Samsung could follow in Google’s footsteps and offer longer updates
At the moment, Samsung offers about 5 years worth of updates to their phones. This includes both major OS updates and security patches, but considering that Google recently announced that they would offer 7 years of updates to their Pixel 8 phones, it looks like Samsung is getting ready to follow suit.
During the Samsung Developer Conference 2023, SamMobile spoke with Shin-Chul Baik, the Principal Engineer and Technical Program Manager of the Security Team for Samsung’s Mobile eXperience division, where he revealed that Samsung is “actively discussing” what they should do when it comes to offering longer updates, and that Samsung is prepared to go beyond the 5 years that they currently offer.
It is unclear when this change will happen and if it will retroactively apply to older Samsung phones, or if it will only be available for the company’s newer phones, like the Galaxy S24 series that are expected to launch next year. That being said, it can be a tricky thing for Samsung to pull off.
As SamMobile notes, Samsung has a massive portfolio of devices which means that when it comes to offering security updates, the company has to ensure that these updates will play nicely across its devices. Seeing as how all these phones and tablets have different chipsets and hardware configurations, that’s a lot of resources the company has to spend.
Either way, it’s a good thing and hopefully Samsung will have something official to announce soon.
Source: SamMobile