Apple updates seem to rollout much faster, with fewer impediments from carriers. Why can’t this be the case with Samsung phones after Samsung has tested the update? Why the extra barrier for Android phones?
Apple updates seem to rollout much faster, with fewer impediments from carriers. Why can’t this be the case with Samsung phones after Samsung has tested the update? Why the extra barrier for Android phones?
I absolutely agree that the US carriers slow down releases, and make them worse at the same time. But something I didn’t see mentioned here is that Samsung releases updates for different models at different times. For example the S23 series gets updated first, followed by 5 series foldables and the S22 series, then the 4 series foldables and s21 series etc. and this is all looking strictly at unlocked models with no carrier interference.
I understand carriers getting in the way, but I think it’s fair to question why Samsung models have a tiered rollout compared to Apple updating all models at the same time.
I believe part of it is due to how similar the Apple models are from one year to the next 5 years.
Samsung has a rather different feature set across the models (even in the early years). Not to mention, rather different hardware across the models (in the early years). With a different mentality on software updates in the past, and for long term manageability, I understood that they have different teams in charge of the updates for each phone model.
It’ll be a case of getting the apps/software working for the one with the best and latest set of technology, then selectively dumb down or restrict usability for each subsequent model.
Til they do a massive re-org, I doubt the distribution method can easily change.
Resource allocation. You can’t keep a massive team to maintain operating systems for different lineups. Even if they did, coordination would be a nightmare to give the same experience across different devices i.e, one having an issue for something which the other does not. Plus it’s a business, Samsung needs to make a profit for doing all this else it’s a moot point. So you first develop on the common codebase and then tackle device specific features. 50-70% of the developers would be the same who will work on these devices. So you need to stagger the releases simply because you don’t or in fact can’t have separate resources which the Apple can afford with just one lineup.