At the developer keynote in San Francisco last week, Samsung unveiled the latest iteration of their User Interface (UI), announcing Samsung One UI. The new UI is heading to the Galaxy S9/S9+ and Note 9 as part of the Pie update in 2019. It seems the 2018 flagships will also be getting the update aswell with the Samsung Galaxy S8, S8 Plus, and Galaxy Note 8 also in line for the update.
The inclusion of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8 handsets in the rollout of One UI was discovered by Android Authority, who had the information confirmed by Samsung. According to Android Authority, Samsung confirmed the UI would come to ‘some older devices’.
The current Samsung UI – called Samsung Experience – replaced the much lambasted TouchWiz, but each generation of Samsung software has improved from the user perspective. Samsung One UI looks to further improve on Samsung Experience with what Samsung describes as a ‘clean and minimal design’ that ‘keeps the most relevant content on the bottom half of the screen’.
One UI is better looking with rounded corners which match up with the corners on screens for a more visually appealing overall look between the hardware and software. There’s also the system level Dark Mode which extends throughout the One UI interface as well as into apps and the settings menu has been simplified. You can see the run through of the Samsung One UI at the Samsung Keynote here:
It’s unclear when the Beta version of One UI will become available for the Galaxy S8 and Note 8, but it is expected to become available for the Galaxy S9 and Note 9 handsets at sometime in early 2019. We’ll be keeping an eye out for any developments or news for other Samsung devices that could be included in the rollout as well, though it is likely that the new UI could possibly be limited to certain flagship devices only.
Sounds alright , and dark mode has been a while coming , but will be welcome .
The time mark where Senior Designer of UX Design, Jee Won Lee, comes on stage to talk about One UI, is 1:01:40