While many will point to the excellent design of the Samsung Galaxy S6, the powerful camera and other aspects, the reality is that what makes the phone great is the new TouchWiz.
Samsung has put a great effort in making the TouchWiz UI one of the best on the market and with the S6, it looks like Samsung has finally gotten everything right. Here are the improvements Samsung has made with the new TouchWiz that make the S6 the best Android phone on the market.
Bye, Bye Bloatware
Samsung promised that the new TouchWiz will feature a lot less bloatware and the company delivered. With previous flagships by Samsung, once you start the phone, you are greeted with lots of apps that you will never use and you cannot uninstall or disable. This led to apps taking valuable RAM and memory space. But with the S6, there is less bloatware and the users can edit and disable/uninstall apps at any time.
Balanced Use of Lollipop
Unlike other manufacturers, Samsung looks like it hit the right balance between the stock Android 5.0 Lollipop and its own skin. Neither UI is fully dominant but they work in perfect synchronization. The TouchWiz UI still has material design, cards-style menu for multitask and much more. However, Samsung has added its touch in subtle ways. One example is the “close all” button in the multitasking window (recent apps). There is also a multi-window toggle sitting atop all of the compatible apps in the list of recent apps.
Home Screen
The change Samsung has made with the home screen on the Galaxy S6 is to make the screen cleaner. The theme is minimalism, and it is something that Samsung started long ago. There are less apps and widgets on the home screen and the existing ones have been reduced in size. For example, the weather widget has shrunk to half of its previous size. You still get the same information, but the widget is smaller. You can also change the grid of the home screen to three options: 4 x 4, 4 x 5 and 5 x 5. The 5 x 5 grid allows you to add more apps and icons on the home screen.
Lock Screen
Samsung has also made some changes to the way the Android 5.0 Lollipop functions. One of the biggest innovations with the Lollipop OS is the introduction of notifications to the lock screen. The TouchWiz UI still has notifications on screen, but Samsung has taken things one step further. The company has added two shortcuts on the lock screen of the Galaxy S6. On the left, you get a call icon, and on the right, there is a camera icon. This allows users to launch the camera or dialer application from the lock screen. The dialer app works only if there is no protection to the lock screen (such as pattern). You will have to enter the pattern or scan your fingerprint to access the dialer from the lock screen, but it is still quicker than unlocking your phone than tapping the dialer. The lock screen on the TouchWiz also allows users to access quick settings right from it.
Quick Settings
As with many aspects we previously mentioned, the goal is to make the menu clearer and more functional. In the quick settings menu, Samsung has ditched nearly half of the options you can access on the Galaxy S6 and its version of TouchWiz. Just a quick comparison, on the S5, the quick settings menu has 22 icons, which is reduced down to 9 on the S6 and the new TouchWiz. The result is that the menu is not overwhelmed with lots of unnecessary applications. It is more about organization, as you can still quickly access everything; but it does require for users to better organize their phone.
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