One UI 8 is Samsung’s apology for the disappointment that is One UI 7

We’ve said it many times before, and I think we can say it again: One UI 7 was a mess. Samsung, a company that’s been killing it with software updates over the last few years, dropped the ball hard with One UI 7 (Android 15).

We would usually see Samsung launch a new One UI beta program between August and September. But the One UI 7 beta program didn’t start until December last year, and that wasn’t the only problem. Samsung also limited the beta program to Galaxy S24 owners for many months.

Samsung left others waiting until March 2025 to get in on the action, and it then took another month to start rolling out the official update. But the official rollout has been slow as well. As of May 2025, the One UI 7 update still hasn’t reached everyone with an eligible Galaxy smartphone or tablet, and Samsung says the rollout will not be done by June, six months after the beta program went live.

Naturally, a lot of fans have been wondering: is this painfully slow and delayed release going to become the new normal? Well, it seems Samsung has given us the answer: the One UI 8 update is already in beta, months ahead of the usual schedule, and the company could possibly release the stable update by the end of September.

Of course, we can’t just sit and blindly glaze Samsung. One UI 8 doesn’t feel like a major update in terms of new features, and it seems that Samsung is keeping things simple this time around. But perhaps that’s a good trade-off.

A smaller update will help Samsung get it out to customers early and get the One UI schedule back on track. Samsung can go back to introducing lots of flashy new features with One UI 9, or perhaps even One UI 8.5, which will debut next year with the Galaxy S25 series.

And while the company isn’t officially claiming it, this does feel like Samsung’s apology letter to the millions of fans it has disappointed over the last few months. I just hope Samsung will make this faster approach the new standard going forward, especially if it hopes to gain back the trust it has earned over the last half a decade or so.