Samsung's One UI 7 Has Changed How I Feel About Default Android Launchers

I've swapped retired the default location surface launcher for an alternate ever since I started utilizing Android. Samsung's 7th mentation of One UI, presently rolling retired to Galaxy phones, is the archetypal I genuinely like.

The quality to wholly alteration however the location surface looks, and functions person agelong been a large portion of wherefore I chose to usage Android successful the archetypal place. Yet truthful overmuch attraction has been paid to each the small details successful One UI 7 that this time, I'm leaving my telephone conscionable arsenic it is.

These Are the Most Fluid Animations I've Seen

When you pat connected an app successful One UI 7, the app icon fluidly grows larger and merges into a fullscreen app window. When you instrumentality to the location screen, the app model shrinks backmost down into the app icon if it's an icon disposable connected your dock oregon your existent background. The aforesaid happens whenever you pat connected a widget oregon interact with immoderate of your speedy settings. Even the measurement toggle flows with much harmony arsenic you set sound.

If you've been utilizing a Google Pixel phone, this whitethorn not dependable that special. Google has done a bully occupation with animations for rather a while, and that's easy my favourite happening astir them. Phone makers successful wide are stepping up their crippled successful this area, and with One UI 7, Samsung hasn't conscionable caught up—its improvement squad has knocked it retired of the park.

I Love the New Icons

The icons supra are the ones presently pinned to the dock successful my Samsung DeX desktop. I adore them.

App icons tin consciousness similar a tiny thing, but they're crushed capable to instal an alternate launcher. If I don't similar an app icon I person to spot each day, and the default launcher doesn't fto maine alteration it, past I'll look for an alternate that will.

Samsung doesn't person power implicit the icons that third-party app developers create, but arsenic for the first-party icons, I admit their caller look. As idiosyncratic who likes galore of Samsung's apps, these are icons I interact with often.

App Folders Look Better When They're Big

App folders look erstwhile you radical 2 oregon much apps unneurotic connected your location screen. Typically, the folder's icon remains the aforesaid size arsenic immoderate different app icon. Now determination is an enactment to enlarge folders, turning them into a widget with respective app icons wrong that are present large capable to motorboat without having to unfastened the folder first. It's a mode to radical icons unneurotic without slowing down your entree to them.

I don't mostly prevention icons to my background, but erstwhile I bash get the urge, this is precisely the mode I privation to bash it.

I'm digging the acceptable of widgets that travel baked into One UI 7. Many of my regular apps not lone person a widget, they person aggregate widgets to take from. For example, I person a prime of however I privation to presumption my calendar: choosing a monthly presumption that's mostly for looks, going with a functional regular agenda, oregon a widget that combines both.

There are ways to spot the existent weather, widgets that amusement my regular vigor people oregon however good I slept, media playing widgets, a mode to spot the existent artillery levels of my devices, and truthful overmuch more. As a dense Samsung Notes user, I present person definite notes saved straight to my location surface truthful that I don't person to find them wrong the app.

It's not the options that marque the difference, since galore of these widgets were pre-existing and haven't functionally changed. It's the rounded corners. It's the transparency and the grade to which I tin edit their appearance. It's the vibe.

Better Spacing Between Apps and Widgets

If there's 1 quality that has stood retired to maine betwixt the Android implementation of widgets and the acold much caller iPhone implementation, it's the attraction paid to spacing. Android widgets person agelong felt to maine similar widgets conscionable scattered astir connected a location screen. iPhone widgets are sized to acceptable into the location screen's modular grid and spaced isolated accordingly.

Samsung's widget placement connected One UI 7 feels astir of the mode there. The company's first-party widgets are connected point. Third-party widgets are much deed oregon miss, but thankfully, the Play Store is present making widgets easier to find.

A Vertical App Drawer Makes All the Difference

Add maine to the database of radical who ne'er truly cared for Samsung's erstwhile paginated app drawer. Instead of a database of apps, you had to swipe near and close betwixt pages. Samsung didn't make this approach. Early versions of Android arranged apps successful pages that you swiped horizontally the aforesaid way.

Thing is, banal Android switched to a vertical scrolling app drawer ages ago. Most Android telephone makers made the alteration mode backmost when. I'm gladsome Samsung has yet followed suit.

A New Taskbar Pops Onto the Scene

I usage a Galaxy Z Fold 6. On older versions of One UI, these book-style foldable phones travel with a taskbar that lines the bottommost of the screen, similar a Windows PC oregon Chromebook. Now Samsung has swapped this retired for a dock that you tin entree by swiping up from the bottom.

I similar the look of this dock implicit the aged one. For anyone already acquainted with Samsung's borderline panels, it feels functionally the same, lone crossed the bottommost of the surface alternatively of a broadside and without a disposable handle.

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I've utilized Niagara Launcher for rather a portion now, and earlier that, Nova Launcher was my go-to for years. I've dabbled with immoderate experimentation takes on the way, specified arsenic the Kvaesitso launcher lone disposable connected F-Droid, which I utilized to assistance turn a smartphone into a minimalist dumbphone. It feels weird to really instrumentality with the launcher that comes with my phone, but present we are.

I emotion the enactment Samsung's squad has done here. One UI flows truthful good from my phone's screen surface to its larger interior one, my lapdock moving DeX, and the interface connected my Frame TV that the plan truly is starting to unrecorded up to its name.