Ever since Google introduced Android 12, we’ve all been waiting to see how other manufacturers will adapt their skin to the new Android, and whether they will adopt it at all. One of the bigger questions was what Samsung would do with the OneUI 4, as it was the OneUI 3.0 that brought the big redesign. Samsung has now officially launched the beta program for the Galaxy S21 series, and with it came a complete list of changes that come with the beta release.


As we expected, the design change will be, but will not be big. The first change that catches the eye is the new widgets that are reminiscent in the shape of widgets from Android 12 and of course those from iOS 14. No matter what you reminded us of, it's great that a little order is finally being introduced in Widgets. On the lock screen, you can now immediately choose which device the media is playing on but, more importantly, you can now set the Always-On screen to activate each time a new notification arrives. Thus, it will at least partially replicate the functionality of the LED lamp.

The notification center has received some improvements (separate silent and regular notifications), and the screen brightness slider is larger and therefore easier to use. The “Picture-in-picture” window can now be easily enlarged or reduced using pinch to zoom. If you are using the Edge Panel, then you will surely be glad that the window of the active application will no longer be blurred when you open the panel. There are tons of such tiny improvements, especially in Samsung apps, and you can see the full list in the screenshots below. You can also find more information in the press release on the Samsung Newsroom blog.

In addition to all this, it is expected that there will be more design changes in future beta versions.