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'Samsung's One UI Is the Best Software It's Ever Put On a Smartphone' (theverge.com)
In preparation for the Galaxy S10 launch event tomorrow, The Verge's Dieter Bohn writes about the new "One UI" software that will run on these new phones. After testing the software on a Galaxy S9 for the past week, Bohn says he really likes it, adding that it's better in some ways than the software found on Google's Pixel 3. "If it weren't for the fact that I don't yet trust Samsung to deliver major software updates quickly, I would be shouting about One UI from the rooftops," writes Bohn. "As it is, I just want to point out that it's time for us to stop instinctively turning our noses up at Samsung's version of Android." From the report: I can't go quite so far as to say that everything has changed forever when it comes to Samsung's customizations. There are still multiple versions of some apps because both Google and Samsung insist on having their software present. Samsung phones also have a reputation for getting a little laggy (the technical term is cruft) over time, and I don't know yet whether One UI and Android 9 will suffer the same fate. But I do know that one week in, this OS actually feels intentional and designed instead of just having a bunch of features tacked on. Historically, we've thought of all those customizations as unnecessary add-ons. But that's not quite right anymore -- customizing AOSP is necessary these days. Instead, we should judge a Samsung phone on its own merits as a phone, not as stuff bolted on to some idealized "pure" version of the phone that can't really exist anymore.
One UI consists of four key parts. One is the basic update to Android 9 Pie, which means you'll get a ton of small features for free. Second, there is a generalized update to the look and feel -- everything is just a little cleaner and more tasteful than before. Samsung has realized that neon is only cool in small doses. Third, because this is Samsung, there are just a million features hidden in every corner of the OS. Some of them -- like a dark mode -- are genuinely useful. Others will remind people of the bad old days of TouchWiz. But overall Samsung is doing a better job of surfacing them progressively as you use the phone, instead of asking you to wade though arcane and opaquely named settings screens in the first 15 minutes of using the phone. The last big feature to talk about in One UI is the first one most people will notice: big, giant header text inside apps. When you open up an app like Messages or Settings you'll see the name of the app in a field of white (or black, in dark mode) that takes up the entire top half of the screen. When you scroll, though, the giant header shrinks down and you have a full screen of content. The last big feature to talk about in One UI is the first one most people will notice: big, giant header text inside apps. When you open up an app like Messages or Settings you'll see the name of the app in a field of white (or black, in dark mode) that takes up the entire top half of the screen. When you scroll, though, the giant header shrinks down and you have a full screen of content.
One UI consists of four key parts. One is the basic update to Android 9 Pie, which means you'll get a ton of small features for free. Second, there is a generalized update to the look and feel -- everything is just a little cleaner and more tasteful than before. Samsung has realized that neon is only cool in small doses. Third, because this is Samsung, there are just a million features hidden in every corner of the OS. Some of them -- like a dark mode -- are genuinely useful. Others will remind people of the bad old days of TouchWiz. But overall Samsung is doing a better job of surfacing them progressively as you use the phone, instead of asking you to wade though arcane and opaquely named settings screens in the first 15 minutes of using the phone. The last big feature to talk about in One UI is the first one most people will notice: big, giant header text inside apps. When you open up an app like Messages or Settings you'll see the name of the app in a field of white (or black, in dark mode) that takes up the entire top half of the screen. When you scroll, though, the giant header shrinks down and you have a full screen of content. The last big feature to talk about in One UI is the first one most people will notice: big, giant header text inside apps. When you open up an app like Messages or Settings you'll see the name of the app in a field of white (or black, in dark mode) that takes up the entire top half of the screen. When you scroll, though, the giant header shrinks down and you have a full screen of content.
Shameless.
How should I feel about this Bohn guy? Usually these type of sites have a few good writers, a lot of mediocre ones, and more awful writers.
That ain't saying a lot.
Still terrible. Trusting Samsung for software is laughable. They often don't get simple things like the home button right. Or just cheat by recognizing benchmark binary names, or over aggressively kill background processes which makes multitasking impossible.
It would be nice for Samsung to allow a few things, before their phones are really usable:
1: Unlockable bootloader without tripping Knox.
2: Ability to have root in some legit manner, similar to LineageOS.
3: A root-based firewall, so rogue apps can't phone home.
4: A real backup system which can backup/restore/archive/retrieve apps singly, or by the whole device.
Of course, blue sky stuff can't hurt:
1: Built in apps that handle the main needs to have root, like a firewall, a privacy monitor which returns bogus data to apps that want stuff they shouldn't, a backup system, and the ability to run server services, as sometimes people may use oddball protocols like SMB for file transfers.
2: A backup system that works, and allows a dump/restore locally.
3: No bloatware/adware.
Is so good they talked about it twice. Again. Lol.
