Samsung Galaxy S25's April Update Brings Two Subtle New Features

Contents

Will the Galaxy S25 receive its One UI 8 update early?

Summary

Samsung has finally released the April security update for S25.
The AYD9 firmware brings a new charging animation & media player notification widget.
It also patches Critical & High-severity vulnerabilities.

Samsung is typically among the first to update its flagship devices to the latest monthly security patch. This month has been an exception, with the company prioritizing the long-delayed stable One UI 7 rollout for its 2024 flagship devices over the Galaxy S25’s April security patch. Now that the revised Android 15 firmware for the S24 series has been released, Samsung has finally rolled out the April build for the Galaxy S25 with two notable changes.

The Galaxy S25’s AYD9 firmware went live in South Korea late last week, with Samsung now expanding its availability to Australia, India, and other markets. The 762MB update bumps the security patch to April and introduces two changes, although Samsung’s official release notes do not mention anything other than stability improvements.

You’ll now see a new charging animation and an updated media player in the notification panel. Both changes are already present in the Galaxy S24’s stable One UI 7 build.

You can check if the update is available for download on your phone by going to Settings > Software update > Download and install.

With the media player notification, your Galaxy S25 will display a live notification in the Now Bar, located in the top-left corner of the status bar. You can tap on it to bring up playback controls. Like before, the media playback widget in the Quick Settings panel is still there.

As for the new charging animation, the battery icon on the top right in the status bar will animate with a green background. It looks a lot slicker and polished than the initial iteration that shipped on the Galaxy S25.

As per Samsung’s security bulletin, the April 2025 update patches several Critical and High-severity vulnerabilities.

Will the Galaxy S25 receive its One UI 8 update early?

While minor, these mark the first post-launch changes Samsung has delivered to the Galaxy S25 series since its debut in early February. Hopefully, once the company completes the One UI 7 rollout for its other devices, the phone will get a more feature-rich update. Or maybe Samsung will directly release One UI 8 for its 2025 flagship in June, when Google officially releases Android 16.