I almost wrote off these Galaxy One UI 9 features as gimmicks, but they genuinely made my life better

Gaming has been Samarveer’s greatest passion, and the Literature graduate in him takes immense joy in dissecting games for their themes, messages, and impact. Samarveer holds a deep appreciation of gaming, and considers the platform to be the most immersive and impactful across all media. He can be found engaging with gaming communities online, always ready to debate the finer points of ray tracing or itching to write an 8-page collegiate thesis on any game that impacts him emotionally.

Absolutely everyone with a Samsung phone seems to have something to say about the recently rolled-out One UI 9, and if you believe half the internet, Samsung has somehow managed to turn a software update into a religious experience. Everywhere I saw, people were calling new One UI 9 features "game-changing," "must-try," and downright "insane," all before anyone could've spent enough time with them to truly know if they were worth hyping up so much. I myself was firmly in the skeptical camp, I'll admit.

Then, I updated my Galaxy S25 and started using some of the new features that Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts kept drowning my algorithm in. Within a week, the features that I'd judged from screenshots and dismissed as gimmicks quietly worked their way into my daily routine. One UI 9 hasn't "reinvented" my Galaxy S25, but some of its new features have truly been making my life easier every day.

Quick Settings is finally as customizable as I've always wanted

One UI 9 hands me the keys to the control panel

Inarguably the biggest highlight in Samsung's new One UI 9 is the incredible amount of customizability that has now come to the Quick Settings panel. The Quick Settings panel (or Control Center) makes the life of any Android user easier every day, and One UI 9 has only made it easier. I now have more granular control over individual sections, with the ability to resize supported controls, and decide just how much screen real estate each icon or toggle deserves.

The brightness and volume sliders don't have to compete anymore with other toggles that I rarely ever touch, and I can prioritize the controls I actually use throughout the day. Initially, I dismissed this "added flexibility" as customization for customization's sake, but having my most-used controls exactly where my thumb expects them to be has genuinely made a noticeable difference in the way I use my phone.

The star of the show here is the media player, which, up until One UI 8.5, could only be resized a little bit vertically, but is now completely resizable, down to a 2x2 widget inside the Control Center. The Media Player also gets a live waveform animation for any media it's playing, and dare I say, it's gorgeous to look at. Plus, the new waveform animation for the media player makes its way outside the Control Center to the homescreen, and even the Now Bar on the lock screen.

I barely open the app drawer, thanks to Finder on my home screen

One less step between me and whatever I'm looking for

One of my absolute favorite features on my iPhone is the Spotlight Search, which lets me swipe down on the home screen and immediately make system-wide searches for apps, contacts, files, messages, and web results. The One UI equivalent to that on my Galaxy S25 so far had been the Finder search bar, but I had no way to directly (and quickly) bring up the Finder local search engine.

Even on One UI 8.5, I always knew the Finder existed, but accessing it still meant going through an extra step or two, at which point I could just open the File Explorer or app drawer myself. With One UI 9, I now have the Finder directly on my home screen.

All I had to do was long tap on the Home screen, tap Settings, and click on Show search on Home screen. Here, I switched on the Finder toggle, and just like that, One UI 9 put a quick Finder search right on my home screen.

Now that my phone Finder is easier to use, the feature has proven particularly useful for settings that are buried several menus deep. I no longer have to remember exact paths, since I can simply type in the name of a setting or feature and Finder will take me to it immediately.

I can cut unwanted apps off from the internet

AI Network Guard gives me control over which apps get to phone home

Another one of my favorite new features in One UI 9 is apparently a privacy feature. However, it has actually proved to be a rather effective productivity feature for me. AI Network Guard is a brand-new feature in One UI 9, and it can restrict internet access for specific apps you select. On paper, it's a pretty solid tool for parents if they want their kids to stay focused and not play online games.

On the other hand, though, using AI Network Guard on some of my local games has actually helped rid them of ads, since the games themselves don't need the internet. The old-school method of turning off your Wi-Fi or Mobile Data to avoid ads in games also prevented notifications from important apps, but AI Network Guard improves that method by specifically cutting off particular apps and games from the internet.

