realistic regulations about technology’s effects on the climate. Doing that isn’t a pipe dream — outside the US, it’s already happening.
In mid-September, Google announced it was halting plans to build a $200 million data center in Chile after a Chilean court ruled the project violated the country’s environmental regulations. The company vowed it would redesign the project from the ground up to meet those requirements.
Many people have warned that AI could present an existential threat to mankind if intelligent AI systems run amok. It would be ironic if the existential threat turns out not to be AI itself, but instead climate destruction caused by AI’s ravenous electricity demands.
How to securely wipe a Windows PC
Secure PC disposal is a big deal. Companies want to ensure no data escapes from their corporate laptops. Even if you’re just using a PC at home, you want to make sure your sensitive files — financial documents, private photos, and whatever else — aren’t recoverable by whomever might next have the system in their hands.
Back in the Windows 7 days — and before — wiping a PC before disposing of it was complex. You had to hunt down specialized tools for erasing a PC’s drive, and then you needed Windows installation media to get the computer into a like-new-from-the-factory state. None of this is necessary anymore; everything you need is built directly into Windows and available in a few clicks, once you know where to look.
But, to be as secure as can be, you really have to go out of your way to find and activate all the right settings.
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Securely wiping Windows: First considerations
When you (or your organization) are done with a PC, you have several options for the device’s future. You can recycle or sell it, ensuring it’s useful to someone else in the future. There are obvious environmental benefits here — and financial benefits, too, if you can sell the PC or donate it for a tax deduction. But there are risks, too.
Organizations that demand high data security often destroy computers or their storage devices, taking them out of commission. If an organization has a PC holding “the nuclear launch codes,” it’s clearly a better idea to destroy it than repurpose it. That’s an extreme example, but it proves the point: If the CEO of a large company has a PC with sensitive trade secrets on it, that organization will almost certainly want to physically destroy the computer rather than risk the data somehow being recoverable and falling into the wrong hands.
Still, for most people and organizations, repurposing a PC and keeping it in good working health — whether for someone else in the office or someone else you’re passing it along to — is the best move.
How to wipe a PC’s storage and restore a fresh copy of Windows
When you’re getting rid of a PC, you want to be sure of two things: First, you want to ensure all your personal files are deleted in a way that can’t be recovered. Second, you want to be sure the machine has a shiny new copy of Windows installed so it’s immediately usable.
Thankfully, on both Windows 11 and Windows 10, this is easy. (PC geeks used to have to first hunt down utilities like DBAN (Darik’s Boot and Nuke) for wiping a computer’s hard drive and then reinstall Windows from installation media.)
First you’ll want to back up any important files before continuing. This process will erase everything on your PC.
- On Windows 11, open the Settings app, select “System,” select “Recovery,” and then click the “Reset PC” button under Recovery options.
- On Windows 10, open the Settings app, select “Update & security,” select “Recovery,” and then click the “Get started” button under Reset this PC.
Chris Hoffman, IDG
To ensure Windows removes your files, click “Remove everything.”
Chris Hoffman, IDG
Windows will ask whether you want to reinstall its files by downloading them or by using the files currently on your PC. Either works — but if you want to save some download bandwidth, choose “Local reinstall.”
Chris Hoffman, IDG
On the Additional setting screen, be sure to click “Change settings.”
Chris Hoffman, IDG
Next, activate the “Clean data?” option. This will make Windows wipe the drive, ensuring the files can’t be recovered.
If your PC has multiple data drives, you will see a “Delete files from all drives?” option. You’ll want to activate that to wipe everything.
Chris Hoffman, IDG
Then continue with the process. Windows will “factory reset” itself, installing a fresh copy of the Windows operating system and cleaning your personal data files from the drive.
Companies can remotely wipe and lock PCs managed through tools like Active Directory and Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions. If you’re using a Windows PC managed by an organization, you might not be able to rely on these reset options on the PC itself.
How to wipe a PC that won’t boot
If Windows won’t start up normally, you might be able to boot into the recovery menu. Here, you’ll find the Reset PC tool available as a troubleshooting option.
If that doesn’t work, you can download Windows 11 or Windows 10 from Microsoft. Microsoft’s easy-to-use download tool will turn a USB drive into Windows installation media. You can then reinstall Windows and get everything back into working order.
If neither of those tips works, your PC likely has a hardware problem. You might need to remove its storage device to securely dispose of it. However, if that storage was encrypted — as I outline below — there might not be much of a risk of someone accessing its data.
How to physically destroy PCs or data drives
Note that Windows says the “Clean data” option “will make it harder to recover files.” Microsoft is really hedging its bets here, refusing to guarantee that this option will make files impossible to recover.
Why is that? Well, the underlying hardware is a factor. A traditional mechanical hard drive uses spinning magnetic platters. Even if a magnetic hard drive is overwritten, an incredibly sophisticated adversary — think a nation state — might have a way to recover some of the data on that drive.
