We’ve heard a lot about the Samsung Galaxy S25 series, but a new rumor has just piqued my interest. According to leaker Chun Bhai, Samsung could start offering something called “Seamless Updates” on the Galaxy S25 — something no Galaxy flagship has done to date. And it could easily fix one of the worst things about updating your phone.
Picture this. You get an alert on your phone, declaring that a new version of OneUI is available and that you should update it for one reason or another. But pushing that update through inevitably leads to not being able to use your phone for an extended period of time. Which is infuriating, especially if you’re installing a particularly meaty update that takes a long time.
Seamless updates could change all that, and bring Samsung in line with other Android phones.
S25 series support A/B updateNovember 1, 2024
Galaxy S25: What is seamless updating?
As the name suggests, Seamless Updating is supposed to be a smoother update experience. According to Bhai, Samsung will be implementing A/B updates, something Android itself has been offering ever since 2016. The idea behind it is that the software (B) downloads and installs on a separate software partition — without the current software (A) having to shut down in the process.
That means you can carry on using your phone as normal, while the phone prepares your update in the background. Once everything is ready, all it takes is a simple reboot to get everything new up and running. Your phone is still out of action for a little while during the reboot, but not for any longer than it would typically take to restart your device.
If you tend to have your phones update overnight, or some other time where it’s otherwise left unused, this is probably going to be of limited interest. But that doesn’t change the fact that this is definitely a good thing, and should make the process of updating your Samsung Galaxy a lot less painful than it has over the past several years.
Samsung’s catching up
Other Android phone users may not be aware that this has ever been a problem for Samsung phones. I use a Pixel 9 Pro a lot of the time, and I’ve always found that updates are pretty painless endeavors. They can take a while to download, which can be frustrating if I need to check for a new feature or bug that may have been rolling out. But the phone itself is still completely operational the entire time.
So I can receive calls, send text messages, or mindlessly browse Reddit and bombard my group chats with stupid memes. The phone is only out of commission for about a minute, and there’s no point where you stare at the screen waiting for a progress bar to slowly inch forward because you need your phone to get something done.
This is not the case with my Apple devices, I can tell you that much. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to update an iPhone or iPad, and the whole process has taken an age because of the extended restart time. Frankly, I don't understand why Apple hasn’t adopted a similar approach to Google, especially since Apple has total control over its update cycle and can roll out new software to its entire customer base pretty quickly.
Still, Samsung has less of an excuse to be taking this long to adopt seamless updates. It’s been 8 years since support for it first arrived on Android phones, and so far only a single Samsung phone has bothered with it — the recently-released Samsung Galaxy A55. Oh, and that phone wasn’t even released in the U.S., meaning American Samsung fans have yet to experience a less obtrusive update system.
Bottom line
We already know a lot about the Samsung Galaxy S25 series, and the rumored upgrades coming to the phone. We know about the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which promises to offer an enormous boost to performance, while the Galaxy S25 Utra could come packing an upgraded camera system. If rumors are to be believed we could see the Ultra come with a 50MP ultrawide camera and potentially a single telephoto lens with variable zoom.
But in an age where phone hardware upgrades are increasingly incremental, and not all that exciting, software capabilities are increasingly important — especially with the advent of Galaxy AI. Ensuring that this software can get updated more easily is definitely a good thing. Especially since painful updates are likely to stop people from actually installing them — just look at Windows 11 24H2.
While there’s still a chance this rumor turns out to be bogus, the fact that Samsung has offered seamless updates in the Galaxy A55 does suggest things are turning around. It’s just a shame it’s taken until the Galaxy S25 to make it happen. But, better now than never.
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- Samsung's next foldable flip phone might be cheaper than you think — here's what we know
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- Forget all other Galaxy S25 rumors — this one feature will make or break Samsung's next flagship
