With the launch of One UI 7, Samsung introduced Live Notifications, their take on Apple’s Live Activities. This shows ongoing activities, like the progress of a timer or the score of a sports game, and shows them in your status bar, at the top of notifications, and on the lock screen. There was one major flaw, however. Only Samsung’s own apps and a handful of Google apps could take advantage of this feature.
Third party app apps can now appear in the Now Bar to One UI 8
While many first party Samsung apps supported Live Notifications, like Clock app, Voice Recorder, and even Google apps like Maps, there wasn’t any possibility for third party developers to take advantage of that space.
With One UI 8, that limitation fades away in Now Bar. It now utilities Android 16’s Live Updates feature. This lets any app implement a progress-based notification onto the Now Bar, alongside the status bar chip and its priority spot in the notification panel.
-
- Now bar collapsed
-
- Now bar expanded
-
- Status bar chip
-
- Expanded status bar chip
-
- Notification panel
Mishaal Rahman from Android Authority shows this off using a demo app from Google, which is also what I’m using here. You also need to be on One UI 8 beta 3 or higher, which has a new toggle under developer options called Live notifications for all apps.
Why is this addition significant
This move paves the way for many popular apps and services to utilize the priority space more effectively. Google already showed off Uber Eats as an example, even displaying how it’ll look on the expanded Now Bar. But now even more apps can join in the fun. Some use cases include ride sharing, food delivery, fitness tracking, podcast playback, or public transit tracking.
The openness of this API means developers can build richer, more responsive experiences without users needing to constantly open the app. Notifications become not just alerts but interactive, evolving touchpoints.
With One UI 8 and Android 16, Samsung is finally giving developers the same level of access that Apple’s Live Activities have offered since iOS 16. It’s a welcome and much-needed improvement.