Even with a modern solid-state drive, it’s not 100% clear every last byte of data will be obliterated. It should be. But solid-state drives run their own firmware, which manages where the data is stored. Windows tells the SSD to wipe the data. but Windows can’t guarantee the SSD completely erased all traces of the data; there may be some out there with bugs that preserve some of the data, again allowing a sophisticated adversary to recover it.
This is all an example of why organizations might choose to physically destroy storage devices — just to be safe.
Is this a concern for the average user? Definitely not. But I expect government agencies dealing with highly sensitive data will be physically destroying drives out of an abundance of caution
Possible methods include incineration, crushing, or shredding. The key is physically destroying the drive’s hardware — you’re not relying on software; you’re destroying the hardware!
How disk encryption helps secure your data
Overall, a PC falling into the wrong hands — even before you wipe the its storage — is less risky than it used to be, thanks to disk encryption tools like BitLocker and Device Encryption becoming more widespread. Prior to these technologies, anyone with physical access could pop open a laptop or desktop PC and access the files on it. Now, the attacker would have to find a way to crack the encryption — otherwise the files will appear totally scrambled.
That’s why a modern PC becoming misplaced or stolen is less of a risk than it used to be. People won’t be able to access its contents if the storage is encrypted.
Likewise, this means it’s less essential to fully wipe or destroy a drive than it used to be. Even if someone gets their hands on a disk that contains sensitive data, it’s less at risk if it’s encrypted.
Still, there are no guarantees. If you’re protecting national security secrets, you’ll want to ensure something is totally destroyed for maximum security. And even if you aren’t, it’s a good idea to use the “Clean data” option to securely wipe any Windows PC’s disks.
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5 handy hidden tricks for Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold (and Pixel Tablet, too!)
Google’s new Pixel 9 Pro Fold isn’t your average smartphone. And that’s putting it mildly.
The second-gen Pixel Fold’s unusual folding setup really does change the way you think about your phone — and think about interacting with Android in general, as I’ve learned during my first several weeks living with the device.
And while the Fold’s hardware is undoubtedly the underlying reason for all of this, so much of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold experience really revolves around the software and the many interesting ways Google’s worked to make the most of the phone’s form.
As I’ve gotten to know the latest folding Pixel inside and out, I’ve stumbled onto some pretty interesting tricks tucked away into the device’s dustier corners. Most of ’em aren’t actually specific to anything about the phone’s folding nature, which means they’re more about improving the overall experience of using an Android device with a large screen and the hardware alongside it — and as a result, those items also apply to Google’s Pixel Tablet and, in some cases, other large-screen Android devices, too.
Here are five such splendid treasures worth your while to uncover.
[Psst: Hungry for even more Googley goodness? Check out my free Pixel Academy e-course to uncover all sorts of advanced intelligence lurking within your favorite Pixel gadget!]
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold trick #1: Smarter auto-rotate
I’ll admit it: I’ve got a bit of a love-hate relationship with Android’s auto-rotate system.
On the surface, having your phone automatically rotate the orientation of its display when you turn the device in one direction or another makes a lot of sense. In practice, though, I frequently find myself growing frustrated when a phone overestimates my rotating desires and ends up flipping the screen whilst I’m merely leaning back and holding the thing at a slight angle.
As a result, I tend to leave the auto-rotate setting off, which causes Android to pop up a little rotation icon in the corner of the screen whenever it thinks I might want to rotate — but then leaves it up to me to tap that icon and actually make the rotation happen.
With the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, you’ve got a really interesting in-between option.
It’s a simple toggle that lets you enable auto-rotate for the phone in its unfolded state — for the spacious inner screen — while leaving it off for the outer display, in its folded-up form. That way, you can avoid awkward unwanted auto-rotating while you’re using the Fold most of the time but allow yourself the convenience of easy automatic rotation when you’ve got the thing unfolded and might be more likely to flip it around to change its orientation often.
To find the switch in question, simply open up the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s system settings, tap “Display,” then select “Auto-rotate screen.” And hey, how ’bout that?!
JR Raphael, IDG
Two separate options — and even more choice for exactly how you want your fancy folding phone to behave.
(This one, as you’d imagine, is the one trick in the list that’s specific only to the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and not something you’ll find on Google’s Pixel Tablet or any other large-screen devices. From here on out, everything we discuss will have even broader implications.)
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold trick #2: The taskbar toggle
Up next is a nifty trick for my absolute favorite part of the Pixel Fold experience — and that’s the spectacular taskbar Google brings into the Fold when you’re using the device in its unfolded form.
If you aren’t already familiar, the taskbar is an on-demand element you can summon with a simple swipe up from the bottom of the Fold’s inner screen and then use to swiftly switch between apps and slide straight into Android’s excellent split-screen system.
JR Raphael, IDG
It’s all too easy to overlook, but on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold — and the Pixel Tablet, too! — you can actually make that bar permanently present, so that it always appears at the bottom of the screen and is never more than a single tap away, almost exactly like a typical taskbar on the desktop computer side of things.
JR Raphael, IDG
It’s incredibly easy to switch between the taskbar’s swipe-up and always-present states, too, once you know how:
- First, summon the taskbar, if it isn’t already visible.
