Samsung’s UI 8.5 update is a more important affair than you thought

We are still more than 3 months old from the planned unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S26 series, but we already know a lot of its new software tips thanks to a UI 8.5 leaks mine. Software disclosed versions have surfaced, giving us a rare opportunity to see what Samsung is developing for its next major version.

As its name suggests, an 8.5 user interface will be based on the Android 16 version of this year, not on the Android 17 to publish. However, he will differentiate from his predecessor. While UI 8 was based on the initial stable version of Android 16, an 8.5 user interface will be built on the second quarterly version of the platform, Android 16 QPR2.

Josh Skinner and Jeff Springer Sammyguruwhich obtained a disclosed construction of an IU 8.5, checked it for us. They confirmed that the SDK version and the prefix of construction ID in the version are respectively “36.1” and “BP4A” – values ​​that correspond to Android 16 QPR2. This information is sufficient to conclude that an IU 8.5 will be based on Android 16 QPR2, and here is why this counts.

Why an IU 8.5 being based on Android 16 QPR2 is important

Although Android is on a quarterly output cycle for years, few appliance manufacturers apart from the Google Ship Software Updates based on these versions. Almost every OEM chooses rather to wait until Google finalizes the next major annual version of Android before starting to adapt it to their own software. This saves them time and efforts, because they only have to merge the major Android changes once a year instead of four times.

The drawback is that OEMs, and by extension their users, lack new features that Google introduces in the quarterly versions. For example, Google has introduced identity control – a functionality that prevents telephone thieves from carrying out sensitive actions even if they know the device’s access code – in the first quarterly version of Android 15. Because most of the OEMs have ignored the quarterly updates of Android 15, this feature will not be widely available.

OEMs have always had the possibility of incorporating specific modifications into QPR or picking. Samsung, for example, did exactly this by adding an identity verification to its UI 7 update, even if it was based on the initial version of Android 15. However, it is simply easier for most manufacturers to wait for the next major version, so that’s what they do. Google wants to change this dynamic, because the company hopes to offer more new features and APIs to developers via its quarterly versions. If the OEMs continue to stick to the annual cycle, the number of devices that can receive these new tools in a timely manner will remain limited.

This is why Samsung Basing its UI 8.5 version on Android 16 QPR2 is a big problem. We have not seen the company – or any other OEM elsewhere – incorporate changes in an Android quarterly version from the limited Android 12L version at the beginning of 2022. And considering that Samsung adopted the stable Google trunk model to accelerate software updates, it may be the start. In the future, Samsung could continue to match the Google version of version, allowing users and developers to obtain new Android features on Galaxy devices much earlier.

What new Android features could an IU 8.5 bring?

So what new Android features can we expect an 8.5 user interface? Based on what Google has announced in Android 16 QPR2 Beta 1 and Beta 2 so far, many following features could go to Galaxy devices:

• IU, System experience and accessibility
  • Expanded dark theme
  • Forced icon themes
  • Support for locking screen widget
  • Monitoring native steps in Health Connect
  • A new “universal cursor” option in external display settings
  • Acceleration of the pointer and other mouse parameters / touchpad
  • Interactive selector sessions
  • Smoother Android migrations
  • Annotation and edition of the PDF document
  • Bringe Present Topology
  • Device viewconfiguration
  • Granular haptic feedback control
  • API Categories of fast tiles

• Media and audio
  • IAMF decoding support
  • Personal audio sharing in the output switch
  • New AAUDIO API
  • HDR / SDR brightness cursor
  • Improvements to manage companion devices
  • Improvements of the confidentiality of the media network

• Confidentiality and security
  • Advanced protection support for USB
  • Local parental controls
  • Secure locking device
  • Protective basicing of phone flights
  • The identity check has extended to support more applications

• Developer productivity
  • Graphic applications support in the Linux terminal
  • Widget engagement metrics
  • Early warnings for the compatibility of the 16 KB page size
  • Improved profiling
  • Multi-effects more robust

In addition to the new developers APIs, which Samsung is guaranteed to integrate, the company will choose and choose the new features intended for users to include. Although we hope they will add things like supporting the forced icon and locking screen widget, they could choose not to do it, because they already have their own versions of these features. We will have to wait until Samsung officially introduces an 8.5 user interface to see exactly the features they have decided to keep and that to cut.