For me, cutting off particularly distracting apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and YouTube, at least for the duration of work, has greatly helped me stay focused. Of course, I can always enter the Guardian PIN and regain access to the internet, but the friction involved is what keeps me focused.

Turning on AI Network Guard is just a teensy bit tricky though. Head to Settings > Connections > Wi-Fi. Here, tap the three-dot icon, and select Intelligent Wi-Fi. Now, click on the Intelligent Wi-Fi button seven times to unlock Connectivity labs. With Connectivity Labs open, scroll down to find and tap AI Network Guard. Once you tap on it, select Set up a Guardian PIN. Set up the PIN, and select Manage Restrictions. This is where you can select which apps you want to cut off from the internet, and press Confirm on the top-right to finalize your selections.

Multi-finger gestures make my Galaxy a power user playground

Good Lock has helped me ditch the usual taps and swipes

I've always been a fan of shortcuts that save me from navigating menus, but multi-finger gestures initially sounded like a solution searching for a problem. By and large, the three-finger swipe down for a screenshot has been the only way I use finger-based gestures on my Galaxy S25, but One UI 9 arrived and changed that within a single week.

This new feature in One UI 9 helps me assign actions to custom gestures involving multiple fingers. As it turns out, there's indeed a method to this madness. I can configure gestures to take screenshots, toggle Dark mode, turn the screen off, increase or decrease brightness or volume, enable split-screen, and tens of other quick actions from wherever I am. Of course, the learning curve involved remembering which gesture and how many fingers I assigned to each action, but within a week, I've been using almost every quick-panel feature solely through multi-finger gestures in One UI 9.

To turn on Multi-finger gestures, you'll need the remarkably versatile Good Lock app installed. Head to Good Lock (install it through the Play Store if you don't have it). Once it's running, download the Home Up module, and select Gesture settings. Here, turn on Multi finger gesture, and tap on it to enter its customization menu. This is where you can select up to nine different actions for two, three, four, and five-finger swipe gestures for a total of thirty-six separate finger-based shortcuts, all thanks to One UI 9. Now that my muscle memory has settled, these shortcuts have become surprisingly difficult to give up.

My FanCam is the Galaxy AI feature I didn't know I needed

No more manually cropping everyone out of my videos

With One UI 9, one of the honest-to-goodness new features is My FanCam, which is particularly useful for those who live in their gallery and fill it up with the camera. For any video I shoot with multiple people or subjects, My FanCam, using Galaxy AI, easily highlights a specific person through subject-focused tracking shots. The best part, of course, is that this feature gives me outputs in any aspect ratio I require, be it vertical for Instagram Reels or 4:3 videos to share in the family group chat.

To use My FanCam, all you need to do is have a video open in the Gallery app. From there, tap the Galaxy AI button in the interface, which brings up the option to select My FanCam. Highlight the person in the video you want to follow, choose an aspect ratio, and then click Follow. Within a few seconds, One UI 9 and Galaxy AI will give me a completely tracked video with my chosen person on the screen at all times. The last step, then, is to tap Save copy to reframe the video and save it locally.

In fact, the My FanCam feature even works on externally imported videos, as long as they are saved locally on my Galaxy phone and are present in the Gallery app. Since this is a post-recording AI editing tool, My FanCam doesn't care if the video it edits wasn't shot on the Galaxy phone.

I can't believe I almost ignored these genuine upgrades

When it comes to user expectations from smartphones in 2026, we want bigger camera sensors, faster processors, brighter displays, and AI features that can apparently do everything. Meanwhile, it's the little software additions that are genuinely improving our relationship with our devices, but they rarely get the appreciation they deserve. I suppose that's what happens when a feature doesn't make for a particularly exciting launch presentation.

My experience with One UI 9 has served to remind me that I just needed better control over the wheel I already use every single day. The one thing I know for certain is that the next time a seemingly insignificant feature catches my eye, I'll give it a fair shot before dismissing it as another gimmick.