Samsung has officially announced the commencement of the One UI 7 beta program in six countries. Users of Germany, India, Korea, Poland, the U.K., and the U.S. can taste the new features of the Android 15-based One UI 7 update on their Galaxy S24 series smartphone. Note that the Galaxy S24 FE model isn"t supported by the beta program at the moment.
While most of the features have already been highlighted officially and by previous leaks, such as an improved camera experience, new icons, a new lock screen, a dedicated live activity pill called "Now Bar," AI features, and a refreshed look, the One UI 7 update also changes the way you use the app drawer.
Notably, the One UI 7 update brings the vertically scrolling app drawer, replacing the horizontally scrolling app drawer, a staple of the One UI skin for years. While you can tweak this behavior using the "Home Up" module of the "Good Lock" personalization app for Samsung Galaxy phones, having a vertically scrolling app drawer natively is different.
We reported about One UI 7 bringing a vertically scrolling app drawer back in April when rumors about the update started emerging. At the time, a known tipster dismissed the claim. It is now official that you will get a vertically scrolling app drawer with One UI 7, albeit with a unique twist from Samsung.
Instead of letting users choose between a vertical or horizontal app drawer, the layouts are tied to an app sorting method. When the apps are sorted alphabetically, then only the app drawer uses a vertical variant. However, as soon as you use the custom sort option, the app drawer defaults back to the horizontal layout.
To select the layout, you need to tap the three-dot menu button on the bottom search bar and choose "Alphabetical order" for the vertical layout and "Custom order" for the horizontal layout. When you pick the horizontal layout, you will find some empty icon spaces on app drawer pages, which you can fix by selecting the "Clean up pages" option.
Source and image: SamMobile