Samsung One UI 6: See what your Galaxy smartphone will look like
One UI 6: What will change for your Samsung smartphone
New font and emoji style
Longtime Samsung users will notice the subtle change in font. Traditional police samsung sans, Used by the brand in product marketing, screenshots, website and interface can undergo a change that looks very close to Google None From pixel.
Note the letters “C”, “S”, “D” and “Q”. Additionally, battery settings have been moved to the One UI 6 main menu (right). / © The Next Hole
There’s also a new style for system emojis. The new pictograms appear once you open the emoji menu on the virtual Samsung keyboard.
Regarding the keyboard, during testing, we installed One UI 5.1 on the Galaxy S23 Ultra. After installation, we noticed that SwiftKey was installed without warning. But the app is not reinstalled after factory reset.
Samsung One UI 6’s beta emojis (right) look a little cleaner than those in version 5 (left). Click on the image to enlarge. / © The Next Hole
New quick access menu design
The design of the quick access menu, which can be accessed by swiping down from the top of the screen, has undergone some changes. This is almost unchanged from One UI 1.
First, in full screen mode, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth shortcuts are displayed separately using large buttons. This change has no functional impact, but it makes these two most important parameters easier to access. For now, at least, it’s not possible to override the two shortcuts.
Default brightness slider on the mini view and large buttons for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in One UI 6 beta (right). / © The Next Hole
Another important change is that brightness control is now displayed by default when viewing the quick access list with all notifications.
This new default option saves users from having to perform an additional gesture to display the quick access menu in full screen mode, as in previous versions. The option can be reversed by changing modes by clicking on the pen icon.
If you want to access quick settings in full screen mode like in MIUI, One UI 6 brings you a new feature called “Instant access to quick settings.
Once you’ve enabled this feature (it’s disabled by default), simply swipe down from the top-right corner (around the battery indicator) to view the full quick settings menu.
The customization of Quick Settings shortcuts has been radically changed. Additionally, you can get the full screen option like MIUI by swiping right. / © The Next Hole
One UI 6: The new camera widget
One UI 6 will have an interesting new widget that opens the Camera app in a certain mode. With this tool, you will not only be able to choose between front and rear portrait lenses, but you will also have direct access to a specific mode, such as Portrait, Pro, Night mode, Panorama, Slowmotion, etc.
Open the Camera app directly to your preferred mode using a widget on the home screen. / © The Next Hole
One UI 6: More clock design options on the lock screen
Just like Android and iOS, One UI 6 has expanded the lock screen customization options, especially for the watch. It is now possible to choose from a wider range of fonts and freely change the position of the widget in the upper half of the lock screen.
Changing the clock position is not tied to specific locations on the lock screen. / © The Next Hole
One UI 6: New design and new options for the sharing menu
The sharing menu has seen some changes. The first is visible when sending photos or videos. Indeed, the media preview display is now in the sharing menu and not outside it as in previous versions.
Small changes to the sharing interface of One UI 6. / © nextpit
Additionally, One UI 6 has added some new contextual options depending on the app you’re sharing from. For example, after selecting the Share option in the Chrome browser, you will be able to share not only a screenshot or the page URL, but also both at the same time if you select the screenshot option for the first time.
One UI 6: Redefine the weather app
The Weather app interface has undergone some changes. We can mention the adoption of a new font, and modifying the size of the information boxes.
New blocks have also been added such as Air Quality Index (AQI), Dew Point, Wind Direction, Visibility, Atmospheric Pressure, Moon Phase, Sunrise and Moon Setting.
The weather app background also has a nice gradient that doesn’t fade to black like on One UI 5 (left). / © The Next Hole
One UI 6: Other Samsung changes
Drag and drop the app icon onto the home screen with two fingers
Instead of dragging an icon to the left or right edges to place it on another home screen, you can easily switch between screens with a second finger while long-pressing an app icon with another finger.
Drag and drop with two fingers between apps
This feature was already available on One UI 5.1 with the Galaxy Z Fold 5. It works with the same feature mentioned above. Long press on a file with one finger while opening another app with a second finger to paste it.
You can use this trick to drag and drop an image from your gallery into an email you’re writing on Gmail, for example.
The system takes up less storage space
Using the default One UI 5 interface, some Galaxy S23 owners are seeing their smartphones reporting using more than 40GB of storage space without installing any apps. We noticed the same thing on the recent Galaxy Z Flip 5 (test) and Galaxy Z Fold 5 (test).
However, in One UI 6, Samsung has changed the way it reports system storage space usage, which in the Galaxy S23 Ultra almost halves the reported used space.
The One UI 6 beta shows a 16GB drop in storage space used. / © The Next Hole
android body He claimed that the difference is because Samsung no longer reports Gibibyte to Gigabyte conversion in the “System” group, but rather moves it to “Other Files.”
But that doesn’t explain why a clean install on the S23 Ultra of nextpit went “like magic” from 42.99GB under One UI 5 to 26.95GB in the One UI 6 beta, a 27% reduction.
Samsung One UI 6: First impressions
Android 14 won’t represent any major changes compared to Android 13. Samsung seems to have taken advantage of this stagnation to go its own way and give a fairly noticeable overhaul of its One UI interface.
The update strays a bit from the traditional Samsung icons, ditching the default font and emojis that were used before we really talked about One UI. It remains to be seen to what extent Samsung smartphone owners will react to these changes.
On the other hand, One UI 6 falls short of the user experience (UX) change that Apple’s iOS 17 brings. The OS has brought the operating system closer to the user with several tweaks to offer a more personalized interface, and my colleague Camila Rinaldi has already covered this topic.
Samsung appears to be following a similar recipe, giving the user more options to add a personal touch, even if on a smaller scale than MIUI, for example. Either way, One UI 6 is shaping up to be a welcome change for Galaxy device users.
This is our first look at the One UI 6 beta. In the coming weeks, we expect to see more tweaks as Samsung develops its customizations on the underlying operating system.
What do you think of the One UI 6 interface? Is there a feature that matters most to you?
Moving forward, you can refer to our list of the best One UI tips for your Samsung device as well as the best iOS functions for your iPhone.
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