Samsung Galaxy S23 Series Skips Android Seamless Update

Teejay Boris, Tech Times 03 February 2023, 08:02 pm

Samsung Galaxy S23 series, including the Ultra variant, misses out on Android seamless update support, as the renowned phone maker debuts its latest flagship amid the Unpacked event 2023.

Android has been offering a "seamless update" feature for quite some time now. However, the South Korean tech giant, Samsung, has been sitting on it.

(Photo : by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)
A man rides an escalator next to a booth of Galaxy mobile phones by Samsung, a main sponsor of the International Olympic Committee, at the Main Press Centre of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing on January 28, 2022.

And with its latest flagship lineup, it continues doing so.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Series Lacks Android Seamless Update

According to a report by GSM Arena, Google introduced the "seamless update" feature of Android to its Pixel phones back in 2016. And since then, other phone makers have adopted the handy option. Well, except for Samsung.

And after six years since the Android feature saw the light of day, Samsung still resists bringing the said feature to its latest flagship devices.

The South Korean firm recently debuted its all-new Galaxy lineup, including the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus, and Galaxy S23 Ultra. However, none of these new Android mobile devices supported the long-awaited "seamless updates" feature, as per 9to5 Google.

(Photo : Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
DJ Koh, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics, presents the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 smartphone during a launch event at Barclays Center on August 7, 2019 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Samsung announced the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10 Plus smartphones.

The online news outlet confirmed that the Galaxy S23 series still lacks the update feature. And this does not come off as something surprising anymore, as the renowned phone maker has been resisting supporting it since Google introduced it.

And as such, the Galaxy S22, and the flagship series before it, all missed out on the said feature.

It remains to be seen if the tech giant plans to bring it to its next-generation flagship, the Galaxy S24. But for now, Galaxy S23 users would continue to miss out on it.

But what are Android "seamless updates" exactly?

How Android Seamless Update Works

Essentially, the "seamless updates" feature on Android devices installs firmware updates without forcing its users to turn off their smartphones while installing the latest release.

So with this, it eliminates the annoying downtime that users have to experience when getting their hands on a new update. It should prevent instances wherein users procrastinate on installing updates, as it would no longer turn off their devices for a couple of minutes.

And to do so, the "seamless updates" feature uses a secondary partition while installing the latest firmware release. With that, it would only require Android phones to reboot a single time.

So it updates phones in the background, and it would be applied later on after a single reboot.

Why is Samsung Skipping on 'Seamless Updates?'

9to5 Google suggests that Samsung intentionally resists adopting such a feature due to storage concerns.

It is worth mentioning that the Android "seamless updates" requires tons of extra internal storage, which would not be ideal for users with only 128 GB.