Being the most popular Android smartphone maker globally, Samsung has millions of users. If you have the latest Samsung phone or tablet, you know about One UI, Samsung's interface for its Galaxy devices. However, if this is your first time hearing about it, you aren't alone. Below, we give you a quick overview of Samsung's latest Android skin and its exciting new features on Android 14.
What is One UI?
One UI is Samsung's custom user interface built on top of Google's Android operating system. If you remember TouchWiz, it was colorful but received a lot of flak for being cluttered and slow. Samsung then moved to the Samsung Experience, which was more polished.
Samsung introduced One UI in December 2018, which focused on ease of use, especially with one-handed operation. This version placed most controls on the lower half of the screen, making them easy to reach with your thumb, which is excellent because phone screens keep getting bigger.
Source: Samsung
Samsung updates One UI yearly to match the latest Android version, bringing new features and improvements each time. The latest version, One UI 6.1, runs Android 14 and integrates new AI features.
Galaxy AI features
The One UI 6 update introduces Galaxy AI features to improve user interaction and productivity. Here's a rundown of these features, how they work, and how to use them.
Circle to Search
The Circle to Search feature allows users to search for information about on-screen content without switching apps. Go to Display > Navigation Bar and turn on the Circleto Search toggle to use it. After it's activated, tap and hold the Home button or the navigation bar, then draw a circle around the text or image you want to search for. This triggers a Google search, providing relevant information about the circled content.
Interpreter
Samsung's Interpreter feature facilitates real-time conversations across different languages. Activate Interpreter from the quick panel, choose the languages, and start your conversation.
Real-time phone call translations
This feature translates your speech in real-time during phone calls, ensuring smooth communication despite language differences. To use it, start a phone call, and the system translates your speech into the other person's language and vice versa.
Translate text in images
This feature allows you to translate foreign text by pointing your camera at it. It works on signs, documents, menus, or any image text, including those stored in your Gallery.
Browsing assist
Samsung Internet's browsing assist can translate and summarize long articles or web pages, making foreign-language content more accessible. This feature breaks down lengthy reads into key points and translates them into your preferred language.
Note Assist
Note Assist in Samsung Notes helps organize your notes by automatically formatting, summarizing content, checking for spelling and grammar errors, and even translating text.
Transcript Assist
Transcript Assist converts audio recordings into text, making it easier to refer to spoken content. This feature can transcribe meetings, lectures, and voice memos, summarize the text, and translate it into other languages.
Generative Edit
Generative Edit allows you to manipulate photos by moving, removing, or resizing objects and filling in the gaps with AI-generated background elements. This tool makes your edited photos look natural without needing advanced editing skills.
Samsung Keyboard AI
The AI-enhanced Samsung Keyboard provides spelling and grammar suggestions, can change the tone of your writing, and translate messages within chat apps.
Generative AI Wallpapers
Generative AI Wallpapers let you create one-of-a-kind wallpapers for your device by entering the keywords you want. It's a fun and easy way to personalize your screen.
Source: Samsung Community
Home and lock screen
With One UI 6, Samsung brought a fresh and intuitive experience to the home and lock screens.
New fonts and icons
One UI 6 introduces a new default font and simplified icon labels for a cleaner and more modern home screen. The updated font is consistent across the system, providing a cohesive and refined user experience. The minimal icon labels make identifying apps easier.
Clock customizations
One UI 6 makes it easier to customize your lock screen clock. You can adjust the clock size and pick from various fonts and styles, letting you personalize your lock screen to fit your vibe.
New widgets for Always On Display
One UI 6 introduces new widgets for the Always On Display, such as Weather, Samsung Health, Battery, Reminder, Calendar, and Clock. These widgets provide quick access to useful information without unlocking your phone.
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Frames and effects for wallpapers
With One UI 6, you can apply frames and special effects to your wallpapers. This feature includes depth effects that make the subject stand out, creating a 3D effect similar to what iOS offers.
Quick Settings and notification panel
Samsung's One UI 6 updated the Quick Settings and notification panel. Let's check out what's new.
Separate rows for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
One UI 6 redesigns the Quick Settings panel for easier access to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. These settings now have a dedicated row at the top for quick toggling without scrolling through other options. This redesign makes frequently used settings more accessible.
Smart Airplane mode
One UI 6 has improved Airplane mode. When you toggle Airplane mode, it retains your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth settings if you manually re-activate them after toggling them. This means that the next time you activate Airplane mode, your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth remain on without the need to reconfigure your settings every time.
Quick access to compact and expanded panels
In previous versions, accessing the expanded Quick Settings panel required two swipes down from the top of the screen. One UI 6 introduces instant access to Quick Settings. Swiping down from the right side of the screen opens the expanded Quick Settings panel. Swiping from the left shows notifications. This feature reduces the number of gestures needed to access key settings.
Notifications as separate cards
In One UI 6, each notification appears as a separate card, creating more space between notifications and making them easier to distinguish.
Sorting notifications by time
Users can now sort notifications by time, showing the most recent first. By bypassing the default priority sorting, this feature helps manage and respond to alerts more effectively.
Updated music player notification
The music player notification now displays the album art as the background, creating a visually rich interface. The progress bar features a visualizer trail that syncs with the music, adding a dynamic element to the playback controls.
Samsung Keyboard
Samsung continues to innovate with its latest iteration of the Samsung Keyboard in One UI 6.
Refreshed emoji style
The Samsung Keyboard in One UI 6 updated its emoji set to a cleaner and more modern design. The refreshed emojis are flatter, aligning with contemporary design trends and improving readability on high-resolution screens.
