In addition to the launch of its latest flagships, Samsung delighted its fans today with the launch of a new beta program for the next iteration of its custom Android skin, which will be based on Android 11 (via XDA Developers). The One UI 3.0 ‘pre-beta’ is only available to Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 Ultra devices in the U.S. and South Korea.
The program is currently in the closed beta stage, what Samsung calls the ‘pre-beta’, and will require you to sign up for entry. Samsung’s announcement page does quite clearly state it’s targeting developers with this beta, and you’ll need to sign up to become a “Samsung partner developer” to join. So if you’re just a regular Joe excited about Samsung’s latest software, sorry, you’re out of luck.
Thankfully, though, Samsung is also promising to follow up with an open beta at a later date. This will also be available in more countries, namely China, Germany, India, Poland, and the U.K. The announcement did not give an exact timeframe for when the open beta will commence.
In addition to the above, the pre-beta is only available to the unlocked or T-Mobile/Sprint variants of the Galaxy S20 series in the U.S., while all variants of the phone will be eligible for the beta in South Korea. If you meet all of these conditions, you can apply to be part of the program here.
