The smartphone industry has felt stagnant of late, and that feels especially true of Samsung. My Galaxy S24 Ultra, for example, is a fantastic phone, but it isn’t exciting. It looks the same as the last two Ultra phones and nothing about it is a significant leap over the previous models. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 have the same issue. Tech fans like ourselves want something new, something innovative.
With changes made in One UI 6.1.1 and the rumors surrounding One UI 7, I worry that Samsung will attempt to make these changes in the one place it shouldn’t. No Android skin is perfect, but One UI is as close as anything else. It’s mature, stable, reliable, and has features that I miss whenever I use any other device. As far as I’m concerned, this is the one area Samsung doesn’t need to change drastically.
One UI 6.1.1 ruined one of my favorite features
Smart Select isn’t so smart anymore
Smart Select is a screenshot tool that’s been present on Samsung phones for as long as I can remember. Accessible from the Quick Panel, or via the Air Command floating menu that is summoned by the S Pen, it lets you quickly and easily capture parts of your screen.
Rectangle overlays a resizable box that you can drag over what you want to capture and oval does the same thing for round screenshots. What made it especially useful is that it would guess what you wanted to take a screenshot of. If you were on Instagram, for example, it would automatically place the capture area over the photo on your screen.
You could also use Smart Select to capture a part of the display and save what happened there as a GIF, or pin a small screen grab as a floating window to reference later. I used these less often, but they were nice features to have nonetheless.
In One UI 6.1.1, which launched with the Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 and is now making its way to other devices like my Galaxy S24 Ultra, Smart Select has been redesigned for the worst. The dedicated panel has been removed, now relegated to the top of the app panel. I could forgive that if not for the ruined functionality.
Now, rather than overlaying the rectangle for you to capture right away, you have to sit through an animation while Galaxy AI scans the image. When that’s done, you have to circle the general area you want a screenshot of, just like Circle To Search. Only when you’ve followed these steps can you resize the capture area, but options are missing. You can’t take circular screenshots or make GIFs, and the pin tool is now relegated to a hidden menu.
I’m worried about One UI 7
Notifications are the one thing that don’t need to change
Notifications on Android are fantastic. I’m reminded of that every time I use my iPad, and one of the things that makes this part of the OS so good is the integration with Quick Settings. Instead of needing to swipe down with two fingers, as you did in the past with older Android versions, or a specific side of the screen like iOS, you get your most used Quick Settings at the top of the notification shade. A second swipe from the top expands the Quick Settings panel.
Rumors surrounding One UI 7, and even Android 16, point to this system going away, replaced by something that’s a mix of what iOS has now and what Android had back in Android 4.4 KitKat. To quote Obi-Wan: “R2, we’re supposed to be going up, not down!”
I want Samsung to make meaningful changes
Not whatever this is
Change for the sake of change is rarely a good thing; based on what we’ve seen in One UI 6.1.1, and what is expected in One UI 7 and Android 16, I worry that’s what we’re going to get. Samsung’s software used to get lambasted for the unnecessary changes it used to make in the TouchWiz days, and it feels like a step in the wrong direction to return to that mindset.
The innovation I want to see is in hardware. The S series deserves a redesign after nearly five years of basically the same thing; better cameras, Qi2 support, larger batteries, and exciting features like the variable aperture from the Galaxy S9 and S10 returning would be exciting. Changing the fundamentals of the software we use every day for no reason other than to say something is new is a bad idea.
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