When One UI 7 was released, Samsung introduced Live Notifications – its own version of Apple’s Live Activities. This feature allows you to display ongoing activities such as countdowns, sports scores, or movement status right on the status bar, notification panel, and lock screen. However, the big limitation is that only Samsung apps and some Google apps are allowed to use it.

With One UI 8, this has changed. Samsung has integrated more deeply with Android 16, allowing any third-party app to take advantage of the display space on the Now Bar. Through Android 16’s Live Updates feature, apps can push progress notifications to the status bar, priority notification panel, and the Now Bar itself.

Mishaal Rahman from Android Authority tested it with a sample app from Google. If you’re running One UI 8 beta 3 or later, a “Live notifications for all apps” option will appear in your developer settings, allowing you to enable this feature.

Opening up this API is a major step forward. It not only allows popular apps like Uber Eats to show real-time delivery progress, but it also opens up new possibilities for ride-hailing, sports and workout tracking, podcasts, and public transit schedules.

With One UI 8 and Android 16, Samsung is finally giving developers access to the same level of Live Activities on iOS. This is a much-needed and welcome change to improve the Android user experience.