Google has been slowly constructing a “desktop mode” for Android for some time and it seems almost ready to launch with Android 16, and is building it on it with Samsung Dex’s redesign.
Samsung Dex is a desktop client built on top of Android, which allows a Galaxy smartphone to run a desktop-like UI when plug in or wirelessly connects to external monitor. Samsung pills also provide the ability to use this experience basically on their own performance.
With its upcoming Android 16-based One UI 8 update, Samsung is working on a redesign of the dex. It was Viewed by @Devofipos on Twitter/XThose who managed to bring the dex up and were running on a Galaxy S25 Ultra, which used to run a UI 8 to demonstrate new changes.
The new dex seems to have a window management design, a taskbar that opens to an app drawer, and also uses a new quick settings design. Changes are not prominent, and this functionality was also present earlier, but everything conforms to the new desktop mode working on Google.
We thought that these improvements could be made for native experience to benefit Google Dex, and quick adoption indicates that it could be at least partially true.
The same leak shows better Galaxy Buds Integration in older models, the additional spot appears in a UI 8, the new quick share app, and found that the safe folder uses Android’s private space API that Google introduced with Android 15.
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