If you’ve been complaining about One UI being slow, here’s some good news: Samsung has just accelerated the release of One UI 8 at an unprecedented pace. The Galaxy Z Flip 7, Z Flip 7 FE, and Z Fold 7 have become the first smartphones in the world to come with Android 16 out of the box, faster than even Google’s Pixel line. The secret lies in a major change in the way Samsung develops software.

In a press conference, Sally Hyesoon Jeong, Samsung’s executive vice president and head of OS framework development, confirmed that the company has switched to a new development model initiated by Google, called Trunk Stable. Thanks to that, One UI 8 is completed and released much faster than One UI 7.

Previously, Android was developed using a branching model. Each new version would be a separate branch, and Google would add new features to this branch until it was complete. The source code is then merged back into the main branch – a process that is prone to errors because of the large and complex codebase. The subsequent conflict resolution, bug fixes, and refinements often lead to delays in the release schedule.

The Stable trunk is different. All changes are developed directly on a single branch, and this branch must always be kept stable. New features are “hidden” with feature flags, only turned on when they are truly complete. As a result, Android 16 is released about a quarter earlier than usual.

Samsung has officially adopted this model when developing One UI 8. The results are clear: the update speed has increased dramatically, the user experience is smoother, and there are fewer bugs. But Samsung’s ambitions don’t stop there – it wants the One UI release rate to match Google’s Android release schedule, something no other Android phone maker has ever done.

If Samsung can pull this off, Galaxy users will no longer have to wait months for a new Android experience. Stable, fast One UI updates will become the new standard—and that’s a huge competitive advantage in the era of smartphones shaped by software and AI.