Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Smartphone makers have come a long, long way in their approach to handling Android updates, and we’ve seen companies like Samsung actually reach a point where they’re on par with Google in terms of speed and release cadence. are competitive. But for all the credit Samsung’s update program is due, there’s still been one glaring blind spot: the lack of support for seamless A/B updates. Last fall, we found ourselves hopeful that the Galaxy S23 series might buck the trend and finally embrace seamless updates, but unfortunately, we can now confirm that won’t be the case.
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The idea behind seamless support is to reduce your downtime while you update your phone. Instead of having to sit through a lengthy reboot and install process, a phone with Seamless Updates can install its software to a second partition while you continue to use the main one. Then, when everything is ready, you can boot into the new one with little interference.
As Google was putting the finishing touches on Android 13 last year, Mishaal Rahman observed that the company was planning to mandate support for virtual A/B split. These virtual partitions emerged as the best way to access seamless updates, while keeping storage requirements low. And if Samsung had to support virtual A/B split, it surely felt that its phones would support equally seamless updates.
I wish it didn’t happen. After getting our hands on the new Galaxy S23 Ultra, we ran the phone through the Treble Info tool, and can confirm that Samsung isn’t turning over a new leaf – the phone once again doesn’t support seamless updates. While this isn’t really surprising, given Samsung’s established reluctance to make this change (not to mention its comfortable relationship with Google which probably gives it extra pressure), it’s disappointing nonetheless.
Maybe next year will finally drop 128GB and leave Samsung with even less excuse as to why it won’t do well with seamless updates.
Source: Samsung
samsung galaxy s23 ultra
If you are looking for the best Android in 2023, Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is it. It’s the only one in the S23 lineup to sport the company’s flagship 200MP ISOCELL HP2 camera sensor, the only one with a 5,000mAh battery, and push the storage envelope up to 1TB. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile platform for the Galaxy should run fast and smooth and everything should look smooth and beautiful on that 6.8″ Dynamic AMOLED 2x display (the only one in the series with adaptive refresh rates between 1 and 120Hz). Who else Might forget about all the note-taking features and added convenience that the S Pen brings? This is Samsung’s best effort for the Galaxy S nameplate.
