Opinion
Opinion: Samsung should add new ‘Fingerprint Unlock Animations’ by learning from other phone makers
A smartphone’s lock screen is the first view that appears when you pick the phone up and then you’ll have to unlock it by either sliding, entering a pin, or a pattern. With the advancement of smartphone technologies, the phone’s started to come with physical fingerprint scanners, which later directly embedded below the display, called display fingerprint.
Talking of display fingerprint, Samsung is the first smartphone maker that used an Ultrasonic fingerprint scanner with the launch of the Galaxy S10 series. Since then, the company uses it in most of its flagships. Aside from Ultrasonic, the South Korean tech giant also uses optical sensors on its budget and mid-range devices.
Compared to other security options, the display fingerprint is faster and looks cooler than the traditional security options. However, the user experience of display fingerprint is not limited to its use cases because different smartphone companies have made it more interactive by providing different types of enhancements such as fingerprint animations.
Chinese smartphone companies – Xiaomi, OnePlus, and Vivo also delivered customizable fingerprint unlock animations. Vivo’s device makes you choose one of the five animations, ranging from a circle of light to a futuristic, electronic animation.
Meanwhile, OnePlus devices let you choose three animations Cosmos, Wave, and Stripe. Moreover, Xiaomi’s phones also offer four animation options including starlight, neon, metal, and pulse. Even the U.S. banned Huawei offers three different fingerprints unlock animations.
We were expecting that the Android 11 based One UI 3.0 might bring some new fingerprint animations for the Samsung devices but until now we haven’t noticed such a feature after several beta updates and the default “Ripple” animation remains unchanged as well but you have the option to turn it off from the settings.
Tweaks such as Fingerprint animation can add an attractive feel and refresh the user experience.
We know that Samsung has its own way of doing things and we also hope that it will consider bringing some new fingerprints to unlock animations or some similar optimization to make fingerprint unlock even more interesting, at least for its flagship models.
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Samsung replicated Google’s promise of Android updates, but the plus point is that mid-range and budget Galaxy phones are eligible for at least four major OS upgrades. The upcoming Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6 will also be honored with 7 major Android updates.
The Korean tech giant offers the longest software update support in the Android industry. Google’s OS update promise starts from the Pixel 8 series. While mid-range and budget Samsung phones get four Android updates, the premium Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6 will get 7.
Earlier this year, Samsung launched the Galaxy S24 series smartphones. The lineup is guaranteed for at least seven OS upgrades. The strategy was earlier expected to be applied to Galaxy A55, but the company kept it limited to the flagship phones.
Samsung doesn’t officially consider Galaxy Z as flagship lineup, but it’s the most premium segment. All the novelties that Galaxy S receives also come to foldable phones. Therefore, it’s certain that the company will support its upcoming Galaxy Z phones for 7 years.
Will they survive 7 years?
Sporting a foldable display entirely ends the discussion of longevity. Besides, the pre-applied screen protection film starts to damage within a year of normal usage. Samsung’s innovative foldables are available internationally but support isn’t.
Samsung Care+ plan is also offered by the phone maker for additional protection. However, it still requires the owner to pay the processing fee, which isn’t considerable. Also, the Care+ plan doesn’t cover the Samsung-slapped screen protector film.
So if the Korean phone maker is willing for longer software support, it should rather offer a two-year replacement guarantee on manufacture defects. It would push consumers to prefer foldable phones as they won’t have to worry about display concerns.
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When it comes to Android updates, Samsung is leading the Android world. However, this could be the last day of Samsung’s leadership as Google is expected to double up its current Android updates support for Pixel smartphones launching today.
2020 was a remarkable year in Samsung’s history when the company extended Android updates support from two years to three. A few months later, the company extended the security support as well, totaling it to four years for flagship Galaxy devices.
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In 2022, Samsung launched the Galaxy S22 series, which offers four generations of OS upgrades. In its announcement, the company listed all flagships launched in 2021 and later along with select Galaxy A series smartphones for 4 OS and 5 years of security patches.
With this decision, the South Korean tech giant surpassed Google’s support policy, which owns Android. To be noted, Tensor-powered Pixel smartphones come with three years of Android and five years of monthly security updates support.
Today, Google will launch the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro smartphones. And as per the leaks, both phones will offer up to 7 years of software support, surpassing the longest support provided by Apple to its iPhones. Pixel 8 and later might be eligible for 7 major OS upgrades, which sounds a bit confusing.
There are speculations that there will be five major OS versions and 7 years of regular security patches and quarterly Pixel Feature Drops for the latest flagship smartphones. If it happens, it will force other Android vendors to further extend their support.
While Pixel phones are limited to support 3 major OS versions, Samsung is offering 4 generations of OS upgrades to cheaper Galaxy devices that costs approx $249. Samsung won’t take too long to beat Google yet again in terms of software support.
Let’s see, what Google has to offer to the Android world!
After One UI 5.1, we started hearing a lot of news, leaks, and rumors about the upcoming One UI 6. Recently, Samsung has also started releasing One UI 6.0 support for stock apps, starting with the Calculator app.
Looking at all this, we can expect that Samsung will provide this support to more apps in the future too. But the question is, why is Samsung providing One UI 6.0 support to its stocks apps before the official release? If you are thinking that by getting their support, you will get some new features in your apps, then it is not only the reason.
Samsung One UI 6.0 support can also bring new features for apps, but the main reason for this is something else. But what? The answer is that Samsung is going to release a new One UI update in the coming weeks or months and the company aims to make its stock apps compatible with that accordingly. Once the app is supported, the app will not stop working or get crash whenever the company releases that update for the smartphone.
A recent report revealed that Samsung’s stable Android 14 update will be available in October. This is the same time frame as last year’s UI rollout, with the latest Galaxy S lineup being the first to secure it. Meanwhile, beta activity is seeing an early start if everything goes as planned by the internals.
Still, for the time being, we can consider this information as a pinch of salt as the company has not yet announced any official timeline for One UI 6.0.
Samsung confirms One UI 6 and Good Lock features finding underway