One of the most impressive features in One UI 7.0 he Now bar. It is a completely new widget that displays the activities taking place on the phone and appears on the lock screen. However, the Now Bar is currently compatible with only a few stock apps. Let’s take a closer look at that.
The Now Bar is a great-looking feature in One UI 7
The Now Bar in One UI 7.0 displays ongoing activities, such as music playback and active timer, on Galaxy phones. It is compatible with the following applications and activities:
- Bixby
- Clock (stopwatch and timer)
- Participation in emergency situations
- translator
- maps
- Samsung Health
- Samsung Notes
- Voice recorder
It is a pill-shaped widget that first appears on the left side of the status bar at the top of the screen with the relevant controls (pause, stop, etc.). When you click it, it enlarges to a pill-shaped bar at the top of the screen. When you lock your phone screen, the Now bar appears at the bottom of the lock screen.
You can see it in action in the in-depth video below.
When you play audio or video, the Now bar appears with album art and music playback controls (previous track, play/pause, and next track). When you tap the Now Playing Music bar on the lock screen, it displays additional information as well as a larger album art in the middle of the screen and a media output adapter. You can see it in our photos below.
When there are multiple videos ongoing, the Now Bar widgets for each activity are stacked on top of each other, and you can navigate between them by sliding those widgets up or down.
There’s also a Now bar that appears on the lock screen when you plug your phone into the charger. Displays charging speed, time remaining to fully charge, and current charge level. The charging Now Bar also acts as a progress bar, as the color filled in the pill-shaped element corresponds to the current battery charge level.
The Now Bar currently only works with some Samsung apps and system services, but we hope Samsung will support third-party apps with Android 16 and One UI 8.0. A The previous report noted Google is internally working on a Live Activities feature similar to iOS for Android 16, which could be integrated into the Now Bar for a single UI.