Now Bar is ready for the World Cup
The Now Bar was introduced with One UI 7, but initially received mixed reviews. The feature mainly worked with Samsung apps and a limited number of Google apps. With later versions of One UI, support was expanded to include sports information, weather data and third-party apps, amongst other things.
Ahead of the 2026 World Cup, Samsung is now adding special animations for match events sourced from Google Sports scores. For example, an animation appears when a goal is scored. In addition, animations have been spotted for a red card and a confetti effect, which is presumably used when a team wins a match.
Although Samsung has not yet shared official footage of all the animations, a few examples have already emerged from previous Google demonstrations. Rather than simply showing a change in the score, this makes key match information more visually appealing.
The update was first spotted on devices running One UI 8.5. It is not yet clear whether the new animations will remain exclusive to this software version or will later become available for older Galaxy devices. Samsung has not yet provided any further details on this.
Interestingly, the animations may not only be visible on the lock screen, but potentially also in live notifications within the notification panel. Exactly how this works on the Always On Display is not yet known. How it works in other contexts can be seen in the videos below.
The timing of the update makes sense. The group stage of the 2026 World Cup kicks off on 11 June, meaning Samsung is making the feature available just in time for users keen to follow the matches closely.
