Google’s updating authority has just been taken over by Samsung
While the new Galaxy S22 hardware is quite impressive, we’re more interested in Samsung’s new five-year update guarantee. Samsung’s guarantee is the finest in the Android sector, with four years of OS upgrades and five years of security patches, and it’s getting close to Apple’s prized level of long-term support. That implies the Galaxy S22 series will be supported until Android 16 is released in 2025 or 2026. It feels like a lifetime ago.
Even more amazing is the fact that Samsung is extending its vow to cover older smartphones. This applies not just to the brand new Samsung Galaxy S22 series, but also to the complete Galaxy S21 line, including the Galaxy S21 FE, foldable Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3, and the new Galaxy Tab S8 tablet line. Not to mention the fact that the business has already committed to three years of OS upgrades for some of its less costly devices. Simply put, when it comes to the length and breadth of its smartphone update program, Samsung is currently far ahead of the competition. So, massive props on this one.
You may have observed that Samsung’s new policy is even better than Google’s Pixel 6 series’ three OS and five-year security guarantee. Big G’s Android lead was short-lived. Even at the time, we weren’t persuaded that Google had gone far enough to lead from the front, and Samsung has quickly demonstrated that Google, and everyone else, can go more in terms of long-term support.
Other Smartphone Manufacturers Should Follow Suit
Nonetheless, Google and Samsung are outperforming the industry as a whole. OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi, for example, only give three years of OS upgrades on a few of their most costly devices. If you have a mid-tier phone, you’ll be lucky if you get two OS updates, but Google and Samsung provide far longer support for their low-cost handsets. Although it’s exciting to see these two competing for the top place, millions of other Android users are still without long-term support. This means older handsets do not get the newer features such as SMS backup sharing which come with the new OS.
Furthermore, what’s particularly aggravating about the overall Android update situation is that we’ve heard a lot of talk from various parties regarding the challenges and progress achieved in providing upgrades to Android devices. Google and its partners have invested a lot of effort on projects like Project Treble in 2017 and Project Mainline in 2019, as well as working with chipmakers like Qualcomm to support four Android OS versions by the end of 2020. Samsung, on the other hand, will have to wait until 2022 to fully use the current update capability.
As a result, there’s no justification for failing to match Samsung’s degree of long-term support. It’s not chipset support or update delivery routes; those bottlenecks have been eliminated. For example, Google switched to its own Tensor chipset, but the move didn’t result in the kind of long-term support that was expected. In comparison to its predecessor, the Pixel 6 will receive two more years of security upgrades. It’s a step forward, but not the game-changer many had hoped for.
Security updates are vital, but it’s OS and feature upgrades that keep devices feeling new and current over time. This is especially crucial in an era when technology innovation has stalled, costs have risen, and people expect to retain their cellphones for a long time.
