One UI 8 could let you silence the most annoying system indicator (APK teardown)

For months, Galaxy owners have complained about the location icon constantly lighting up in the status bar, often triggered by Samsung’s services rather than third-party apps. Threads on Reddit are full of people calling it distracting or confusing. Now it looks like Samsung might be finally doing something about it.

According to strings we saw in an internal One UI 8 beta for the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Samsung may add a new toggle that changes how the location icon behaves, potentially letting you hide it. Our thanks go to thatjoshguy69 for providing the APK file.

Based on the wording of the strings, the location icon may be off by default when Samsung services are accessing your location, but it could be enabled manually in the location settings. That would let you decide whether system apps should trigger the icon or not.

It’s easy to see how this would be a useful change. System apps are still likely to access your location regularly, which can be taken as read, but you’ll only see the indicator when a third-party app does the same. That means the icon becomes a clearer signal of when unexpected apps are using your location, rather than the constant noise of the icon from the routine access you expect.

These strings don’t indicate that this option is guaranteed to appear in public releases — Samsung could adjust or remove it before a wider rollout. But if your status bar is blinking much more than you’d like right now, you can be optimistic that Samsung is on the case.