Master your Samsung Galaxy smartphone at your fingertips by discovering the intricacies of One UI, the interface of the Korean manufacturer’s smartphones.
Last December, Samsung unveiled One UI 3.0, its graphics overlay based on Android 11, on the Galaxy S20, S20 + and S20 Ultra. A few months later, last February, the Korean manufacturer updated One UI to version 3.1, thus offering its overlay considered today as one of the best on the market, to a greater number of devices, including find the Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20 +, Galaxy S20 Ultra, Galaxy S20 FE, Galaxy Note20, Galaxy Note20 Ultra, or the Galaxy Z Fold2 and Galaxy Z Flip.
And if One UI is so pleasant to use on a daily basis, it is also in large part due to the many features that Samsung has built into it. If some are controlled by users, others are little-known, hidden in the depths of certain menus of the device. In the following lines, you will find ten tips to help you get the most out of One UI on your Samsung Galaxy.
1. Toggle the screen on or off using two taps
With the arrival of One UI 3, it is now possible to wake up or put your smartphone to sleep by double tapping its screen.
To activate it, go to the Settings of your smartphone, enter the Advanced functions menu, then in the Movements and gestures menu, activate the Double tap options to turn on the screen and Double tap to turn off the screen.
2. Change the background of the call screen
With One UI 3, the background displayed on the call screen can be personalized, without changing the personalized image of the calling contact. You can choose to apply a still image or play a video of up to 15 seconds with each incoming call on your device.
To do this, open the Phone application, press the options button represented by three small dots and enter the Settings of the application.
Then enter the Call background menu and tap Background, at the bottom right. Then press the + button to select one of your images or videos from the gallery.
It is also possible to choose a video to Create from an AR Emoji. If you choose this option, select your Avatar, choose a video template to apply and press the Save button.
Then press Set. As background… to set your photo or video as a new background.
Finally, return to the Call background menu. At the bottom left, tap Layout. From this menu, you can modify the arrangement of the information displayed on the caller’s screen.
3. Remove the location of your photos before sharing them
OneUI 3.1 introduces new settings to protect your privacy.
Now, when you are about to share a photo with a third party from the Gallery, a new option to Delete location data is provided. Select it to automatically remove geographic data from the photo’s metadata before sharing it.
4. Correct spots on a portrait
The editor integrated into the One UI Gallery has gained a retouching function, the Task Corrector, which is extremely effective, and which should very quickly become an essential tool in the image gallery of Samsung smartphones. To find it, open an image to edit and press the pencil button to enter edit mode.
Then scroll to the left through all the tools displayed at the bottom of the screen. At the bottom right of the screen, tap the face icon, then scroll through the tools and tap the face icon with five small dots.
The task corrector is now active, adjust its diameter if necessary using the slider provided for this purpose. You just have to “color” the spots in the image using your finger to see them disappear from your shot. Confirm your changes by pressing the check mark at the bottom right of the screen, and save the image using the Save button. displayed at the top.
With rendering at least as effective as a Clipping Stamp or the Room Tool in Photoshop, you can now say goodbye to stains, unsightly pimples and other dark circles on your face.
5. Delete objects from a photo
Another new feature of the Photo Gallery in One UI 3.1 is the ability to remove an object from an image. The function, still experimental, however, needs to be activated to access it.
To do this, open the Gallery, display a photo to edit, tap the pencil icon to enter edit mode, and tap the options button represented by three small dots at the top right. Enter the Labs menu and activate the Object Eraser option.
Then return to the image in edit mode, and to the far right of the tools displayed at the bottom of the screen, press the Object Eraser button. Touch the objects present in the photo that you want to delete and press the Delete button. Confirm your modification by pressing the check mark, then Save.
6. Always on display
Under One UI 3, the lock screen and its Always on Display function, which allows certain elements displayed on the locked screen to be kept, are evolving.
To enjoy it, open the Settings, enter the Lock screen menu and enable the Always On Display option. Then enter the Always On Display menu to customize your preferences.
Besides the duration of its display, you can change the Clock Style (as well as its color) among 6 models, select an image or an animated GIF to display, and activate the Music information display.
7. Configure the side button action
The option is not new, but it is always good to remember that it exists. One UI allows you to customize the action of the side button on your smartphone.
To do this, open Device Settings, enter Advanced Functions, then Side Key.
You can then define the action to be performed when pressing twice (Quickly launch the camera, open Bixbi or open a particular application), as well as the action during a long press (Activate Bixbi or display the Power off menu).
8. Change your automatic filling service
By default, One UI offers users to use its own Samsung Pass autofill module. If you already use a password manager, like Google’s one, or another, you probably won’t want to change your habits.
To change the auto-fill service configured by default, open Settings, enter the Global Management menu and go to Auto-fill service. Then tap on the Autofill Service menu and select the app you want.
9. Hide apps
If you’ve installed apps that you’re not very proud of, you might be looking for a way to hide them so that they don’t appear on your home screen or in your apps screen. One UI includes an option to hide your applications while leaving them accessible from the search module displayed in the application screen.
To hide your apps, open Settings, enter the Home screen menu and go to the Hide apps menu. Then select all the applications you want to hide and confirm by pressing OK.
Your apps have disappeared from the Home screen and the App screen, but can still be opened by searching for their name in the field provided.
10. Activate gesture navigation
If the use of a navigation bar, configured natively in One UI, does not suit you, it is quite possible to deactivate it and opt for navigation by gestures.
To do this, open the Settings of the smartphone and go to the Screen menu. Scroll through the options and enter the Navigation Bar menu.
You can abandon navigation by Keys in favor of navigation by Swiping gestures, which is easier on a daily basis to navigate on your device, switch from one application to another, return to a previous page, etc.