7 issues I miss about Samsung since switching to a Pixel

I’ve used plenty of Nexus and Pixels up to now, however from 2019 till current, I’ve been a Samsung man, proudly owning the S10 Plus and each Extremely mannequin from the S20 to the S24 sequence. Just a few months in the past, I began eager about switching to a Pixel for the primary time for the reason that Pixel 3 XL. After the Pixel 10 launched, I pulled the set off and acquired a 10 Professional. After six years within the realm of Samsung, switching from One UI to Google’s imaginative and prescient of Android has been an enormous adjustment. A few of these changes have been more durable than others, and after a couple of weeks with my Pixel, these are the issues I miss most from One UI.

I didn’t anticipate Samsung’s Clock app to be one of many issues I missed most, however One UI 7 added options I haven’t seen in another clock app. Alarm teams are like folders on your own home display, letting you place a number of alarms in a single place. Toggling all the alarms in a gaggle with the press of a single button saves time and is a lot simpler than having to scroll by means of an inventory of alarms to search out the best ones.

Alarm teams forestall muddle, and that’s one thing I miss, particularly with Google’s Materials 3 Expressive redesign of its clock app. Google is outwardly planning to handle complaints, however for now, it looks like a large number.

Good Lock is a group of modules that allow you to customise and modify completely different elements of how your telephone appears and behaves. Theme Park allows you to customise app icons, both by creating your personal designs or importing an icon pack downloaded from the Play Retailer. These customized icons are system-wide, so that you’ll see them on the house display, within the overview display, and in all places else you’d anticipate. Subsequent, there’s Sound Assistant. Because the title suggests, this module enables you to modify what your telephone does with sound. My favourite a part of Sound Assistant is “management media with quantity keys.” When enabled, long-pressing the amount keys with the display off modifications the monitor you’re listening to. I flip the contact controls for my earbuds off at evening so I can lie on my facet, and this made altering tracks extra handy as a result of I didn’t need to open my eyes or wake my telephone.

However what I miss above all else is One Hand Operation +. Abysmal title apart, this app modified how I navigated my telephone for the six years I used to be utilizing One UI. The module customises what swipes from the facet of the display do. As an alternative of simply going again like each different Android telephone, this app provides triggers for swiping straight out, diagonally up, and diagonally down. In my setup, which you’ll see within the recording above, swiping diagonally up opens the overview display, swiping out goes again, and swiping diagonally down goes house. Having full navigation with out stretching my thumb to the underside of the display was extra comfy, particularly on bigger telephones.

Samsung Modes and Routines is an app that has numerous choices for automating your telephone, with dozens of triggers and actions you can hyperlink up. Consider it as Samsung’s reply to Apple’s Siri Shortcuts. Modes and Routines can management all the pieces in your Samsung ecosystem, together with earbuds and watches. You possibly can, for instance, have your Galaxy Buds activate noise cancellation and swap equalizer presets each time a sport and Bluetooth controller are related.

Nonetheless, the 2 routines I used most are for migraines and telephone appointments. The previous is activated manually by a widget on my house display and dims my show, activates the blue gentle filter, and mutes all sound. With the ability to alter all of these settings with a single faucet saves plenty of squinting at my telephone when a migraine aura is making all the pieces blurry.

The latter routine makes certain I by no means miss any of the over-the-phone physician’s appointments I’ve usually. With all the notifications I obtain every day, I maintain my telephone on silent on a regular basis. When I’ve an appointment, I set an alarm to go off about ten minutes earlier than that decision is scheduled. A particular alarm can set off routines, so when my “appointment” alarm goes off, the routine units my ringer and notification quantity to 100%.

I like having widgets on my house display, and Samsung makes it simpler than ever to make use of them in a approach that’s each helpful and pleasing to take a look at. Widget stacks allow you to “stack” widgets of the identical measurement on high of one another and scroll by means of them. This fashion, you may have as many widgets as you can ever want on one display with out your setup wanting like a large number. On my Galaxy S25, I’ve three stacks: Calendar and Tick Tick, battery and Now Transient, and Clock and Climate.

The Now Bar is Samsung’s implementation of Stay Updates, an Android 16 characteristic that exhibits real-time data, corresponding to navigation, sports activities scores, and extra, in a notification What frustrates me with Stay Updates on the Pixel is that few apps assist it — I can’t get Google Maps to show instructions this manner, regardless that Samsung telephones on Android 15 have been in a position to do that with Maps and extra since One UI 7 was launched earlier this yr.

Samsung obtained Google’s personal apps working with its implementation months earlier than Google might do the identical for Pixels. To make issues worse, media controls gained’t be supported on Pixels regardless that they work with Samsung’s Now Bar. Media controls are what I take advantage of the Now Bar for greater than the rest, and it’s disappointing that I gained’t be capable to do this on my Pixel.

The Edge Panel is a love-it-or-hate-it characteristic, and I find it irresistible. A small deal with in conjunction with the display enables you to pull out varied panels, like a favourite apps web page, fast instruments like a compass or tally counter, climate, and extra. The apps and instruments panels are those I take advantage of most, and it’s one of many issues that makes multitasking in One UI that significantly better.

From anyplace in your telephone, a easy swipe provides you entry to your entire apps and a lot extra, and it’s one thing I’ve missed greater than I anticipated. Some apps attempt to replicate this on non-Samsung telephones, and whereas they work moderately effectively, it’s nowhere close to as clean an expertise as what Samsung has constructed into One UI.

I take advantage of multi-window on my Android gadgets on a regular basis. The Pixel matches Samsung’s gadgets for split-screen multitasking, but it surely doesn’t come near pop-up home windows. These freeform apps behave as they might in a desktop setting, so you may minimise, resize, and drag them round your display. I primarily use pop-up home windows to leap out and in of chat apps whereas doing different issues on my telephone, like watching YouTube. With the ability to learn a message and reply with out leaving the app I’m in is extra handy than another technique. Pop-up home windows tie again into Edge Panels, too, as you may drag an app from the apps panel to the middle of the display to launch it in a window.

The Pixel does have choices. Chat Bubbles allow you to put conversations in a floating bubble, however this needs to be turned on and off per dialog, and when it’s switched on, it’ll robotically open a bubble every time you get a message as an alternative of exhibiting up as a standard notification. It additionally solely enables you to work together with the chosen dialog, so you may’t navigate to another chats, and it solely works with messaging apps. Samsung’s pop-up home windows work with any app, and you need to use these functions usually as an alternative of being restricted to a particular message thread.

Chat Bubbles really feel like a crude, half-baked resolution slightly than a dependable characteristic I’d need to use on a regular basis. In truth, Chat Bubbles are switched off by default and buried within the settings menu, so it looks like Google has given up on it.

I miss plenty of the quirks and options from One UI, however that doesn’t imply I remorse making the swap again to a Pixel as my main telephone. Each telephone comes with its personal set of professionals and cons, and proper now I’m keen to forego issues like pop-up home windows and the Now Bar for the opposite stuff the Pixel has to supply. Even so, I’d love for Google so as to add a few of these issues to its Android pores and skin someday.

Are there options in One UI that you just’d miss for those who modified smartphone manufacturers? Would you miss them sufficient that you just wouldn’t take into account shopping for something aside from a Galaxy? Tell us.