After several months of delay, Samsung today announced One UI 7 beta. The beta program is now live for the Galaxy S24 series, with more devices expected to join the party later this month. Here’s a quick roundup of what the update brings to Galaxy smartphones and tablets.
A fresh UI design with upgraded animations
One UI 7 offers a refreshed Galaxy experience thanks to massive UI changes, animation upgrades, and customization options. It supports a vertical app drawer, one of the highly-requested features of Galaxy users. Samsung has placed the finder at the bottom for easy access.
Samsung has also completely revamped the layout for the Quick Panel, separating it from notifications. You can still activate a unified view if you like things that way. By default, the Quick Panel can now be accessed by swiping down from the top-right corner of the screen, while you can swipe down anywhere on the home screen or the top-left of the screen to access notifications. You can swipe left or right to switch between the two views.
This intuitive redesign aims to streamline access to essential features while making navigation more fluid and visually appealing. The Quick Panel is highly customizable and features a volume slider. It looks more refined than the existing layout, which doesn’t let you customize most elements apart from the quick-setting tiles. Notifications in One UI 7 appear in larger pill-shaped boxes and are easier to read.
Alongside the visual enhancements, One UI 7 introduces a new feature called Now Bar. It is a pill-shaped UI element in the status bar that displays ongoing activities like voice calls, music playback, workout tracking, timer, and more. You can tap the pill to get an expanded, interactive view. Now Bar also appears on the lock screen, at the bottom between the two app shortcuts where the charging animations appear.
Additionally, One UI 7 brings new widgets for Samsung’s first-party apps. These widgets are highly customizable, allowing users to change their appearance and even add labels for better organization. The stock camera app has been redesigned for better usability. Most settings now move to the bottom of the screen for easy access. Samsung has enhanced several camera features and controls.
One UI 7 enhances the Galaxy AI experience
Samsung’s One UI 7 update introduces Writing Assist Tools, an AI feature designed to enhance your writing experience. This Galaxy AI tool helps with spelling, grammar, and tone checks for the selected text. Additionally, it offers advanced features like text summarization and auto-formatting for notes, making it a versatile tool for productivity.
Call Transcripts can transcribe your recorded calls on the fly, so you don’t need to manually take notes during a call — you can simply transcribe them later for easy reference. It works across all 20 languages currently supported by Galaxy AI, plus nine regional dialects of some languages.
While no other Galaxy AI features have been announced, Samsung is expected to enhance existing tools. It may debut more features with the Galaxy S25 series early next year. The new flagships may launch in the final weeks of January.
While offering enhanced features and aesthetic upgrades, Samsung hasn’t compromised on user privacy and security. One UI 7 brings more powerful security tools to keep your data safe while you enjoy an unparalleled software experience. After a few weeks of beta testing, the stable update will arrive alongside the Galaxy S25 series next year. Other models will receive the update after the flagship launch.