- Remember: On the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, you can do this by swiping up gently from the bottom of the screen while the phone is in its unfolded state. On the Pixel Tablet, that same swiping gesture will work anytime.
- See that little vertical line over toward the left of the taskbar — between the app drawer icon and the first app in the list? Tap and hold that line for a second.
- That’ll reveal a pop-up option to always show the taskbar, and you can then activate or deactivate it as you see fit.
JR Raphael, IDG
This may be the most buried, unintuitively placed option of all time. But once you know it’s there, it couldn’t be much quicker to pull up and adjust.
And now you know.
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold trick #3: Faster fingerprinting
Both the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the Pixel Tablet share an unusual element, compared to Google’s other recent Pixel products: Rather than relying on an in-screen fingerprint sensor, their fingerprint unlocking mechanism lives within the physical power button on the side of the device.
And that placement comes with an interesting advantage: You can tell your Pixel Fold or Tablet to recognize your fingerprint on the button anytime, even when the screen is off, and unlock instantly without first requiring a forceful press to turn the screen on.
It sounds like a small thing, I know, but it really does make a monumental difference — as it makes it so fast and easy to unlock your Pixel, simply by placing your finger up against that button. Particularly with the power button’s side-of-device placement on the Fold, you can essentially unlock the thing as you’re grabbing it and pulling it out of your pocket or pouch of choice and have it powered up, on your home screen, and ready to roll before you’re even looking at it directly.
The downside is that it’s so easy to unlock with the proper fingerprint that you might find yourself unlocking the phone inadvertently when you’re picking it up or even just gently fondling it from time to time (as one does). So you’ll really need to take a bit of time to play around with this option and see how you like it.
To try it out, though:
- Head into the Pixel 9 Pro Fold or Pixel Tablet’s system settings.
- Select “Security & Privacy,” then “Device unlock.”
- Tap “Fingerprint & Face Unlock.” Confirm your PIN, pattern, or password when prompted.
- Tap “Fingerprint Unlock” (told ya this was buried!).
- And there, look for the “Touch to unlock anytime” toggle.
JR Raphael, IDG
Flip it on for a while and see whatcha think. Personally, I find it to be extremely advantageous to keep activated on both the Fold and the Tablet, but now the power is in your hands — er, finger — to see the system in action and decide for yourself.
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold trick #4: Adjusted apps
With the Pixel 9 Pro Fold — as well as the Pixel Tablet and any larger-screen Android device — having all that extra screen space is a serious productivity asset.
It can also, however, be a mild annoyance when certain apps aren’t properly programmed to adjust their interfaces dynamically and take up the screen space in the most effective way.
Google’s Pixel software has a reasonably simple fix for this, though. It’s a special section of the Android settings that allows you to manually adjust any specific app’s aspect ratio so it’ll work exactly the way you want when you’re viewing it on your device’s full display.
Anytime you encounter an app that doesn’t seem entirely optimal on the Fold’s inner screen or the Pixel Tablet’s main display:
- Gallop into the Apps section of your system settings.
- Scroll all the way down and tap the “Aspect ratio” option at the very bottom of that menu.
- Find and select the app in question in the list (and note that if you don’t see the app you need, you can tap the toggle at the top of the screen to change from “Suggested apps” to “All apps” — or also “Changed apps,” to see apps for which you’ve already made adjustments).
- Change the app’s setting from “App default,” which lets the app manage this entirely on its own, to either “Full screen,” “Half-screen,” or another available option.
JR Raphael, IDG
Ideally, you wouldn’t have to do this, and every app would just behave in the way that makes the most sense for your device’s form. But here in the real world, we all know that doesn’t always play out the way it should. And this option is the way to fix it, with very little effort — once you know where to look.
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold trick #5: The note slide
Our final Pixel 9 Pro Fold trick is one that’ll absolutely also work on Google’s Pixel Tablet, too, as well as on any large-screen Android device.
It’s a super-useful and completely invisible trick that quietly slid its way into the Google Keep Android app recently, with precisely zero fanfare or announcement.
So take note: When using Keep on the Fold’s inner screen, on the Pixel Tablet, or on any other tablet-like Android surface, you can now press and hold your finger onto the line separating the app’s two panels — the note list and whatever note you’re actively viewing.
Then slide your finger to the left or the right — and wouldya look at that? You can actually make either side larger on the fly!
JR Raphael, IDG
So far, Keep seems to be the only Google app where such a move is possible. But with any luck, we’ll see a similar setup show up in Gmail, Drive, and other places soon as well.
It’s just one of the many subtle touches that adds up to create an exceptional all-around experience on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and, increasingly, in Android’s larger-screen form across the board.
With devices like those in your hands, you won’t have an average Android experience. And with extra tricks like this in your metaphorical bonnet, you’ll be flying around your phone or tablet like a total pro and taking advantage of all the productivity-boosting benefits it brings you.
Don’t let yourself miss an ounce of Pixel magic. Come start my free Pixel Academy e-course and discover tons of hidden features and time-saving tricks for whatever Pixel gadgets you’re using!