Samsung users are being left behind.
Millions of Pixels are now running Android 15 following Google’s release last week. “These updates include security features to help protect your sensitive health, financial, and personal information from theft and fraud,” it told users. Security and privacy are certainly “highlights of the update.” ars technica It is described as a “new tool aimed at phone snatchers, spying on children and partners, and mobile phone hijackers.”
And these security upgrades have been heralded by users and the press, with immediate anti-theft, device protection, privacy for sensitive apps, and live AI-powered disabling of dangerous apps. Threat detection capabilities will be available in the coming weeks.
However, it is not compatible with Samsung Galaxy devices. A nasty surprise confirmed at SDC earlier this month is that the rollout of its own Android 15 via One UI 7 isn’t scheduled until next year, along with the S25 series. Even the timing of the beta’s release remains unclear, with Samsung only telling SDC that the beta will be available by the end of 2024.
This was bad news for millions of Samsung Galaxy users, especially those with expensive flagship models. Given Samsung’s status as a major Android OEM, many would have expected it to be near the front of the queue for Android 15 and its security upgrades. The bad news got worse. According to reports 9to5Google“The floodgates of Android 15 are opening,” with Motorola, Asus, Vivo, and Oppo all currently updating their phones. He added: “A notable omission for now will be Samsung, as the company has confirmed that the launch of One UI 7, based on Android 15, will be delayed to 2025.”
The graph below shows how Samsung’s Android market share remains dominant. When you drop $1500 on a Samsung flagship, you might expect faster updates.
Mobile Vendors – Global Market Share for the Past 12 Months
Maybe, just maybe, Samsung is responding to this wave of updates. sammy fan “We have some exciting news for Samsung Galaxy owners… You might be able to try out the new One UI 7.0, built on Android 15, much sooner than we thought. ” reported. We found information from two different sources, each claiming to confirm our expectations…Samsung’s development team will complete a “nearly stable” build of One UI 7.0 by the end of October 2024. It is reported that they are aiming for ”
That’s significantly better than the modest estimate of by the end of 2024, but there’s no indication that a stable Android 15 re-release will arrive on Samsung phones any sooner than next year’s release of the Galaxy S25 series. . Other users will receive their own full updates much sooner, meaning they’ll be able to enjoy all the security and privacy upgrades months in advance than Samsung Galaxy users.
It’s also not yet clear what One UI 7 will or won’t include. Google doesn’t mention Samsung in its list of early adopters for live threat detection, and the Pixel includes cellular network security, which is embarrassingly absent. It’s unlikely that Samsung will deviate any time soon, but it’s possible that the S25 will have the right hardware to make this upgrade work. I asked Samsung to clarify which of these updates will be included in its OS.
All this complexity and fragmentation doesn’t help when it comes to Android and iOS, which have a patchwork quilt of manufacturers, regions, models, and carriers. And I’ve previously commented that Google has an advantage over other OEMs because it controls its own hardware and software. With the release of Android 15, this trend is more pronounced than ever and clearly differentiates Pixel from the rest.
This is perhaps the most significant bad news for Samsung and its users, given that Google is targeting only the more premium categories dominated by Samsung and Apple, rather than the lower-end market. Both companies use security and privacy as competitive advantages. Samsung’s slow rollout of Android 15 and Google’s acceleration of Pixel upgrades could change the way users look at it. Google had a notable quarter with record sales with the launch of the Pixel 9, and now the Android 15 upgrade is being praised.
