At the 2018 Samsung Developer Conference, one of the big announcements was a big refresh for Samsung's custom Android interface. The Samsung Experience is gone, and in its place, we have One UI.
From understanding what in the world One UI is to seeing when you'll be able to get it on your phone, here's everything you need to know.
The latest One UI news
February 4, 2019 — AT&T Galaxy Note 9 receiving One UI/Pie update
If you have a Galaxy Note 9 on AT&T, today's your lucky day. According to some of our readers, the AT&T version of the Note 9 is now receiving its update to One UI/Android 9 Pie.
Just like with past One UI update, this brings Android Pie's new gesture navigations, upgraded notifications, Samsung's Viewing Area/Interaction Area user interface layout, and more.
Have you received the update yet?
January 23, 2019 — Second One UI beta rolling out to the Galaxy Note 8
Following the launch of the One UI beta for the Note 8 on January 15, Samsung has now begun pushing the second beta update to the phone.
As expected, this update squashes a lot of the bugs that were introduced with the beta earlier in the month. Some of the biggest bugs that have been resolved include microSD cards not being detected, screen freezing after entering a PIN to unlock the phone, and the camera app force closing when trying to use things like the slow motion video mode.
One bug that has not been fixed with the update is an issue where the People Edge feature causes the Note 8 to reboot. Right now, it seems like the best way to get around this is to simply disable People Edge until a fix is issued (likely in the next beta update).
All the big details
What exactly is One UI?
One UI is the name of Samsung's new Android interface and serves as the successor to The Samsung Experience that previously replaced TouchWiz.
One of the biggest goals with One UI is to help users "focus on the task at hand." To achieve this, One UI removes a lot of clutter from the Samsung Experience and makes things much cleaner. For example, the settings page is being simplified even more and regrouping certain settings together so that they're easier to get to. The phone, notes, email, and other Samsung apps also have a new look to only show essential information.
Samsung's also marketing One UI as being more natural, saying that it's "restructured the way we interact with our devices." Buttons that are traditionally towards the top of the screen have been moved closer to the bottom, and in many of Samsung's apps (such as Messages and Clock), the top area is reserved exclusively for viewing content you don't have to interact with.
Third, One UI aims to "be visibly comfortable." Colors have been tweaked to provide better clarity, and based on the color of the phone you have, elements of the UI will be tweaked to match it.
Samsung One UI (Android 9 Pie) review: Samsung's best software yet
What Android version is it based on?
One UI is based on Android 9 Pie, and as such, has all of the features from Pie that we've come to know and love.
That means One UI has some new gesture navigation options, a bunch of new emoji, improved notifications, and more on top of all of the One UI-specific changes.
What phones will be updated to One UI?
So far, Samsung's confirmed that the following phones will be updated to One UI:
- Galaxy Note 9
- Galaxy S9
- Galaxy S9+
- Galaxy Note 8
- Galaxy S8
- Galaxy S8+
When can I get it?
Samsung started rolling out a beta version of the One UI and Android 9 Pie update to the Galaxy S9, S9+ and Note 9 at the end of 2018. Starting in January, Samsung began to roll out the official update to users in specific countries in small numbers. The official update will hit a broader range of devices throughout February and early March, starting with the latest devices (Note 9, S9, S9+) and eventually hitting the last-gen devices (Note 8, S8, S8+) thereafter.
How to get Android 9 Pie and One UI on your Samsung Galaxy S9