I'm not one to rush into new updates as soon as they're out. I'd always wait and see the feedback from users. Based on that and other available information, I had decided to not update to OneUI 7. My mistake is I did download the update so all that was left was to press update.
Samsung's mistake, or perhaps not a mistake at all, is very intrusively popping the update screen on top of whatever one might be doing currently.. and just like that while typing a text, the update screen comes up half a millisecond before I put my right thumb down on a letter that happens to be right where the UPDATE NOW or whatever button is on the update page. I barely even saw the window. There was no time for the brain to react. No secondary confirmation was required and so now I have the OneUI 7...
Now I have to complain...
See,
oneUI 6.1 had a very good android-ish design.
oneUI 7 has a very iphone-ish design.
However, when I paid £1.2k+ or whatever for a phone, I'm pretty sure it had the name SAMSUNG on it and that it was running ANDROID on it so what the heck am I even looking at now?
This whole iphonisation of Android by Samsung and other makers is something that doesn't make sense if one were to think about it - people who are into iPhone design and everything, do not make the whole market. There is a significant portion of the market who would much rather have android remaining looking as android and even from a pure business perspective, deliberately refusing to cater to that just makes no sense.
The worst part isn't copy pasting the iphone design - the worst part is copying their philosophy which is that the user should always have the option to change ABSOLUTELY NOTHING... And whilst one can change some things, OneUI 7 is certainly on the wrong trajectory here because there are many things one can't change.
I can't change the battery icon to the old one
I can't change notification size (they're oversized now because iphone yo)
I can't change the number of notifications on the lock screen.
I can't change the fact that I now have to swipe not twice but 3 times to see all the buttons in the drop down notification menu (yes, I use the split version because in case it hasn't yet become obvious, I prefer the android way, that's why I bought an android phone)
I can't change the fact they decided volume control should be a bar in the drop down notification menu. I don't need it to be a bar. I'll LITERALLY never go thinking oh wait sound is too loud, let me SWIPE DOWN TWICE and change that instead of just using the physical buttons LMAO
I also can't change the fact that important icons are only shown after swiping down, like Bluetooth, volume, alarm, etc... I wonder if my headphones are connected... LET ME SWIPE DOWN AND CHECK.
I'll stop here not because I run out of things they broke but because it's tiring.
There is literally not one thing I'd look at this update and think hmm, I kinda like that. Not... one... thing.