Samsung remains to expand the stable Android 15-based One UI 7 to its older Galaxy devices; meanwhile, the Android 16 reports have already started teasing the upcoming features that Samsung could adopt with One UI 8.
Recently, Samsung introduced the stable Android 15-based One UI 7 on the newly launched Galaxy S25 series, and the Galaxy S24 series is running on One UI 7 beta 3. The company is yet to release the stable Android 15 to its older Galaxy devices. On the other side, Google already started the Android 16 beta program.
Android 16 May Allow Users to Set Measurement System & Region Separately from Language
Reportedly, Google is working on preparing to upgrade Android’s regional preferences menu with new settings to specify your preferred measurement system with Android 16, which Samsung could adopt with the coming One UI 8 update.
This means that you can use your Galaxy device in your preferred language while still seeing dates, numbers, and measurements formatted for your actual location. It will be an efficient functionality when you are an American studying abroad in a country, for instance, Japan, and you want to set your phone’s region to Japan so apps will automatically format dates, currency, temperatures, and more in the way they are typically formatted in the country.
Initially, Android 14 introduced regional preference settings, permitting users to customize units of measurement such as temperature and the first day of the week. However, these options were tied up to the system’s language/region. Now the current settings are found under “Settings >> System >> Language,” and it’s expected that Android 16 may bring further improvements to these settings. It remains to be seen whether Samsung will adopt the feature with One UI 8.
Android 16 will let you run graphical apps via the Terminal App
A report from the Android Authority revealed that Android 16’s Linux Terminal will soon allow you to run graphical Linux apps, like Doom.
The new Terminal app will allow you to execute Linux commands from your smartphone or tablet, similar to what already happens on ChromeOS. It downloads, configures, runs, and interfaces with an instance of the Debian distribution running in a virtual machine via an Android Virtualization Framework (AVF) set of APIs that permits the device to run various operating systems via virtualization.
While Android 16 includes a few interesting new features, hardware acceleration, and a full graphics environment that are currently only limited to the developer version, to display these features, a developer compiled an AOSP build & authorized hardware acceleration and then used a Linux terminal on a Pixel 9 Pro to launch a graphical environment by a “weston” command and install Chocolate Doom.
However, Google is still working on both of these features and anticipates introducing them with the stable Android 16 to enhance user experience. Since One UI 8 will be based on Android 16, it could be possible for Samsung to adopt these features; it remains to see whether the expectation will be true.
