Something new, something old, something blue and something borrowed: this is One UI 5, the new interface for Samsung smartphones

The company has unveiled the latest version, which will be available at the end of the month and provides many options for customizing the lock screen

As part of its annual developer conference ( Samsung Developer Conference 2022), which began today, Samsung announced One UI 5, a new version of the user interface for Android devices.

One UI is a series Tools and graphical modifications that Samsung uses for the basic user interface of Android; A few years ago, it made a strategic decision to separate it from the operating system, allowing it to offer regular updates regardless of which version of Android the device is running.

In case One UI 5, which will be available in the coming weeks, brings Android 13 Hand in hand to implement some of its new features (ie: devices that get One UI 5 will also install Android 13, which also has some new features). The most prominent ones are related to the lock screen settings, where the clock, notifications and background image are displayed.

like What Apple is doing with iOS 16Introduced last month, it’s now possible to change the watch face. But while Apple lets you change the font, Samsung allows changing the location and layout of the clock (analog or digital clock)among other things.

It doesn’t offer, like Apple, to crop the image so that it appears in a different plane to the clock on the lock screen, but it does. Allows you to use videos as wallpaper up to 15 seconds long, as an alternative. It also lets you choose up to 15 images that rotate with each unlock.

The company will also let you have wallpapers selected by category and provided by Samsung, which will change every two weeks, in the style of what happens in Windows 10 and 11.

One UI 5 also includes a tool from Android 12 and 13 that lets you define A color palette for the entire device interface (color of highlighted text, buttons, menus, etc.); When Google defined it, it allowed this palette to automatically appear as the default background or lock color fill.

Another innovation that this new version of the special user interface that Samsung offers in its smartphones and tablets brings is Ability to place several widgets in the same space (up to 7 options); Simply swiping one widget to the right or left will access another. It’s similar to a meta-widget and is very useful for getting a lot of information on the same screen (meeting schedule, weather, access to favorite apps, etc.).

This new version also offers an option Configure display notification behaviorapp-by-app: For example, if they appear in the launcher from the top edge, if they add a notification circle next to the app icon, or as a floating bubble on the screen.

The company will also offer other small additions, such as the ability to customize the background during a call depending on who is contacting us, or allowing some contact notifications to appear on the screen, even if we are in Do Not Disturb mode of the game.

One UI 5 will be available first for this year’s smartphones (Galaxy S22, Flip4, Fold4), but also for the Galaxy S21 and S20 (from 2020, Samsung promises at least three general updates for its devices). The Galaxy A53 is expected to get access to these new features as well.