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“Seamless updates” is a great Android feature that the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra still doesn’t have

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Ricky 26 January 2021

Google Android Samsung Firmware updates

'Seamless updates', first introduced back in 2016 and arrived on every Google Pixel phone, allows for firmware updates to be installed to a secondary partition while the phone remains in use. This eliminates downtime between firmware updates to a single reboot, after which the secondary partition becomes the main one and the update has already completed. This also acts as a failsafe in case an update goes wrong – the system can fall back on the previous partition.

Update notification on a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Update notification on a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra

Google has backed off on this requirement since it’s no longer in the Android CDD (Compatibility Definition Document). The CDD acts as a guideline for Android OEMs and lists what Google requires from OEMs for their devices to be compatible with the newest version of Android.

It’s presumed that the requirement was backed off by pressure from OEMs like Samsung, who’s latest Galaxy S21 smartphones do not have the framework to support seamless updates. Android Police has confirmed that the new Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra does not support the feature. While Google had previously planned to require the feature, it is now mentioned in the CDD that OEMs “SHOULD” support a/b system updates. The “a” and “b” refer to the identical partitions that alternate between firmware updates.

“Seamless updates” is a great Android feature that the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra still doesn’t have

Without seamless updates, an Android device will need to spend several minutes of downtime on a bootloader screen, without the ability to use any applications or make any phone calls, even of the emergency kind. Samsung’s reasoning for delaying such a feature is unknown.

Source • Via

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Reader comments

s
  • sean
  • rVi
  • 08 Jul 2021

First off when it comes to this, I'll take the space savings over having two OS images on the phone's storage. The update times aren't that long, and even when it's an OS upgrade I have my Note 20 Ultra set to just check for and i...

  • Reply
L
  • LowNitro
  • L3@
  • 30 Mar 2021

I guess people with 128GB+ (maybe 64GB+) phones wouldn't need to care about less than 0,5GB less space in change for seamless updates.

  • Reply
D
  • Duck of death
  • m2A
  • 27 Jan 2021

Why don't you just log on with your usual astroturfer accounts instead of being a neutered anon poster? Apple, the OG QAnon....

  • Reply
  • Read all comments
  • Post your comment
Total reader comments: 64

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