While Samsung inarguably makes some of the best smartphone hardware out there, it has not had a similar record with its software. For the longest time, Samsung used TouchWiz, its heavily modified take on Android. Users complained that it had far too much bloatware and poor visual aesthetics. Things improved when Samsung introduced Samsung Experience but it still left a lot of users unsatisfied. But in 2019, with Android 9.0 Samsung introduced One UI and decided to completely overhaul its software experience.
One UI brought significant visual changes with a complete redo of interface, iconography and colours. Samsung also started taking Google’s Material Design guidelines far more seriously. They made extensive use of flat design. The whole experience felt fresh and modern. But the biggest focus was on redesigning the software for use on big screens. To achieve that, Samsung brought all interaction points to the bottom of the screen, with the top part of the screen being utilised for viewing rather than interacting. It also brought in a dark mode.
Samsung continued to improve on its software with One UI 2.0 with Android 10 by further streamlining its design. It made notifications less intrusive. It added to dark mode by making it available across more apps and parts of the user interface. Overall, Samsung continued its good software streak.
Now it looks like Samsung is hard at work on One UI 3.0. With Android 11 in advanced development stages and expected to be released by August or September, we can say confidently that One UI 3.0 will be based on Android 11. In an image shared by a user on Weibo, we can see that Samsung is already testing One UI 3.0 on the Galaxy S20 series. We can see a string of code bearing the model number SM-G988B. While this claim has not been verified yet, it is exciting to think that Samsung is already working on Android 3.0 and gives S20 users something to look forward too.