...to permanently uninstall "Bixby", it will remain the worst UI and UX in the world, because that should be one of the simplest things to do.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Just updated to Samsung's One UI this morning, after several days of prompting.... it's an ordeal. Short of pulling out the battery, there's no way to stop it once it begins, and the update takes three quarters of an hour.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
How about a normal interface that isn't filled with gobs of unused crap?
It seems like the harder they try to square the circle between lots of features and a clean, simple interface, both lose out and get worse. The feature bloat never stops and the interface becomes more finicky, crowded, and less intuitive.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
This sounds awfully much like an ad.
I notice he dodged that. So it looks nice, doesn't have too much bling, but you still can't set an audio alert to tell you when the battery charge has reached one hundred percent, or, in fact, change many of the default audio alerts at all without rooting it.
dude why don't you just root your phone lolol
Because I shouldn't bloody have to.
I had a Galaxy S7 and loved it, but I will not buy another Samsung phone until they ship a flagship that does not include Facebook Services as an uninstallable app. At the price one pays for a Samsung flagship, one should not be subjected to the constant location tracking and who the hell knows what else that app is doing. You can disable (but not remove) the Facebook mobile app, but the "Facebook Services" app continues to run --and update itself-- in the background, like it or not. The only way to get Facebook Services off a Samsung phone is to jailbreak it, which is not a reasonable solution in my opinion.
I think Facebook is an evil organization, one that has weakened democracy in the United States. Zuckerberg is an evil genius who has figured out how to turn our basic human need for connection into something that can be approximated via software and then heavily monetized with no regard for the impact their service has on the brains or the lives of their users.
Obviously, nobody forces you to use Facebook. I used it for a while and then gave it four years ago. As a result of this choice, I will not spend $1000+ dollars for a high-end Samsung phone if it's going to serve as an attack vector for Facebook to reenter my life. No thanks.
So... I don't care how amazing "One UI" is... if Facebook Services ships on the S10 then that phone is dead to me.
I have no idea what was in that summary but damn that was a long scroll.
Right. Id trust the verge ?
but you can bet its marketing bs and their ui sucks balls.
Seriously though, if you put unremovable bloatware on your devices go fuck yourself! Nobody, I repeat NOBODY wants that garbage on their devices
So... they've realised that the bigger and bigger screens they're putting on phones are less usable.
When you use the phone with one hand, you can't comfortably reach the top half anymore, so no point putting interactive controls up there.
Fuck Android Pie, and fuck Google. There is literally no reason to upgrade unless you enjoy your phone having less functionality than before.
Soo buggy
the verge is just pure advertisements don't cha know.
also a copyright striker for criticizing them. so there you have it. you cannot trust them with any tech news.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
"When you open up an app like Messages or Settings you'll see the name of the app in a field of white (or black, in dark mode) that takes up the entire top half of the screen. When you scroll, though, the giant header shrinks down and you have a full screen of content."
So the entire top half of the screen will show the name of the app that I just clicked on? Every time I open the app? WTF is the purpose of that? I know the app is Messages because I just tapped on the icon that says "Messages". I really don't need half the screen wasted until I scroll down every time I open an app. Sounds like a horrible design to me.
If that's the kind of stuff they baked into "Samsung's version of Android" then I'll just stick to the Pixel.
"this is going to be the best anal rape ever"
Historically, we've thought of all those customizations as unnecessary add-ons. But that's not quite right anymore -- customizing AOSP is necessary these days. Instead, we should judge a Samsung phone on its own merits as a phone, not as stuff bolted on to some idealized "pure" version of the phone that can't really exist anymore.
In other words, he's saying, "You may not like Bixby and Facebook, etc, but suck it, bitches!"
Oy! The things we have to put up with to get a headphone jack!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
so.
well. you know how the same site can praise some phone for not having any extra stuff and then post something about oneui being a necessity.
and of course not talk about stuff like how samsung actually has firewall functions built into the phone but inaccessible without paying samsung for the api rights.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Best UI? well it would be fucking hard for it to be any worse than their recent efforts. the s9 blows chunks, especially bixby and unless bixby is gone from the new one I am calling BS on it being their best.
mhhh
When the presenter seems to be doing his best to deep throat Samsung's cock.
Kind of ridiculous that these phones won't let you uninstall apps. I'd kind of like to remove stuff from the "Swipe from top" menu, too.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I had a Galaxy S7 and loved it, but I will not buy another Samsung phone until they ship a flagship that does not include Facebook Services as an uninstallable app
Just last week I was in Hong Kong so I went to Shenzhen and picked up a Huawei.
The funny thing is, there is no Facebook app on it.
Zuckerberg is an evil genius who has figured out how to turn our basic human need for connection into something that can be approximated via software and then heavily monetized with no regard for the impact their service has on the brains or the lives of their users.
