One of the main points Apple and the iOS ecosystem has over anyone else in the Android camp is the software. Not in the user experience sense, but in stuff like the frequency of software updates and the longevity of the device’s update cycle. While brands like Samsung have tried to remedy the latter by guaranteed updates over way more years than they have before, the former is still a sticking point.
But, you’ll be happy to find out that Samsung knows that this is an issue. Following the rollout of a stable Android 13 Update to the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Galaxy Z Fold 4 in South Korea, the company announced that they’re going to continue to strengthen their collaboration with Google and actively listen to user feedback to update One UI even faster.
This new One UI 5 update that’s based on Android 13, by the way, rolled out to Samsung Galaxy S22 devices last month in the US, while Malaysian devices got it early this month. This is just a little over two months after the launch of Android 13, which is about a month earlier than Android 12 rolled out to the Galaxy S21 series. And, according to SamMobile, this is the earliest they’ve ever released a major software update.
Besides the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Z Fold 4, the Galaxy S21 series also saw updates to Android 13 earlier this month while the Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy S20 series should receive their updates by November too. Samsung also says that tablets like their Galaxy Tab S8, Galaxy S7 FE, Galaxy Tab S7 and Galaxy Tab S6 Lite will be updated to Android 13 in sequence.
Meanwhile, Galaxy A devices that will see this update include the Galaxy A53, Galaxy A33 5G, Galaxy A52s 5G and Galaxy A32. These updates will come by the end of 2022. It is worth noting that there was no region specification for these timelines, so we’re not sure whether the updates will hit Malaysian shores within these timeframes.
This commitment to quicker software updates is definitely a welcomed sight. We’ve seen many attempts like Project Treble at making the update process across Android’s fragmented ecosystem faster and easier, but it was always slow in comparison to Apple’s implementation. Now, it probably won’t get to a point that you’ll see an Android update on your non-Google smartphone as quickly as iPhone users will see iOS updates on their smartphone, but the fact that one of the major Android phonemakers seem committed to improving this is certainly good to see.
What do you think of the speed in which your Android device is being updated?
