New One UI 8.5 firmware makes even more visual changes

Development of One UI 8.5 for Galaxy devices has recently accelerated, leading to an early Galaxy S25 Ultra firmware leak that revealed many upcoming interface tweaks. Now, a newer build has surfaced, showcasing additional refinements and improvements Samsung has made in the meantime.

Since One UI 8.5 is still in early development, the first leaked firmware had its share of unfinished icons and visual quirks. Samsung has cleaned up some of those in the new build. For instance, the quick panel’s widget list buttons, which were previously an eyesore, now look as they should.

Here are some of the other changes that are visible in the new One UI 8.5 build (screenshots showing the old and new versions for some of these changes can be seen below):

The Digital Wellbeing app has received a minor makeover, now featuring larger buttons.

When editing the lockscreen, tapping the app shortcut in the corner now brings up the full list of available apps in a pop-up window.

Samsung has switched to an icon-only bottom bar for the Phone app in One UI 8.5, and in the latest build, the bar now stretches across the entire width of the screen, even though the actual buttons still occupy only a small portion of that space.

The Weather app follows the Settings app’s lead by moving the search bar to the bottom when you hit the search icon, and Samsung has also boxed the location name at the top of the main screen to make it stand out more clearly.

The Galaxy AI photo editing menu in the Gallery has been stylized, and the bottom navigation bar now shows all tab names without the need to scroll to the left.

This story is developing…