A Few Thoughts On The Samsung OneUI Flavor of Android 11 (Now That I Have It)
Charles Tatum II
Software developer with experience in mobile and web, and skills in UX, QA & technical writing
In the early morning hours of Sunday, February 28, 2021, I installed Android 11 for Samsung’s OneUI and their A-series devices. I received notification of the available update only a few nights before.
In an earlier article I mentioned that I made the migration from Samsung’s excellent Galaxy S9 Plus to their new A51 5G handset. The A-series smartphones are notable in that they’re Samsung’s first foray into mid-range devices in the United States (the A51 5G was selling in the $400 to $500 price band). Prior to that we had the top-of-the-line S-series phones like the powerful but expensive S20 and S21 showcase devices and a set of (probably) lesser-known offerings (like the budget J-series devices). The A51 5G had Android 10 on it when I received it. I didn’t expect the Android 11 update would arrive as soon as it did (I bought it December 23, about two and a half months ago) – at least one blog said the update would arrive later in the year, likely this summer.
The installation package is considerably larger than other security updates, of course – think 2 GB. Since I did the download over my home’s wi-fi network, I had the whole package in under a half-hour.
Installation Pointers and Tips
If you’ve never done a major update to your smartphone before, there’s actually a little bit of planning to be done. You will not be able to use the device while the installation is happening. This matters, because heaven help you if you have a medical emergency or need to call for help.
I have an extra smartphone (several, actually), so when I remove the SIM card from the Samsung smartphone I immediately slip it in the second device and check to make sure that backup device is functional BEFORE starting the software installation on the Samsung handset. If you don’t have a second device, if someone else in your home or household has a working device, you might locate the device or the person so if you need to dial 911 you won’t be waiting on “Installing...” on your device.
Another consideration that has been suggested elsewhere that I’ll repeat here is, you should make a backup of all your digital assets on the phone – music, videos, sensitive files, everything. This really is something that you should do periodically, anyway – don’t depend on Google Drive or any cloud service to automatically do it for you. Or, if you do, login and see what’s there. If an automatic backup failed for some reason, better you should catch it now.
Your Android device will allow you to explicitly delay installation of the Android 11 update only three times before it “forces” it on you, so try to do it as soon as is practical.
Once you start the installation there’s no turning back! So be sure that when you start it, you’re prepared to let it do its thing. (You also can’t revert to a prior version of Android, either.)
That said, I was delighted the installation only took about 15-20 minutes.
Reinstall Your Phone Tracker/Security Software (Or Update It)
If you don’t have any kind of “Where’s my phone?” software, I highly recommend you get some – you’re carrying a $500 to $1,500 device around! There are several titles out there. Prey is my favorite (www.preyproject.com) but Lookout which is in cahoots with T-Mobile (www.lookout.com) and Samsung (findmymobile.samsung.com) are worth a look also. (Personally, I have all three.)
When a new version of an operating system is installed, I think it’s a smart move to uninstall it and reinstall it afresh. One time there was a major security update for Android and it caused Prey to stop working. (I sent a suggestion to their devs that they ought to monitor for a kernel change and advise the user to check it or reinstall it.) Then go to the web site associated with the service and TEST IT! See if your device comes up on the map. If it doesn’t, your security software might not be compatible with Android 11, or (worse) it may be broken, and you’ll want to find a replacement.
If you’re not going to uninstall and reinstall such software, at least update it to the latest version.
Impressions
I am not going to comment on all the new, specific features that Android 11 has, goodness knows there’s dozens of blogs that discuss that. I am going to talk about my early experience with it.
First, I hasten to point out that this Android 11 update is not the “standard” Android 11 update. Many phones do not have a customized app launcher environment the way that Samsung does, so your experience visually may be a bit different from what I mention here.
Here are some of the things I notice about the Android 11 update for Samsung’s OneUI:
- One new font has apparently been added, for the clock on the lock screen. The lock screen layout is a little different also. Music apps like Spotify used to sit at the top of the screen; now they’re in the middle.
- The PIN unlock screen chose to frame the buttons with gray dots for the number keys. And the mobile hotspot icon looks more like a bullseye. Oddly, the phone keypad does not have those gray dots under the numbers – an accident?
- The layout of apps on your home screen will not change, thankfully. You still swipe left to right and back for multiple pages.
- When a phone call comes in, you can now alter the background that shows. I never asked for this feature but I’m sure someone will appreciate it somehow.
- I was thrown by how calendar notifications show now – they are full screen notifications, but the first time I saw one, I thought it was an incoming phone call! I hope there’s a way to alter this.
- I was also surprised that an app I had previously published for earlier versions of Android still was operational. You couldn’t refer to an inserted micro SD card anymore, but I had expected it to fail completely. Maybe Android 11 is more robust than I imagined with the new scoped storage thing?
- In the Pictures app, you can now group images that look similarly. A red icon indicates when this grouping is active. A white one says it’s off.
But for the most part, there haven’t been any drastic changes. The Camera app, especially, which I use a lot, is still the same excellent product it was before.
Verdict
I was in the first few days of use when I wrote this article. Overall, Android 11, at least as presented by Samsung’s OneUI (Version 3 now) is a pretty transparent update. On a certain level I have always liked Samsung’s customization of Android and this is probably the fastest I’ve ever seen them deploy a new release of the OS. Nice work, Samsung.
As an Android developer of over 10 years, I was also relieved to find that my creations - especially after recompilation and the changes for the new Scoped Storage requirement in one case - work just fine. Checkbook Genius, Version 4, an Android app I originally published in 2009 which I modified to use Scoped Storage, runs beautifully and has been approved for sale by the Google Play Store as of the date of this writing (March 3). Visit the following URL to view it.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sss.checkbookgenius4
And Version 4 of the app has also been approved by the Amazon Appstore for sale for several of its Fire tablet devices. Visit the following URL for details.
There’s More…
Android 12 is already out of the starting blocks. According to Wikipedia, it was announced in February of this year, and a developer preview has already hit the streets.
Android 13, amusingly, is a name shared by a villain character in a video game (“Dragon Ball Z”, see https://www.giantbomb.com/android-13/3005-12620/) and there’s apparently other named characters (14, 15, 16, on up to 21). This will present a challenge when you use a search engine down the line...
Should be another interesting year for Android!
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