Voice input visibility
In previous versions, the keyboard disappeared when switching to voice input, correcting mistakes, or adding punctuation. Now, the keyboard remains on the screen, allowing for easier transitions between typing and dictating.
Camera app
Samsung's One UI 6 brings new improvements to the camera app, designed to give users more control and convenience when capturing photos and videos.
Resolution switcher
You can now switch resolutions in photo and video modes, making it easier to get the perfect shot. Previously, changing the resolution required navigating through multiple settings menu options. Now, this function is prominently displayed. Users can quickly switch between different resolutions to capture high-resolution images or lower-resolution photos and save storage space.
Source: Samsung
Document scan setting
Scanning documents is now more efficient with a dedicated setting for document scanning. Previously, the Scene Optimizer feature needed to recognize a document before activating scan mode, which could be slow and unreliable. The new dedicated document scan setting allows for quick and accurate scanning.
Source: Samsung
Quality optimization settings
The camera app introduces three new photo quality optimization settings. Additionally, a new auto-FPS setting for video recording has been added. Users can keep auto-FPS off, use it for 30fps videos only, or apply it to 30fps and 60fps videos.
New camera widget
Photography enthusiasts will appreciate the new camera widget, which provides quick access to user-preset camera modes. This widget lets you easily switch between settings like portrait mode, night mode, or custom configurations, ensuring you can capture the perfect shot without navigating the camera app.
Gallery app
The Gallery app in One UI 6 now features a streamlined detail view that improves the user experience by providing quick access to editing options and detailed information about photos and videos. By swiping up from the bottom of the screen, you can view metadata such as date, location, and camera settings and apply effects and edits from this interface.
Source:Xanodios on Twitter
Searching for photos and videos in the Gallery app has also improved. Results are now organized into categories such as people, places, albums, and stories. This categorization makes it easier to locate specific content, such as photos from a particular event or trip, by searching for relevant keywords or locations.
Photo editor changes
The photo editor within the Gallery app has also undergone several changes. The tools menu has been reorganized, making it easier to find and use editing features or apply filters.
Source: Samsung
One UI 6 introduces the ability to undo and redo multiple layers of edits, allowing you to experiment with different adjustments and effects without making permanent changes.
Source: Samsung
The text editing feature has also been improved with new styles and background options, allowing you to add text with various fonts, colors, and backgrounds.
The updated Weather app in One UI 6 provides more detailed local weather information, including comprehensive data such as humidity levels, wind speed, UV index, and hourly forecasts. It also includes severe weather alerts that notify you about upcoming storms, heavy rainfall, or extreme weather conditions.
Bixby Text Call
One UI 6 expands Bixby Text Call's capabilities by supporting more regional languages. The updated Bixby Text Call feature allows seamless switching between Bixby Text Call and regular call functions mid-call. This flexibility lets you start a call with Bixby Text Call for automated responses and switch to a regular voice call if needed.
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Auto Blocker
The Auto Blocker feature in One UI 6 increases your device's security by preventing the installation of apps from unauthorized sources, performing app security checks, and blocking unauthorized USB commands.
When active, this feature ensures that only trusted applications can be installed, thus protecting your phone from potential malware and security threats such as juice jacking, where malware is transferred via charging cables.
Auto Blocker can also prevent firmware updates via USB and includes a messaging app protection feature to block malicious image attachments in messaging apps.
Studio video editor
One UI 6 introduces the Studio video editor app. This dedicated app offers advanced video editing tools beyond basic trimming and cropping. You can add text overlays, apply filters, and insert transitions. The app can be accessed from the Gallery menu or by adding a shortcut to the home screen for quicker access.
Samsung Find
The Samsung Find app in One UI 6 includes a feature for sharing your location with family, friends, or trusted contacts. You can now share your location for a limited time or continuously, ensuring your loved ones can always know where you are.
It also offers improved features for locating lost devices. In addition to showing the device's last known location on a map, the app provides options to make the device ring, lock it remotely, or erase its data to protect your personal information.
Passkeys
One UI 6 introduces support for passkeys, a more secure and convenient way to sign in to websites without using traditional passwords. Passkeys use biometric authentication methods like fingerprints or facial recognition to log you in, further improving security and simplifying the sign-in process.
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Google search suggestions in Finder
With One UI 6.1, the Finder tool now includes Google search suggestions. When you use Finder to search for something, it now suggests web searches from Google alongside the device search results, enhancing your search experience.
Battery protection options in One UI 6.1
Battery protection options in One UI 6.1 include Basic Protection, Adaptive Protection, and Maximum Protection. Basic Protection keeps your battery charge between 95% and 100%, stopping charging at 100% until it drops to 95%, slightly reducing battery wear while ensuring the device is always ready to use.
Adaptive Protection pauses charging at 80% while asleep. It completes the charge to 100% just before you wake up, minimizing the battery's time at a high charge level and maintaining its health over time. Maximum Protection limits the maximum charge to 80%, extending the battery lifespan by reducing the stress from high charge levels. This makes it ideal for prioritizing battery longevity over maximum daily capacity.
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Samsung's big July: One UI 6.1.1 and Galaxy S24 Ultra camera updates
Samsung's latest major UI overhaul is One UI 6, and they just rolled out an AI-centric update with One UI 6.1. But now, there's talk about One UI 6.1.1, rumored to launch alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 on July 10, 2024. According to tipster Ice Universe, Samsung is testing a major camera software update for the Galaxy S24 Ultra. This update is rumored to launch with the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 in July 2024.
Want to learn more about the artificial intelligence capabilities available on your phone? Read our article on Galaxy AI and what it can do for you.
