Samsung’s second Galaxy S25 update is still playing catch-up

Samsung has had a troubled launch with One UI 7. The beta was delayed several times, and in the last few weeks, the stable release date for the software has been announced and then tweaked based on region. The Galaxy S25 series should, in theory, have been running a final version of One UI 7 since the beginning, seeing as each S25 model ships with One UI 7 pre-installed. Unfortunately, the S25 series has lagged behind beta builds for older models, lacking features and bug fixes, and the latest software update hasn’t addressed this.

The latest update for the Galaxy S25 series comes with the March 2025 security patch. According to a report by SamMobile, this update reached South Korean Galaxy S25 models on March 20. Today, my UK Galaxy S25 received the same update, and according to X user theonecid, the update is also available in the US. It weighs in at 573MB on my base model S25, and the changelog is frustratingly vague.

Unfortunately, the update still lacks some important features. On the Galaxy S25 and early beta builds of One UI 7, media controls won’t show in the notification shade, forcing users to swipe into the quick settings whenever they want to play/pause or change the playing song. Hiding something as frequently used as playback controls behind a second swipe has been a pain point since I started using One UI 7.

As seen in the above screenshots from my Galaxy S24 Ultra, the current beta builds of One UI 7 have addressed this. Media playback controls from any app are now treated as live notifications and have been integrated with the Now Bar. That means you’ll see the name of whatever media is playing appear as a chip on the left side of your status bar. Tapping the chip will show media controls, like the Dynamic Island in iOS. More importantly, this change also restores media controls to their rightful place in the notification shade.

Current beta builds are based on the March security patch, so you’d assume this welcome addition to One UI 7 would be available on the Galaxy S25 with today’s March update, but alas, that isn’t the case. It’s a strange and frustrating situation when a phone that is supposed to launch with a finalized version of One UI 7 lags behind its predecessors. Hopefully, Samsung can get things back on track when older models get a stable One UI 7 release in April.

Have you got One UI 7 on your phone or tablet? Are there more tweaks and changes you’d like to see Samsung make? Let us know below.