Sometimes, it takes a second to note the subtler parts of a telephone’s software program design – however that’s not at all times for the most effective causes.
Take One UI 7, for instance. Samsung’s newest cellular working system replace marked a serious visible refresh, bringing new icons, fonts, and coloration schemes to the software program’s visible parts.
However, as one member of the TechRadar workforce found, there’s one side of Samsung’s newest Android wrapper that makes much less sense than ever earlier than.
To reduce to the chase, Samsung’s new battery icon is confusingly obscure and exhausting to acknowledge. TechRadar’s Homes Editor Ruth Hamilton tells me that when she up to date her Galaxy A54 to One UI 7, she couldn’t even inform what the battery icon was.
“I left the UI replace to run in a single day, and the next morning I could not for the lifetime of me work out what the icon within the prime proper of my telephone display was,” mentioned Ruth.
“At that time, it was half darkish, half gentle, with a forty five within the center. I used to be baffled. Did I’ve 45 messages? Surely not.”
Ruth added: “Amidst the overall gentle disorientation that follows any UI tweak for one thing you are utilizing recurrently, I simply did not twig. In the absence of the same old visible cues – a share image, or a suggestion of a terminal – I could not work out what I used to be .”
As the above particulars, Samsung’s new battery icon is principally only a huge oval that may, optionally, have a quantity representing battery share planted within the center. It’s extra round than rectangular and a far cry from the clear battery-shaped icon utilized in One UI 6.
Even as somebody who checks and opinions the most effective smartphones for a residing, I’ve to confess that I solely actually acknowledge the icon as a battery meter due to its placement on the top-right nook of the display.
Apple received it proper
As it occurs, I had simply completed writing a bit about Apple’s new Liquid Glass design and return to skeuomorphism (that is digital design primarily based on real-world issues) when Ruth received in contact.
If you ask me, Samsung’s misstep with the One UI 7 battery icon reveals that Apple made the appropriate name by selecting to ramp up the realism with iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26.
Tech strikes ahead in a approach that may detach issues from their authentic inspiration – take the pause icon, for instance, which was impressed by the caesura, punctuation utilized in poetry to mark a second of relaxation. I feel you’d wrestle to seek out somebody on the road who might inform you that with out wanting it up (as I did).
But this needs to be achieved in a approach that doesn’t alienate elements of the consumer base. Apple sticking with the pictographic battery icon for Liquid Glass is a protected guess, however among the finest Android telephones push issues gently with extra summary rectangles that also really feel acquainted sufficient.
As others right here at TechRadar have identified, Liquid Glass has its personal points with legibility, however no less than all the things is fairly recognizable (when you’ll be able to truly see it). And, total, I’m a giant fan of the charming, colourful presentation of One UI 7 each time I choose up the most effective Samsung telephones.
With all that mentioned, the battery icon stands as a reminder that UI design must cater to the on a regular basis consumer as a lot because the smartphone specialist. Do you discover Samsung’s new battery icon complicated? Let us know within the feedback under.
