PSA: Don’t use the Galaxy S8’s new nav bar hiding feature if you want to keep it black
In what could only be described as adding insult to injury, Samsung’s most recent update for the Galaxy S8 is doing more than just killing Bixby remapping apps.
The update — rolling out now on T-Mobile and weighing in at 281.60MB — adds a new feature that gives users the ability hide the navigation bar (where the back, home, and recents buttons are) whenever they like. A tiny dot on the very left of the nav bar is now available and when pressed, hides the nav bar completely but can be summoned again by simply swiping up, just like when watching full screen media. The button can be removed, if you like but it’s relatively unobtrusive. Sounds like a great feature, right? Not so fast…
Tapping the button to hide the nav bar — or changing the color of the nav bar with one of the many colored options available in settings — will result in the nav bar defaulting to the white background. Since there is no longer a black nav bar option in the settings, you’ll be SOL unless you apply a theme. So if you prefer a black nav bar, just don’t tap the new hide button and disable the feature entirely from the Settings > Display > Navigation bar > Show and Hide button > OFF.
While it’s certainly possible to get the black navigation bar back by using a theme, you can’t have both the hiding feature and black nav bar — it’s one or the other. So, proceed with caution.