Samsung screwed up lock screen notifications on the Galaxy S25

But all of that goes out the door once you get your hands on your own review unit. I spent my first couple of hours with the Galaxy S25 Ultra yesterday rushing through a clean setup — I’ve had enough issues with data transfers on past Samsung phones, thank you very much. What I’ve found outside of all the noise is a very typical 2025 flagship, with all of the strengths and caveats that come with it. Unfortunately, a quiet first few hours revealed one of the most shocking One UI 7 changes I could’ve imagined, and if you’re upgrading to an S25, you’ll want to make sure you know about it too.

One UI 7 hides notifications from your lock screen by default

Who asked for this?

Plenty of the changes within One UI 7 are pretty familiar. Some tweaks, like the Now Bar and the new quick settings layout, are directly inspired by Apple’s last couple of iOS updates. Others come from collaborations with Google, like Gemini’s new look, or improvements to Circle to Search. Even wholly fresh ideas, like Now Brief, are pulling inspiration from past concepts like Google Now. The Galaxy S25 series is, largely speaking, a mish-mash of ideas new and old — with one crucial exception.

Throughout my first few hours with the Galaxy S25 Ultra, I noticed myself missing incoming notifications. Initially, I thought this was an app-centric problem, especially after I realized Telegram’s permissions had, for some reason, allowed for notifications but disabled all meaningful alerts. User error, I reassured myself. But as another hour passed, it became increasingly aware that something actually was wrong with my S25 Ultra. At the very least, some settings weren’t enabled properly.

Well folks, I was right — my settings were screwed up, and if you’re planning on upgrading to One UI 7, yours will be too. As best as I can tell from numerous review units, One UI now ships with lock screen notifications hidden entirely. You’ll still see icons along the top of the screen like usual, but to actually see any meaningful context, any actual information, you’ll need to swipe down to access your notification tray.

As I said, my phone went through a clean install, which likely means this is how One UI 7 works by default. I’ve also confirmed the exact problem with several reviewers who did perform a data transfer from previous Samsung phones running One UI 6, implying that Samsung’s forthcoming update push could hide notifications from every phone, not just the Galaxy S25 series. (For what it’s worth, I didn’t notice this on my Galaxy S24 Ultra running the initial One UI 7 beta, though Ben Schoon at 9to5Google confirmed this in his own testing).

It’s possible this changes sometime in the near future, but at launch, it seems One UI 7 radically changes how you expect to interact with notifications by default.

I can’t figure out why Samsung made this change

But I can think of a world where it actually makes sense

There is, to be clear, no warning that this is how your phone works now. It flies in the face of practically every smartphone of the last fifteen-plus years, the collective muscle memory the public has built up with how smartphones work. Wake your screen, see your notifications — it’s been that simple since the earliest days of the modern mobile world. While this new implementation currently makes your incoming alerts a little more private, it does so at the cost of easy access. Worse, it does so without telling you about the change.

The people who have Galaxy S25 units in their hands right now are, almost exclusively, reporters, reviewers, and content creators. Those users — and the most enthusiastic of early adopters — are likely to spot this sort of problem right away. They’re also exactly the sort who know which three-levels-deep menu to check for a fix. But the S25 lineup won’t be exclusively for reviewers or early adopters. Millions of regular consumers are going to buy this phone and find themselves stumped as to where their notifications went.

Samsung has received plenty of grief for becoming too much of a follower, not a leader. Plenty of (virtual) ink has been spilled over the obvious Apple influences that have come roaring back throughout this decade. This move to reframe how the lock screen functions by default is, to Samsung’s credit, a purely original idea. It also just happens to be a bad one, at least in its current state.

I’m not necessarily against rethinking how notifications and your lock screen go together. It’s Samsung’s implementation here that is the problem. With a focus on the Now Bar, Samsung could’ve built a new home for notifications, clearing clutter on your lock screen while creating a more useful hub. Now Brief could’ve played a role, working to catch you up on whatever’s been missed since you last touched your phone. On a simpler level, prompting users during setup could’ve allowed for a more individualistic approach to managing notifications, rather than making a huge change for a broad population of smartphone users.

Samsung didn’t do any of that, of course. The end result is a confusing approach to the lock screen, leaving it as little more than a barrier between your smartphone and pocket dials. An idea fully unique to Samsung’s hardware, only to stop short of actually shipping an interesting product.

If you’re moving to One UI 7, keep an eye out for that setting

It might just save you from missed notifications

For now, we’re left with an odd decision by Samsung that guarantees Galaxy S25 owners — and other Galaxy users in a post-One UI 7 world — will need to perform an additional task after setting up their phone. You can find that setting under Notifications > Lock screen notifications; changing “icons” to “cards” brings back the typical Android notification experience. It’s far from the end of the world, but it’s certainly a confusing decision on Samsung’s part. It could be laying the ground for a more thoughtful approach to notifications, but in the short term, it’s something that’ll cause more harm than good.