Samsung's One UI 9 still can't do what Pixels handled ages ago; 9.5 leaks suggest it won't

Samsung is on its fifth One UI 9 beta for the Samsung Galaxy S26 series, and after all that testing, the Android 17 update still lands as a polish pass.

Smoother animations, more visual consistency, but not much else in the way of interface rethinking.

Meanwhile, August 2026 is nearing its end, and the conversation has already moved on to the Galaxy S27 and One UI 9.5.

The early 9.5 leaks look pretty and familiar. Test builds point to a Liquid Glass-inspired aesthetic and more AI wired into Samsung core apps.

Strange set of priorities for a phone that still can't do a few basic things its rivals have handled ages ago.

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By  Sanuj Bhatia

A native vertical app drawer that respects my order

Good Lock shouldn't be a prerequisite for basics

Samsung finally gave us a vertical app drawer in One UI 7, but with a string attached. The vertical scroll only works if you let Samsung alphabetize your app drawer.

If you want them in your own order, it's back to swiping through pages. What I want is a vertical list with my most-used apps pinned at the top.

Nova Launcher has done it for forever. Samsung has one of the most developed and feature-rich skins on Android, and yet this still lives in Good Lock.

Everything leaking about One UI 9.5 points to a glassy UI, smooth animations, and more visual depth. The drawer is getting prettier again. I'd rather it became more obedient.

A memory manager that leaves my apps alone

Fourth-worst on DontKillMyApp and holding

Samsung kills background apps early to inflate its battery numbers. The developer benchmark DontKillMyApp currently ranks Samsung as the fourth-worst Android manufacturer for this.

Stock Android handles background processes fine on its own. Samsung layers its own restrictive memory management on top.

Is 9.5 going to help? I doubt it. I believe that regular apps will keep getting squeezed to keep those local models responsive for on-device generative AI.

Predictive back gesture that works everywhere

Three years of half-implementation is enough

User interface navigation should be predictable. Predictive back gesture exists for that reason. But Samsung's implementation has been spotty across its apps and third-party software.

I've wanted this for so long that I've lost the ability to predict it. Google keeps tightening back navigation across versions, and One UI 9.5 sits on Android 17, so maybe this is the one.

Smart replies I can edit before sending

Android 17 already fixed this upstream

Android 17 fixed an old problem. Tapping a suggested reply in a notification now drops the text into the reply field for editing instead of sending it instantly.

Pixels have had the change, but One UI 9 hasn't adopted it. This should be the easiest yes on the whole list.

One UI 9.5 is built on the Android 17 codebase, so the corrected behavior is right there upstream. Nothing in the leaks mentions smart replies, though.

An uninstallation button for the rest of the duplicate bloatware

One UI 9 gave Galaxy S26 owners a proper uninstall option for Microsoft SwiftKey, an app you previously could only disable while it held storage hostage.

That's one preinstalled app liberated. At that pace, my phone runs clean sometime around One UI 23.

The duplicate stack is otherwise intact. Two browsers, two app stores, two galleries, two wallets, and a Bixby that survives every new Gemini integration Samsung announces.

Each one squats in my share sheet and takes turns nagging me about updates I never asked for.

I'd welcome an uninstall option on everything that isn't load-bearing, or a setup screen that asks before the partner apps land.

Samsung knows I'll update regardless

I'll update on day one anyway, and that's what bothers me. Samsung already knows I'll update, so the pressure to fix any of this never really sets in.

The people who care enough to notice these gaps are the same people who've already committed to the Samsung ecosystem.

The people who might have left them left years ago for a Pixel phone. That's a comfortable position from which to build software.