One UI 7 Beta 3 unexpectedly removes useful Now Bar options, but hope remains

Samsung has just released One UI 7 Beta 3 to eligible Galaxy S24 phones yesterday, January 6. However, it's not all new features and enhancements coming with the software update. Apparently, the company has also included a temporary feature downgrade with One UI 7 Beta 3: the Now Bar is getting a little downgrade.

The Now Bar is somewhat similar to Apple's Dynamic Island and it is designed to display key information from apps at a glance. Before this beta arrived, the Now Bar supported Live Notifications for several apps, including the Clock app, Emergency Sharing, Bixby, Interpreter, Samsung Health, Maps, Voice Recorder, and Samsung Notes.

Reserve your Galaxy S25 Plus at Samsung!

Pre-reserve your Galaxy S25+ today and get big bonuses! Reserving a unit now gives you a $50 Samsung Credit. On top of that, you'll enter into a sweepstakes with a $5,000 Samsung Credit for one winner. But that's not all! You can also get up to $1,250 additional savings when you reserve a unit and pre-order one with enhanced trade-in credits and more!

Reserve at Samsung

Reserve your Galaxy S25 at Samsung!

Starting today through January 22nd, you can also pre-reserve a Galaxy S25 unit. There are lovely bonuses for those who reserve right now, too! First off, you get a $50 Samsung Credit and a chance to win a $5,000 sweepstakes (available for only one winner). There are also up to $1,250 additional savings with enhanced trade-ins and more.

Reserve at Samsung

Reserve your Galaxy S25 Ultra at Samsung!

Samsung has launched its reservation campaign for the Galaxy S25 Ultra! You can pre-reserve a unit, which will give you a $50 Samsung Credit and qualification for a sweepstakes. The prize is a $5,000 Samsung Credit. You can also receive up to $1,250 additional savings when you reserve a unit and pre-order one with enhanced trade-in credits and more!

Reserve at Samsung

With One UI 7 Beta 3, most of these options have been removed. Now, the Now Bar only shows Interprereter, Clock, and Emergency Sharing Live Notifications, as you can see in this screenshot:



The change was first noticed by a beta user who posted a complaint on Samsung's US community forums. The complaint got a response from a Samsung beta moderator, indicating that the change is not a bug, but instead an "intentional refinement".

Luckily, the moderator also said that the features will be more available once the official version is out, and after Samsung's made improvements to them. The moderator doesn't specify exactly what improvements Samsung has in store, though.

The moderator also adds that the Now Bar is still being tweaked with the beta version of One UI 7. It's highly likely that Samsung will bring back the missing Live Notification options, and they are likely to also be improved when the stable One UI 7 hits eligible phones.

The stable version of One UI 7 will be launched alongside the Galaxy S25 phones. The Unpacked event when we'll officially meet the Galaxy S25 trio is now scheduled for January 22, so save the date!

I don't believe that Samsung will permanently remove these Live Notifications, so you have no reason to worry about it right now. We'll see how things look like with the official One UI 7, so we'll have to be a little bit more patient to know for sure, but to me, it seems likely they're just temporarily removed in Beta 3.