Galaxy S8, Note 8 Get GIF Support For Always On Display

Samsung's flagship smartphones have included the Always On Display (AOD) feature for several years now, giving users a way to glance at essential information like notifications, battery level, and the time, by keeping these details constantly displayed even when the device is asleep. Since then, the feature has become more customizable in terms of color and clock style, and even allowing a photo to be shown. But now there's support for the internet's favorite media format: the GIF.

While users have been able to choose between preset images or their own photos, the addition of GIFs on the AOD opens the door for displaying animated imagery, not to mention the meme or other humorous clip of the week. The feature comes with a handful of GIFs to use, but can be customized with any stored in the photo library.

The new AOD update is available on the Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+ and the Note 8, however these devices must be running Android Oreo. Once that's taken care of, users will want to make sure they're running AOD version 3.2.26.4 or later for GIF support.

There's a limit to the length of GIFs that can be shown on the AOD, and to help prevent the feature from being an even bigger battery drain, the images won't endlessly loop. It will play once when the device is put to sleep, but users can double tap on GIF to get it to play again.

SOURCE: XDA