Samsung Galaxy devices gain official Googlebook Android sync support

The update makes Googlebook’s Android sync features faster to set up and fixes the stubborn pairing bug. Google announced it in a community post on Reddit, saying it had begun rolling out a smoother first-time setup that cuts the number of steps needed to switch on its cross-device features.

The same update fixes the bug where the QR code used to link your phone kept appearing after pairing was already done. And it brings support for Samsung phones, which Google had earlier promised would arrive within weeks of launch.

It’s a needed cleanup. At launch, the phone features were patchy: one-tap hotspot worked for most people, but others were slow to switch on, unreliable or missing entirely, partly because turning them all on took several manual steps that many buyers never found.

The changes come through Google Play updates and background services on the phone, so they don’t depend on a separate Samsung release beyond the Android version requirement.

Two apps on your phone have to be current for the fix to apply:

• Google Play services: version 26.37 or higher.
• Cross-device Services: version 1.0, build thirteen forty-six or newer.

Both update through the Play Store. To check, open Settings on your phone, go to Apps and then See all apps. If Google Play services isn’t listed, use the menu to show system apps. Open each app’s details page in the store and tap Update if one is offered.

Better Together is Google’s name for the bundle of Googlebook features that link a phone and laptop: streaming your phone’s apps into laptop windows, mirrored notifications, Continue On for picking up a task in a compatible app, file sharing and one-tap hotspot. At launch, these worked with Pixels and with Android 17 phones from Motorola, Sony, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Honor, Lenovo, Oppo and Sharp, but not with Samsung.

That gap was hard to miss. Even Samsung’s newest phones, such as the Galaxy Z Fold 8, ship with Android 17, yet testers found the phone and laptop could see each other but wouldn’t hold a stable connection. After the new updates, some Galaxy owners have confirmed the features now work.

The catch is One UI 9, Samsung’s version of Android 17. Galaxy phones need it for Better Together, and so far it has reached only a small portion of Samsung’s lineup. If your Galaxy is still on an older version, you’ll have to wait for Samsung’s update.

Google shared a checklist for anyone still having trouble. In plain terms:

1. Check your Android version. Your phone must run Android 17. Look under About phone in Settings.
2. Use the same Google account. Sign in to your phone and Googlebook with the same personal account, and turn on both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
3. Pair on your home Wi-Fi. Office, hotel, guest and cafe networks often block devices from talking to each other directly. Turn off any VPN or DNS blocker while you set up.
4. Update the two apps listed above.
5. Turn on every Continue activity option. Search your phone’s Settings for Cross-device services, open Continue activity, and make sure the switches for Tasks, Apps, Notifications and Files and media sharing are all on.
6. Restart both devices so the changes take hold.

For anyone who bought a Googlebook with a Pixel, this mostly means less fiddling. For Galaxy owners, it’s the difference between a laptop that talks to their phone and one that doesn’t, as long as One UI 9 has arrived.

Expect some rough edges to remain. Not every feature works equally well on every phone, and early owners have reported other problems with the new platform. One common complaint once sync works is notification overload: your laptop can show alerts from almost every app on your phone, sometimes twice if the same app is installed on both.

There’s a fix for that. On an Android 17 phone, go to Connected devices in Settings, then Better Together, then Notification sync, and choose which apps can send alerts to your laptop. On the Googlebook itself, you can mute individual apps through the notification settings of the Cross-Device Services system app.