One UI 5, Samsung’s take on Android 13, will be released from public beta testing “in the coming weeks,” claims a press release from the firm. Highlights include a more customized lock screen and new activity-based settings to block out unnecessary interruptions. Sounds awfully similar to iOS 16, and guess what? That’s okay. Samsung is shrewd enough to imitate all of these wonderful iOS features.
You may modify your lock screen with One UI 5 in a manner similar to Apple’s: long-press your lock screen to see choices to change the wallpaper and clockface. Another alternative is to use a brief video clip to make a background. For your home and lock screens, Samsung claims there are more wallpaper alternatives available, including new color and visual choices.
The functionality of Samsung’s Routines feature, which glaringly lacks the term “Bixby” in front of it, has been enhanced to identify more circumstances that can trigger automations, such as connecting to a mobile hotspot or activating airplane mode. But there’s also a new function that’s simply called “modes.”
They are made to filter out interruptions for various tasks, including working, sleeping, and exercising. Like focus modes, for example. With a new smart suggestions widget that provides usage-based app and action recommendations, One UI 5 also updates the widgets.
Plenty of this sounds familiar, but there’s an interesting feature mentioned in Samsung’s release that’s new to me: Bixby Text Call, which allows you to answer and communicate with a caller via text. Bixby reads your text to the person calling and, likewise, converts their voice to text.
It sounds like a clever way to take a phone call when you’re somewhere loud or need privacy. Or it might come in handy if you hate talking to strangers on the phone with the fire of a thousand suns! Just spitballing here. In any case, the feature is available in Korea and won’t make it to the US until early 2023. If it’s good, maybe Apple can copy Samsung’s work here.
