What is your reaction to Android 15?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My Samsung phone updated to Android 15 yesterday.

I’m pissed and extremely disappointed.

The best features are gone.

The gear icon in the upper,top right corner is gone. I finally found Settings in the application drawer.

The Android shade is gone. The only thing still there is Notifications. All the settings like Bluetooth, Portrait, Airplane Mode, Flashlight. Gone

I went into the App Drawer and added Settings to my home page as a work around.

My clock on my lock screen is unreadable.
07
47
I cant resize it to fit the box as 7:47
Anyone know of other changes?

Is there anyway to restore the Gear Icon and Shade menu? They have been part of Android since the beginning.

2

They split the swipe-down menu. Try again twice - one time swipe down from the top left corner, one time from the top right. Two different menus - the right one should have everything that you mentioned as missing.

3

All of that is Samsung-specific.

I was using Android 15 for months on my Pixel 7Pro phone, and when it dropped it didn’t change anything notable from 14, mostly because I use a third-party launcher app. I’m running Android 16 now, and it’s the same story.

Ultimately, your question is specifically about Samsung’s tailored version of Android 15. Good to be clear about that.

4

Thank you. What a relief. Can I buy you a beer? :slight_smile:

Now I have to fix my Clock on the lock screen. I may have to add my own Widget.

I may have to buy a different brand phone in a year or two. If Samsung keeps screwing around with Android’s base features.

5

I didn’t know launchers existed. Do you have to jail break the phone for admin privileges to install?

I found a review for 2025

6

No. The interface you see/use is just another app running on the phone. You can change to a different one any time you want.

7

I think One UI is the Samsung launcher.

I’ll research the other Launchers.

I saw an article that Samsung is planning even more changes.

8

I thought he was too purple and small…

[Team 4 star parody of Dragon Ball Z, Android 15 destruction, -some bad language at the end-]

… What?

Oh well, Regarding the Android 15 version for Samsung, I thought the time display was nice, took sometime get used to the new menus. The gear Icon did not change place, but that is because I had put it in the main window before the change. My wife disliked the new setup but I think it is OK.

9

I was going to ask, because i have been on Android 15 for a while now, and none of that sounds familiar.

Nope, although you do have to give them a lot of privileges, and your phone will ask if you trust the app. At least, that’s been my experience on a pixel. I run the Nova launcher, and I’ve been fairly happy with it.

10

Their top choice, Nova Launcher, should probably be avoided. It is the one I use, and I’ve been using it for years, but there is high chance it will not receive any future updates. The team developing it was let go, leaving only one person left working on it. The last update in the play store was September, 2023, and the last beta on the website is June, 2024.

It still works great, and I hope it continues to receive updates. The current version seems to work fine with Android 16.

I just worry that one day I’ll get an OS update, and Nova will stop working, and a fix will never be released. If I were shopping for a launcher now, I’d look at the others first.

11

I don’t care that much, but they did take away my lock screen for some of my apps so I can’t control them, especially the music apps. The messages also sit one on top of another so I can only read one from the lock screen. My location icon seems to stay on all the time as well.

12

You can configure it to work on a single swipe like it did previously:

13

I see that you had the same thought I did upon reading the thread title.

14

Thank you. I just applied the panel settings fix. I use the Bluetooth and Flashlight buttons regularly and the Samsung change is a PITA.

15

Once you set it back to single swipe, and get rid of the top left and top right swipes doing different things, it’s basically the same as it was before.

16

Its obnoxious as fuck. I tried to shut down my phone by pushing down on the power button. Instead of offering the option to shut down, it tried to open Samsung bixby which is a useless app. I eventually found out in the settings that the new update changed what pressing down on the power button does. I had to disable bixby and change the setting so pushing the power button causes the power options to come up.

17

For me, the power button started bringing up Gemini, which I switched to regular Google search, which I finally switched back to the power menu.

I had to change a few things to shut down Gemini, which 15 really brought front and center. I mostly use Assistant or Bixby to start music playing, and Gemini can’t do that.

18

FWIW, my lock screen clock stays in the way you describe until I actually use my PIN/fingerprint, then it goes back to normal.

Otherwise, what I noticed most is that they split the pull-down area on top into two parts- the left is the notifications, and the right is the system stuff. It took a few weeks to get used to, but isn’t dramatically worse now that I am used to it.

19

And, you can turn off that split dropdown, which is what I did.

20

I fixed the clock on the lock screen.

Press anywhere on the lock screen, then enter pin

You can edit the lock screen. Press the clock and use style.

09
35

Becomes the normal 09:35