Samsung’s OneUI promo video highlights the best of its new OS

Samsung has released a new promo video for OneUI — its upcoming mobile operating system based on Android Pie. The rapid-fire video shows off a number of features coming with the OS when it’s released in its final form next year.

The new software is ‘made to focus,’ says Samsung, and comes with several optimizations geared towards this idea. OneUI highlights or underscores the most important elements in each interaction to improve clarity; options will appear or disappear when doing certain tasks depending on what the software deems necessary to show.

Similarly, certain icons and texts have been shrunk or enlarged based on their priority.

Samsung has also made changes to reflect the ever-growing size of smartphones by splitting menus into two distinct areas: the viewing area and the interaction area. The viewing area contains a large heading with what you could all the overarching information (like when the next alarm is coming up in the alarms menu) while the interaction area below — which should be easily accessible in one hand — includes further details and possible actions.

There are lots of aesthetic changes too, many of them reflecting the blockier design of Samsung’s recent phones themselves. It makes the software and hardware appear more connected and congruous than previous Samsung skins.

I’m impressed with what I’ve seen so far from OneUI. Third-party Android skins are often seen as the lesser-alternative to the Pixel version coming with Google’s smartphones. I imagine folks are lining up to rubbish Samsung’s new OS attempt, but why can’t it deliver a solid version of Android some usability and aesthetic improvements?

OneUI is currently in beta and you can find out some of our deeper thoughts on the interface in our hands-on coverage here. Samsung is expected to roll out the final version in January.