7 issues I miss about Samsung since switching to a Pixel

I’ve used a variety of Nexus and Pixels prior 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 collection. Just a few months in the past, I began fascinated by 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 purchased 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 a giant adjustment. A few of these changes have been tougher than others, and after just a few weeks with my Pixel, these are the issues I miss most from One UI.

I didn’t count on Samsung’s Clock app to be one of many issues I missed most, however One UI 7 added options I haven’t seen in some other clock app. Alarm teams are like folders on your house display screen, letting you place a number of alarms in a single place. Toggling the entire alarms in a gaggle with the press of a single button saves time and is a lot simpler than having to scroll by an inventory of alarms to seek out the appropriate ones.

Alarm teams stop litter, and that’s one thing I miss, particularly with Google’s Materials 3 Expressive redesign of its clock app. Google is seemingly planning to handle complaints, however for now, it seems like a multitude.

Good Lock is a set of modules that allow you to customise and modify completely different elements of how your telephone appears to be like and behaves. Theme Park lets you customise app icons, both by creating your individual 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 screen, within the overview display screen, and all over the place else you’d count on. Subsequent, there’s Sound Assistant. Because the title suggests, this module permits 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 quantity keys with the display screen off modifications the observe you’re listening to. I flip the contact controls for my earbuds off at night time so I can lie on my aspect, and this made altering tracks extra handy as a result of I didn’t should 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 aspect of the display screen 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 screen, swiping out goes again, and swiping diagonally down goes residence. Having full navigation with out stretching my thumb to the underside of the display screen was extra snug, 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 which you could hyperlink up. Consider it as Samsung’s reply to Apple’s Siri Shortcuts. Modes and Routines can management the whole lot in your Samsung ecosystem, together with earbuds and watches. You’ll be able to, for instance, have your Galaxy Buds activate noise cancellation and swap equalizer presets each time a recreation 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 residence display screen and dims my show, activates the blue gentle filter, and mutes all sound. With the ability to regulate all of these settings with a single faucet saves a variety of squinting at my telephone when a migraine aura is making the whole lot blurry.

The latter routine makes certain I by no means miss any of the over-the-phone physician’s appointments I’ve often. With the entire notifications I obtain every day, I hold 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 really like having widgets on my residence display screen, and Samsung makes it simpler than ever to make use of them in a means that’s each helpful and pleasing to take a look at. Widget stacks allow you to “stack” widgets of the identical dimension on prime of one another and scroll by them. This manner, you possibly can have as many widgets as you can ever want on one display screen with out your setup trying like a multitude. 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 function that reveals real-time info, 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 fashion, although Samsung telephones on Android 15 have been ready to do that with Maps and extra since One UI 7 was launched earlier this yr.

Samsung bought 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 although 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 try this on my Pixel.

The Edge Panel is a love-it-or-hate-it function, and I find it irresistible. A small deal with along side the display screen permits 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 wherever in your telephone, a easy swipe offers 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 nicely, it’s nowhere close to as easy 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’d in a desktop setting, so you possibly can minimise, resize, and drag them round your display screen. 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 some other methodology. Pop-up home windows tie again into Edge Panels, too, as you possibly can drag an app from the apps panel to the middle of the display screen to launch it in a window.

The Pixel does have choices. Chat Bubbles allow you to put conversations in a floating bubble, however this must 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 a substitute of exhibiting up as a standard notification. It additionally solely permits you to work together with the chosen dialog, so you possibly can’t navigate to some other chats, and it solely works with messaging apps. Samsung’s pop-up home windows work with any app, and you should use these purposes usually as a substitute of being restricted to a particular message thread.

Chat Bubbles really feel like a crude, half-baked answer somewhat than a dependable function I’d need to use on a regular basis. In actual fact, Chat Bubbles are switched off by default and buried within the settings menu, so it seems like Google has given up on it.

I miss a variety 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 execs 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 in the future.

Are there options in One UI that you just’d miss when you modified smartphone manufacturers? Would you miss them sufficient that you just wouldn’t think about shopping for something apart from a Galaxy? Tell us.