Samsung launched the One UI 7 beta program for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 today, March 7, and in our hands-on time with the new software on these foldables, we discovered a change in the Now Bar feature that will make even Galaxy S25 owners jealous.
Now Bar, for those who are out of the loop, is a feature that displays ongoing activities as a pill in the status bar and on the lock screen. But for some reason, on the Galaxy S25 series and the new A series phones that run One UI 7 out of the box, the Now Bar pill for media playback does not show up in the status bar.
That's an issue on the One UI 7 beta firmware on the Galaxy S24 series as well. In fact, it's not just that the Now Bar pill doesn't show up. The media playback widget that shows up in the notifications on previous versions of One UI doesn't appear either and is only accessible from the expanded quick panel.
On the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6, the media playback widget and Now Bar notification work as they are supposed to. We don't know why that isn't the case on other devices running One UI 7, but Samsung will hopefully address it through software updates.
One UI 7 on these foldables isn't otherwise much different from what you get on other Galaxy devices, except for the fact that some of the new Galaxy AI features seen on the Galaxy S25 series aren't part of the update for the Fold 6 and Flip 6.
You can catch One UI 7 in action on the Galaxy Z Flip 6 in the video below.