Galaxy smartphone users eagerly await the One UI 7 Beta Program to kick off. Meanwhile, there’s a chance that Samsung won’t make Galaxy users wait much for the Android 16 Beta (possibly One UI 8) next year.

Google confirmed the next OS will launch sooner than expected. In a recent development, AndroidHeadlines revealed a possible release date of Android 16, making us with an early One UI 8 Beta from Samsung next year.

Sources confirmed to the outlet that the Android 16 will debut on June 3, 2025. The release date suggests a 4-month early arrival than this year’s rollout. Google didn’t open Android 15 distribution until October 15 this year.

Samsung Android 16 Beta in June 2025?

Samsung opened its One UI Beta around the official release of Android every year. Things are not the same this year as the company has made some major changes in its One UI Beta Program and software development strategy.

One UI 7 reportedly brings major design changes and animation improvements. This would have led Samsung to invest additional time in the testing. However, the next iteration is unlikely to debut any major interface overhaul.

If Samsung returns to its track, we could get Galaxy’s Android 16 Beta around June 2025. The Stable Android 16 release could take place by the end of Q2. Following the AOSP submission, Galaxy’s One UI Beta could come out.

Why is Android 16 landing early?

Google aims, Android vendors to adopt the new version on their latest flagships. Chinese vendors introduce their new phones in the fourth quarter. This way, some of them miss out on running the latest OS from day one.

This year’s Pixel 9 series debuted with Android 14, rather than the latest Android 15. As the next version is set to launch early, the Pixel 10 series will run the latest OS out of the box. Samsung could also consider shipping new foldables with a new OS.

Samsung has introduced the next-gen of its virtual assistant, Bixby, with the release of the W25 and W25 Flip foldable phones in China. This updated Bixby is smarter and can understand natural language better to make it easier to use.

Users of some new high-end Samsung appliances are already enjoying this advanced version of Bixby. The Korean tech giant may bring it to more Galaxy devices globally with the release of One UI 7 in 2025.

The new Bixby is powered by an advanced technology called LLMs (large language models). It helps understand natural language better and handle multiple commands at once. It can now understand and respond to more complex commands.

For example, if you say, “It’s cloudy outside. What should I wear to work today?” Bixby will tell you the weather and suggest you wear a raincoat if it looks like rain. If you then ask, “How much time will it take to get there?” Bixby will know you’re asking about your workplace and will give you directions and travel time.

Moreover, the new feature of Bixby is the ability to understand what’s on your screen. If you’re chatting with a friend and they mention a place to meet, you can ask Bixby to “navigate here,” and it will automatically find the location on your screen and start navigation.

The next-gen Samsung Bixby also has a new, modern design. The interface takes up the full screen and allows you to interact with it using both text and voice.

The fresh design offers helpful suggestions at the top of the screen and can be gathered anytime, no matter what app you’re using. Whether you need help converting a webpage into your language or creating a document, Bixby can assist with various tasks. Stay tuned for more updates.

In the past few years, Samsung has revamped the lock screen with numerous customization features and the One UI 7 launch will make it more interactive with compact live app widgets.

Live apps run in the background, unlike all apps, these have interactive elements. Therefore, the system doesn’t kill or limit their features when you push them in the background.

For example, in the Media Player app, when you start a song and lock your device, the song keeps on playing. When you wake the device, the lock screen will show you media controls. In that way, you don’t need to unlock the device to play/pause or change the track.

Such widgets are available in the existing One UI version, which makes it quite convenient. However, Samsung has planned a new upgrade for this section to make these lock screen widgets compact and intuitive.

Compact Live App Activities

Samsung One UI 7 is still far away from launch but an early leak from AndroidHeadlines has some new information, especially for the lock screen. A few seconds clip has uncovered a tiny detail on the bottom side of the display.

The lock screen has new compact widgets in between the phone and camera shortcuts. These widgets have buttons. The background has round corners to reflect One UI 7’s user interface and the leak showed three widgets:

• Music – Has a thumbnail on the left and back, pause/play, and next buttons.
• Recorder – Contains a recording timer and a stop button.
• Clock – This widget shows an active timer, total time, and ETA clock time along with a pause/resume button.

Samsung One UI 7 Compact Stackable Live App Widgets (Source – Androidheadlines)

Stackable

In One UI 6 and before, the lock screen will show you large widgets stretching from left to right and in a list view. In the most recent version, you will only see app icons. Once tapped, the system will expand the notification panel to show you the live activity or message notifications.

One UI 7 appears to have a new solution for this scenario. Instead of relying only on icons, the system could now separate live activities from other static app notifications.

With this hybrid approach, the system will show you the compact widgets at the bottom and If you have different live apps running simultaneously, the lock screen will stack them just like photos and you can swipe them to see the other live app activities.

Meanwhile, you can still tap on the notification icons to expand the large widget and use it as usual.

Comparison with iOS

Apple also has live activities and these look identical to what Samsung has to offer with the existing One UI version. When a user starts a timer, it appears right on the lock screen with a few controls.

However, compact live app widgets are likely to surpass that experience with Samsung One UI 7.

One UI 7 Launch Date

The Korean tech giant is planning to launch the One UI 7 beta program for public testers and it’s officially expected to debut with the Samsung Galaxy S25 series in Early 2025. Read more about One UI 7 here.