On Friday night, T-Mobile and Samsung pushed out an update to the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. The update isn’t necessarily major, but does weigh in at 280+MB and brings with it some additional tweaks.
For one, the update (G950USQU1AQFJ, G955USQU1AQFJ) brings June’s Android security match. Yes, we’re already 10 days into July, so this isn’t exactly the most positive moment in Samsung’s relatively decent security update history. The update also brings a tweak or two to the navigation bar, including the ability to hide it with a little dot off to its left (see image below), along with a really limited set of color options for it.
Additionally, the guys at Android Police are under the impression that this update may also break may of the Bixby remapper apps that had been previously working. That seems quite user hostile, no? I seem to recall a certain Samsung employee suggesting that the initial kill-job was fine because Android users always find another way. So much for that.
To grab the update, head into Settings>Software update.
UPDATE: T-Mobile says that the update provides the following–
“DIGITS update, Qualcomm update for microphone fix, Bixby enhancements, Google Daydream capable, Various system improvements”
UPDATE 2: T-Mobile has adjusted the wording after “Google Daydream capable” to include “with Google availability.” In other words, the phone is ready for Daydream, we’re just waiting on Google to press the green button.
// T-Mobile
I’m kind of disappointed that they removed the option to choose your own nav bar color 🙁
I don’t understand the hate that Bixby is getting, either. Sure I don’t use it hardly at all, but I don’t hate it either!
Thats weird, those Nav bar function have always been on the Japan S8
So that’s how you get Samsung to keep pushing updates – just keep disabling bixby haha.
Samsung is still falling short in its quest to keep up with Google with security patches but only a month back represents a good improvement.
Security patches are the main thing, every OEM likes to add their own features, if they can just stay up to date in security patches then security concerns are greatly reduced for phones not named the Google Pixel.
But is this really Samsung or T-Mobile? I’ve had the June 1 security patch on my unlocked version
I have had the june security patch on att since jun 22. So this is a T mobile thing
Even better then.
Nav bar is so screwed up now……i just hide it now. i hate the always white bar. i’d rather it be black then always white. I think because of the themes it makes it always white with no color options. stock probably shows them but it’s sad you can’t do any color anymore. no idea what the thought process behind that was.
I’ve heard folks theorizing that they did that to avoid ghosting….
maybe instead of a band-aid they should fix the actual issue lol
unfortunately its just the nature of the beast. think of it this way, if you use something constantly, it will wear faster than something you don’t. the pixels in the nav bar are almost always black which means they are never being used. makes sense the rest of the screen would wear at a different rate. its how everything functions, and also something AMOLED screens will suffer from.
or make a transparent option and have the nav bar color match the material design of the app
this x10000000
you can use adb commands to force the Nav Bar to be black
true, but you shouldn’t have to do that.
Can’t wait for this update to hit VZW. Ability to hide the nav bar is huge for me. I just wish Samsung would get cracking on 7.1.1 for all their devices, just so we at least know it’s in development!
In Nova, the Navigation bar is not transparent.
I’m annoyed that they did this, Stock Android does this, why did they have to do an update for this when it’s native in Android.
I’m using Nova and it’s transparent at least on the home screen.
That’s weird, on my Tmobile it has the gray color and it looks nasty,
I just updated mine and the Nova home screen has a horrible gray navigation bar instead of the transparent one I used to have. All apps have the transparency and color I select, but the home screen has a non transparent gray bar.
I’m transparent as well
Well good and bad news for anyone else with the horrible grey bar on the Nova home screen. I fixed it by resetting Nova defaults. Now I have to configure all my personal settings to try and figure out which one breaks it. I will post back tomorrow if I figure it out.
Well back with fast and great news. The setting in Nova causing the problem is under Look & Feel. Setting the Notification Bar setting Transparent Notification Bar to on will make the Navigation Bar transparent as well.
Same here.