Exclusive: One UI 9’s Now Bar, Widgets, Gallery Changes Revealed

The One UI 8.5 stable rollout remains uncertain for now, and early leaks of Samsung’s next major update, Android 17-based One UI 9 keep knocking our doors. The official stable debut is expected around summer this year, likely alongside Samsung’s next foldables. For now, a few early One UI 9 changes have surfaced, including updates to the Now Bar, widgets, and the Gallery app.

A quick look at One UI 9’s Now Bar animation, widget styling, and Gallery tweaks

Starting with the One UI 9’s Now Bar, it now appears in a darker theme with a black look. On the left side of the pill, there is a small circular thumbnail showing the currently playing track. The name appears at the top center, while a live wave-like animation runs at the bottom. Long pressing it opens a panel that lets you remove the toggle or go directly to Now Bar settings.

The animation feels smooth, slightly bulging outward and upward with a green accent. From here, you can access settings or remove it. Pressing back collapses it into its original pill shape.

On the home screen, several Samsung widgets now feature more squared-off corners with slight rounding. This can be seen in widgets like Now Brief, Weather, and Samsung Browser. Samsung may be aiming for a more uniform design language across system widgets. There could also be options to adjust corner styles using a few preset shapes.

The Gallery app in One UI 9 also shows a small visual change. When selecting images, a rectangular box with a soft blur appears. Selected items get added into this box, giving a quick preview of chosen files in a clean way.

These changes are based on early leaks, so they may evolve before the final release. We are still far from the One UI 9 beta and stable rollout, and only a few devices have appeared with early test builds so far. As always, more details should surface closer to the beta release.

Special thanks to Dennaty!