Story

Samsung Galaxy S21 series doesn't support seamless updates feature of Android

Google announced seamless updates in 2016 and several OEMs including OnePlus, Motorola, and others follow it.

Samsung Galaxy S21+

Highlights

  • Samsung Galaxy S21 price in India starts at Rs 69,999.
  • Seamless updates is a handy Android feature.
  • Even the Galaxy S20 series didn't support seamless updates.

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S21 series earlier this month, and unfortunately, the phones still miss out on one of Android's best feature seamless updates. In 2016, Google introduced seamless updates for Google Pixel devices, enabling these devices to install system updates while running and installing the update after a reboot. However, Samsung has been one company that has not enabled support yet.

Several reports confirm that the new Galaxy S21 series misses the seamless updates feature. The Galaxy S21 isn't the first flagship S-series from Samsung to ditch the support as the Galaxy S20 series last year also missed out on the seamless updates feature.

Notably, Google planned to implement the seamless updates feature in Android 11 as default for all OEMs. However, the Android 11 Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) gives the seamless update a miss hinting that Google backed out after some OEMs showed no interest. A report by Android Police claims that several Android OEMs like Motorola, OnePlus, and LG support seamless updates.

"For device implementations that are launching with Android 6.0 and later, the update mechanism SHOULD support verifying that the system image is binary identical to expected result following an OTA. The block-based OTA implementation in the upstream Android Open Source Project added since Android 5.1, satisfies this requirement. Also, device implementations SHOULD support A/B system updates. The AOSP implements this feature using the boot control HAL," the Google document reads. The document doesn't emphasise the need to support A/B system update which leaves it for OEMs to decide.

What this means is Samsung Galaxy S21 (and Galaxy S20) users will have to spend time on the bootloader screen while the update package is being installed without the option to use the device at all. This shouldn't be the case, and users should at least get an option to make or take calls while the update is downloading in the background which several OEMs offer already.

In our opinion, the seamless updates feature of Android is one of the time-saving options while the device installs an update, and Samsung could have included this on its flagship devices.