Samsung’s priority seems to be its Family Hub smart fridges with touchscreens over its Galaxy phones, as it brings App Lock initially for the fridges.
Galaxy users have been requesting Samsung for a built-in app lock for years; however, the request is still pending. Meanwhile, beyond expectations, the company brought the feature to the refrigerator first.
According to a post on X shared by @thatjoshguy69, Samsung introduced the App Lock feature to its Family Hub smart fridges with touchscreens, which allows users to secure individual apps behind a PIN. This will be convenient for keeping sensitive services off-limits to anyone casually poking around the fridge’s interface. While most of the Galaxy smartphones are still waiting for the native App Lock feature.
Logically, the most basic security utilities the company should offer to smartphones first, rather than other devices, like a refrigerator. However, the exact reason behind offering the app lock to the refrigerator before Galaxy phones is still unclear. Currently, Galaxy users have an option to hide sensitive information in the Secure Folder, but it functions differently from app-locking solutions.
The reason behind this step seems to be that Samsung’s home appliances run on One UI software built on Tizen OS, which is a Linux-based platform that the company controls top-to-bottom, whereas the Galaxy smartphones run One UI based on Android OS, which has its dedicated app permission systems and Google-led restrictions that may perplex the direct integration of an App Lock feature. Now, it will be more interesting to see whether Samsung will bring this feature to Galaxy phones with the coming One UI 8.5.
