Opening a sensitive message or entering your smartphone’s PIN in public can be extremely awkward. This is why privacy screen protectors exist, including for high-end devices like the Galaxy S25 series, offering users some sense of protection from prying eyes.
Reporting out of South Korea last month suggested that Samsung’s upcoming high-end flagship, the Galaxy S26 Ultra, could make privacy screen protectors obsolete by bundling its “Flex Magic Pixel” technology. Now, another leak is offering more details on this front.
Looking through the under-development One UI 8.5 software, Android Authority found code referencing this particular feature, with the company referring to it as “Private Display” and “Privacy Display.” There are a couple of typos in these lines of code, which is a strong indicator that it’s early days for this upcoming functionality.
<string name=”sec_privacy_display_title”>Privacy display</string>
<string name=”sec_privacy_display_summary”>Limits screen visibility from side angles to protect your privacy in public.</string>
<string name=”sec_privacy_display_auto_privacy_summary”>Automatically use Private display when you use sensitive apps and when you’re in crowed places.</string>
<string name=”sec_privacy_display_manual_settings”>Manual settings</string>
<string name=”sec_privacy_display_maximum_privacy”>Maximum privacy</string>
<string name=”sec_privacy_display_maximum_privacy_summary”>For even stronger privacy protection, make the screen dimmer than usual while Private dislay is on.</string>
Some of these strings tell us what it can actually do, while others reveal the ability to enable Privacy/Private display if you’re in a crowded area. This privacy-related inclusion will also let users switch between what it calls Manual settings and Maximum privacy, which, as the corresponding description suggests, enables “even stronger privacy protection” by reducing the display’s brightness.
<string name=”sec_privacy_display_custom_conditions”>Custom conditions</string>
<string name=”sec_privacy_display_custom_conditions_apps_summary”>Choose specific apps where you want to use Private display.</string>
<string name=”sec_privacy_display_custom_conditions_apps_title”>Apps</string>
<string name=”sec_privacy_display_custom_conditions_schedule_summary”>Set a schedule when you want to use Private display.</string>
<string name=”sec_privacy_display_custom_conditions_schedule_add_button”>Add schedule</string>
These strings above offer some idea about manual selection of apps where Private display could be used, with banking or other financial apps being prime candidates for this particular setting. Users should also be able to set a schedule that enables Private display automatically, per the strings above.
What we know about this upcoming display tech
Flex Magic Pixel was announced back in February last year during MWC 2024. In Samsung Display’s own words, this tech “adjusts the viewing angle of the screen so that it is not visible to the person next to it.” Mass production is believed to have commenced recently, thereby making it highly likely that the Galaxy S26 Ultra could sport this feature.
Reporting also indicates that this tech will be hardware-dependent and available exclusively on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, so you would still need to get a privacy screen protector for the Galaxy S26 Pro and the Galaxy S26 Edge, which will succeed the vanilla Galaxy S25 and the Galaxy S25+, respectively.
This is not the first One UI 8.5-related leak to appear in the past few days, and it certainly won’t be the last. However, it’s not often that we get insights into an upcoming flagship’s feature months in advance. Of course, these lines of code don’t specifically mention the Galaxy S26 Ultra by name, but it does align with the leak we stumbled upon last month.
That leak stated that Samsung’s privacy feature would work in tandem with the Color filter on Encapsulation (CoE) tech, which is currently available in the company’s foldable phones. But when paired with Flex Magic Pixel OLED, CoE can help reduce the amount of light lost when the privacy feature works its magic. Additionally, this technology offers better efficiency while also being thinner and brighter.
