Android 12 has hidden system settings design inspired by Samsung’s One UI

While Samsung is busy rolling out the Android 11-based One UI 3.x update to its smartphones and tablets, Google has released the first developer beta version of Android 12. Apart from improvement to notifications and the media player widget, a better screenshot markup tool, and easier Wi-Fi password sharing, Android 12 also includes One UI-inspired design.

As revealed by XDA Developers' Mishaal Rahman, Android 12 has a hidden system settings UI design that seems inspired by Samsung's One UI. The new design moves UI elements closer to the user's thumbs, but it needs to be activated by an ADB shell command. Once enabled, the font size of the app's header is increased, and empty white space is introduced towards the top of the screen, making it easier to reach UI elements at the top. Like One UI, the design is responsive, which means that the app header's font size goes back to normal once you scroll down.

Google has added various features in Android's developer previews in the past, only to remove them before releasing the final version. The new One-Handed mode is not available by default in Android 12's Developer Preview 1, which means that the company may or may not include it in the final version of the operating system.

In the past, Google took various inspirations from Samsung's software and implemented it into stock Android. Since Samsung's One UI software is among the best in the Android ecosystem, it was only natural for Google to bring some of its best design elements into stock Android.