Be the first - Pre-order the Galaxy S25 Ultra today! Follow us on Google news!

SamMobile has affiliate and sponsored partnerships. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn a commission.

News For You
News For You
Notifications

New Galaxy S9 and Note 9 Pie beta makes a few camera UI changes

Phone
By 

Last updated: December 11th, 2018 at 14:27 UTC+01:00

Samsung released an update for the Android Pie beta on both the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy Note 9 this week, bringing a number of fixes for known issues. And it turns out the company is also playing around with the camera app interface a bit. Pie brings major changes such as a dedicated video recording mode and features like Scene Optimizer for the Galaxy S9, and the latest beta is changing the way the latter works.

Scene Optimizer no longer a dedicated shooting mode

On recent devices and on Android Pie for the Galaxy S9 and Note 9, Samsung had spun off Scene Optimizer as a separate mode. On the new beta that was released this week, it's back to being a toggle in the camera settings, but it does something different. Enabling Scene Optimizer in the camera settings now adds a switch for it in the main camera interface (the viewfinder), and you can now use this switch to turn Scene Optimizer on or off on the fly. The icon for the switch is a bit confusing, but it turns green when Scene Optimizer is enabled. And, once the feature detects the type of scene you're trying to capture, the icon will change to reflect that.

Here's a comparison of Scene Optimizer in the camera app interface from the last beta (left) vs the new beta (right):

android pie beta camera ui update 2

Here's the Scene Optimizer icon indicating the type of scene (landscape, in this case):

android pie beta camera ui update 3

Basically, on the latest beta, the Scene Optimizer toggle in the camera's settings menu decides whether you see the toggle for switching the feature on or off in the main interface, almost like toggle-ception. The update also changes the icon for enabling the full-screen viewfinder (it now says 4:3 instead of Full), and inside the camera settings, Scene Optimizer and Flaw Detection are now the first options, in keeping with One UI's focus on having the most important functionality above everything else.

Things could change with further beta updates

Of course, whether this is how things will be in the official stable Android Pie update that releases in January remains to be seen. The very purpose of the beta program is for Samsung to play around with various features and UI elements and take user feedback, so the camera app may yet go through more changes.

What do you think about this new way for accessing Scene Optimizer? Would you prefer a dedicated mode instead, or do you have an even better suggestion (not excluding the removal of the feature altogether considering it doesn't many any meaningful differences?

Phone Android 9Android PieOne UISamsung Galaxy Note 9Samsung Galaxy S9
Galaxy AI summarized

Scroll for more related content
News For You

You might also like

Sports fans will love Now Bar in One UI 7 for the Galaxy S25

Sports fans will love Now Bar in One UI 7 for the Galaxy S25

Now Bar is one of the latest features in One UI 7, and after spending a bit of time with it and the Galaxy S25 for our hands-on videos at Unpacked, we're pretty sure sports fans are going to love it. Samsung's Now Bar is an interactive pill-shaped UI element in the latest firmware version […]

  • By Mihai Matei
  • 1 day ago
One UI 7 on Galaxy S25 can read you online articles

One UI 7 on Galaxy S25 can read you online articles

At Unpacked 2025, Samsung introduced several Galaxy AI upgrades through One UI 7 for the Galaxy S25 series. One of them enhances the existing Browsing Assist feature with text-to-speech capabilities. Same as before, the Browsing Assist tool for Samsung Internet can summarize and translate online articles for you. However, in One UI 7 for the […]

  • By Mihai Matei
  • 2 days ago
Now Brief is a Galaxy S25 and One UI 7 secret weapon

Now Brief is a Galaxy S25 and One UI 7 secret weapon

Although we've seen most of what One UI 7 can do through the beta program for the Galaxy S24, Samsung didn't reveal all its cards during the testing phase. The company reserved some new One UI 7 and Galaxy AI features for the final version, which will soon debut with the Galaxy S25 series. Now […]

  • By Mihai Matei
  • 2 days ago
Next Unpacked will be the biggest in Samsung’s software history

Next Unpacked will be the biggest in Samsung’s software history

Samsung's next Galaxy Unpacked event is nearly here. The Galaxy S25 series will take center stage in San Jose in three days. But while we look forward to the next-gen phones, there's another big reason (or four) we're excited for the next reveal. Aside from marking the launch of new mobile hardware, Unpacked 2025 might […]

  • By Mihai Matei
  • 5 days ago
One UI 7 Now Bar could convince me to use the lock screen again

One UI 7 Now Bar could convince me to use the lock screen again

If you have habits similar to mine when using your Galaxy phone, chances are you barely even see the One UI lock screen anymore. Sure, Samsung improved the lock screen with better widgets through recent One UI updates, but none of those changes were impactful enough to make me want to break my muscle memory. […]

  • By Mihai Matei
  • 1 week ago
App pinning is now hidden in One UI but here’s how to reveal it

App pinning is now hidden in One UI but here’s how to reveal it

About 10 years ago, Samsung Galaxy phones received a neat software feature that allowed users to pin an app. The feature still exists in modern One UI versions, but it's somewhat hidden and has to be enabled in the Settings app before it becomes usable. This article explains how to do that. The app pinning […]

  • By Mihai Matei
  • 1 week ago