Gadgetory

what's up guys lon here from Android authority and TouchWiz has changed a lot over the years and the same way Android has evolved TouchWiz has evolved along with it the new version of TouchWiz on the s7 and s7 edge or whatever Samsung is calling your UI these days has changed a lot even if you're coming from something as recent as the note 5 you're going to notice some differences so what is TouchWiz like on the s7 and s7 edge is it good is it bad what's changed and what is still the same so the easiest place to start would be the aesthetics because those are usually the differences that you can spot right away without having to dig too far into the software and I think the way TouchWiz has looked over the years has been a pretty big reason why I and maybe a lot of other people out there haven't really been a fan of the UI it definitely still needs quite a bit of work but this is probably the most i pleasing version of samsung's interface that we've seen so it looks like they're headed in the right direction the first thing you'll notice is the notification shade has been replaced with a more subtle blue and white which I personally think looks a lot cleaner over the nasty blue and green that Samsung stuck with for so long if you're still not a hundred percent satisfied with some of the aesthetic changes that Samsung has made the theme store is still a really great option this was actually introduced on last year's s6 but it is by far one of the greatest features that samsung has ever implemented into their phones there's tons and tons of themes to pick from including a lot of Android 6.0 and material themes to make it look a lot more like stock Android there's also been some subtle changes made to the animations like the way the shortcuts in the notification shade expands as you pull down or how the recent apps expands onto the screen they don't drastically make a huge difference to the user experience per se but these little changes definitely help in making the UI feel a little bit more polished speaking of Polish many of samsung's features have been put into a single location in the settings under advanced features making them much easier to find so all the Samsung features that you may have been used to in the past like pop-up view smart capture palm swipe to capture and some of the more recent ones like the camera quick launch one-handed operation and game tools are all under one convenient location another feature that I've really liked is the bill to move multiple applications to another home screen at one time you just drag the applications that you want to move to the top of the screen and this will allow you to move up to five applications at once and this is just another good example of how Samsung is really trying to focus on the minor details of how they can make their interface easier and more user friendly there's a couple new features that Samsung has added to the s7 and s7 edge this year to further refine the experience the first one is the always-on display right now it can show you the clock calendar or a couple of random predefined images and it can show you notifications but only from samsung apps at the moment it is very limited in functionality and nowhere near as robust as something like Motorola's motor display but it is handy to see the clock or calendar and because it doesn't drain much battery it's not that big of a deal if you leave it turned on the second feature that I've really enjoyed is the game launcher and game tools and if you're a big mobile gamer I think you'll really like this feature a lot the game launcher automatically aggregates any game that you download it into a single folder and provides you with an option to save power during gameplay by reducing the resolution and frame rate if you've ever been annoyed with getting notifications while you're playing a game or always found yourself accidentally pressing the capacitive keys this is where the game tools really comes in handy the game tools puts a floating bubble on top of your game that lets you mute incoming alerts lock the capacitive keys minimize the game take a screenshot or record a video now I know I've been seeing a lot of good things about Samsung's interface so far but it still isn't without its quirks the default icons are still very bright and cartoonish but the app drawer is probably the worst offender the app drawer gives you the option of sort apps alphabetically but it only sorts the apps that you currently have installed so if you download a new application it automatically goes to the end of the list and you'll have to resort it again the same rule applies when uninstalling applications and if you uninstall a bunch of apps at one time this leaves a gaping hole in your app drawer not entirely sure why samsung chose to do it this way but it would have been nice to have an option to keep the app drawer sorted alphabetically at all times the same way it normally is on stock Android if you have the s7 edge you're obviously dealing with some extra software features that take advantage of the curve screen you have many of the same features from last year like the people edge and the apps edge but the edge interface is 2 columns wide now to fit more information and twice as many apps you can now also create shortcuts to commonly-used tasks and quickly view information like stocks sports scores and the current weather and I really like that you can rearrange these panels in any order that you want because the edge UX offers a lot more utility now I won't go as far as calling it a gimmick but you do have to train yourself to get used to these edge features or else you may end up forgetting that these features even exist which is something that happened to me a lot when I first started using the s7 edge once you do make that adjustment I think you might actually find some of these features to be quite useful so overall I think Samsung has made a lot of really great improvements with their UI and it's not something that I feel compelled to completely change out with a third-party launcher anymore like I did in years past it's not perfect and there's still some quirks that Samsung needs to iron out but they are definitely on the right track as always thank you guys so much for watching this video if you did enjoy please give it a thumbs up down below we definitely appreciate it and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already and check out the s7 and s7 edge reviews those are currently live on the YouTube channel and on the site if you haven't checked those out yet and feel free to follow us on social media on snapchat on Twitter on Instagram and feel free to follow me on Twitter as well all the links are right in front of you right now and check the website as well and Jordan 30.com because we are your source for all things Android you