I don't care how smart that evil Zuckerberg is. He just ain't gonna get into my new Huawei.
NEVER !!!
sad...
it makes me sad that BeauHD, an otherwise seemingly intelligent guy, would make himself look like a fool by posting such an obvious biased advertisement as if it were a news story
and to top it off.. often uses silly and very very ugly ascii "art" signatures... also people could care less if you are an editor, senior editor or a senile editor... really...
just... don't make yourself look like a drooling fool, when you are in fact, fairly intelligent
if some drooling apes on this site somehow does not read your posts, then ignore them, no need for ascii art or bogus stories...
how much is Samsung paying you for this story? I hope they are paying you a handsome sum...
- your AC friend!
CAPTCHA: irritant
No affordances, grey, grey, grey. No BUTTONS.
Ooh, buttons are evil and 'old fashioned'. Let's make the user constantly have to GUESS what is and isn't a button. So 'clean' and 'modern'.
What a bunch of plagiarising assholes modern user interface 'designers' are.
They aren't actually 'user interface designers', because none of them are capable of designing a new interface ELEMENT, and neither is Apple or Microsoft.
Recent coverage of The Verge has certainly reduced any trust I had in them. Not that I had any.
It does not look nice: it wastes space (1/3 screen blank areas with just a title) and the new 'two color flat icons' are eyesore. Maybe it is their tactic to get users to buy icon sets from their 'Samsung Themes' -store..
After using Samsung phones for several years I took the risk and jumped over to Xiaomi. I've had my Redmi 4x for nearly twso years now and am not interested in changing. That was a good decision.
Icon frames make everything look shit and difficult to find.
Bixby always going to be a failed bag of shit and you can't get rid of it even if you wanted to.
I went from my mate 20 pro to my note for about 6 hours (at the point android upgraded to pie and made everything shit (frames, bixby, etc).
I'm back on my huawei after realising the ton of crud samsungs offering has become
No, LineageOS is
My note 9 just updated and the fonts changed and everything looks like it was done in crayon, icons included. Is that what this is about?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
If you want LineageOS, get LineageOS...
Samsung is not the most developer friendly manufacturer but it far from the worst. They still provide an easy way to unlock the bootloader, at least for the off-carrier versions.
Tripping Knox is a small price to pay. I did it without a second thought. Knox is a corporate feature, so that you can use your work phone as a personal phone without breaking corporate network policies. For personal use, Knox is useless. And in cases where Knox is justified, then you probably shouldn't mess with your phone anyways. Note that "Knox warranty void" doesn't mean your warranty is void, at least not in Europe.
The privacy features you mention are most likely against the Play Store terms of service, for good reasons. Apps expect the Android API to act the way it is documented, and it includes returning correct values or well defined errors. It is Google's responsibility to make sure that it is indeed the case, and it is not possible if they allow third parties to hijack the API. It is the reason why when Samsung introduced multi-window, they only allowed it to their own apps and those with a special, proprietary flag set. That's because multi-window wasn't an officially supported feature and even though most apps worked fine with it, they weren't expected to do so.
Finally, how do you define "bloatware"? What you call bloatware may be another person's essential feature. And what you suggest as builtin features like backup, servers, etc... may be another person's bloatware, after all, these are available in third party apps.
Samsung has earned a reputation for coming up with pretty good hardware - and with the worst software in the business. It will take far more than just this ad to change the general perception.
Maybe the ui is fine, but Samsung bloatware is notorious for killing the performance. Their phones have amazing specs that fail to deliver.
Good lord, every front page story on this site today seems to be an ad for some product. Logitech mouse, Samsung phones, apple app store....
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It has *plenty* of options.
My favorite is the detonation option for the battery.
Taking a cue from variable nukes, the battery can now be set to detonate over the entire range from 5 microtons to 1 milliton . . . :)
hawk
See, this is a common error. You cite a reason you cannot uninstall an app (it's in ROM), but that's not a justification. Your smug answer belies the issue of consumer choice and consumer demand.
Why is the app shipped in ROM? Have you ever heard of a PROM? Who made the choice to make the partition read only? Did the customer ask for that?
Look, I get that there are reasons why a protected system image might be a good idea. However locking the runtime applications due to this technical choice is simply poor design. Someone got stupid, or lazy, or venal. Regardless it's a poor architectural choice and defending it on the basis of "it's on a ROM!" is an equally poor choice.
That's like responding to: "Why did the Titanic sink?" With, "because it hit an iceberg!" It's dumb because the point of the question was to suggest the ship didn't need to sink. We all know about the iceberg. Different choices lead to different outcomes.
I have a Verizon S8 for work with locked bootloader and Bixby.. Not a daily driver for these reasons. No chance at Lineage OS. That is part of what the other AC is talking about. Samsung is still another U.S. carrier puppet and I think that's the complaint.