Samsung officially announces One UI 3, here's when you can expect it on your device

Just a quarter of a year since it released One UI 2.5, which arrived with the Galaxy Note 20 series, Samsung is back with another update: One UI 3.0.

One UI 3, which was officially announced yesterday, is not much of a stranger to us. It has been under testing for a few months now and, as a result, we’ve known quite a bit about it all along and all the changes it is bringing to Samsung’s user interface.

As expected of any UI upgrade, the looks are front and centre of the entire experience and, at least going by what they say, Samsung hasn’t disappointed in its bid to, “Bring even more simplicity and elegance to the One UI experience that Galaxy users have come to enjoy”.

“Within the interface, features that you use and visit most – like the home screen, lock screen, notifications and Quick Panel – have been visually enhanced to highlight important information. New visual effects, such as the Dim/Blur effect for notifications, help you quickly focus on what matters most, and redesigned widgets keep your Home screen looking organized, clean and stylish,” a statement from the Korean company reads.

There are smoother motion effects and animations now and what Samsung is saying is a more natural haptic feedback. There are redesigned lock screen widgets as well as enhancements to the camera experience – “Improved AI-based zoom on photos, and improved autofocus and auto-exposure.” The gallery app, which has been a constant in previous overhauls, is not left behind this time around as well. “Once you swipe up the screen while you are looking at a specific photo, you will see a related group of photos,” notes Samsung.

“For further customization, you can place widgets on the Home screen and adjust the transparency so they better match your wallpaper or change the design and colour of the clock on the Always On Display or your Lock screen. Plus, you can even add a video to the incoming/outgoing call screen to make your call experience more personal.”

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There are also some new digital wellbeing applications.

One UI 3 is built on top of Android 11 which it is rolling out with as Samsung looks to deliver on its latest promise to support its smartphones through at least 3 major upgrade cycles, something that many of us have interpreted to mean extended 3-year software support since major Android upgrades only come once a year – like Christmas.

Samsung’s Galaxy S20 series devices are the first in line to get the update this month. They will be followed by the devices the company unveiled in the second half of 2020 like the Galaxy Note 20 series, the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and others from earlier on like the Galaxy Z Flip. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and S10 series devices will follow closely “in the coming weeks” while the Samsung Galaxy A and M series smartphones will be getting Android 11 and One UI 3 in the first half of the new year.

The initial rollout of One UI 3 is limited to Western markets at the moment even though that is expected to change over the next few days. Early seeding of the update to some users in Egypt and a user posting on Samsung’s own official forums offered us a glimpse of when users in places like Kenya can expect to get One UI 3:

December 2020