Galaxy Z Fold 8 Free Upgrade Gives Samsung An Early Advantage

Google and Samsung are facing a major test to their foldable phone supremacy this year with the upcoming iPhone Fold. The Apple device's very existence has forced rivals into getting ahead of it with their own wider designs. For Samsung and Google, they're betting a major free Android update will be the difference between the devices.

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The iPhone Fold’s New Problem: Gemini Intelligence On The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 The Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold will likely have the same aspect ratio as the Apple iPhone Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide. (Photo by Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images) NurPhoto via Getty Images Android 17 lands this summer on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide and the Google Pixel 11 range. With it comes several new heavyweight AI tools and features, which all fall under the freshly crowned Gemini Intelligence brand, which has new agentic capabilities. In essence that means the AI can complete tasks on your behalf with minimal input. That is seemingly baked deeply into the Android 17 experience and, looking at what was announced, I can see how the new foldable phones will feel the benefit of the new skills. Check out the demo below. MORE FOR YOU The headline feature is multi-step automation. It can find your class syllabus in Gmail and add the required books to your shopping cart, book your gym session, or build a groceries delivery order from your notes app. Create My Widget lets you generate a custom home screen widget by describing what you want from a countdown timer, to a weekly meal suggestion, or a live package tracker. The combination of Android’s deep customisation options, now accessible via simple prompts, and the multitasking abilities of a foldable phone is a marriage made in heaven. Foldable phones are for power users because of side-by-side app multitasking. Power users like them because they can get more done on a small screen. Gemini Intelligence is the next step of that, handing off tasks to the agent, while running two other apps at once the large screen. Of course we’ll have to see how well that all work. We know about AI’s quirks when it comes to accuracy. But this is a very serious feature upgrade for the new Android phones, and even more so for the Galaxy Z Fold 8, which will go head-to-head with Apple’s iPhone Fold this year. While the two phones may look similar, the actual user experience could be wildly different.