Tech
Worst to Best Update Policy- Samsung now surely is a ruler in the Android World
South Korea-based multinational tech company Samsung has seen numerous ups and downs in the previous years. From being the worst and most negligent update provider in the past to becoming the Android World leader in this league, Samsung surely came a long way. Samsung is now in that place where its current update promises are being adapted by other manufacturers like OnePlus as well. It clearly shows that the South Korean firm has now reached a position where being beaten up by any other is too challenging.
It is not hideous that Samsung once was a very irresponsible update provider and hadn’t sustained a good track record in the past. Previously, Samsung had not been aware of new updates and innovations in its Galaxy devices. But as time passed, the South Korean firm was upgraded and ended up being the ideal for the whole Android World. Samsung was the first who promise a four-generation OS and five years of security updates to its devices.
Earlier than last year, the South Korean company made an announcement regarding its update policy. At that time, the company had promised three-generation OS updates and four years of security updates to its select mid-range and flagship devices when nearly every other OEM was providing only two major OS upgrades. Albeit the company killed this three-year OS update policy last year with its new more-beneficial update policy, Samsung has been leading this race since then.
No one match Samsung’s software update policy
Hardly just after a year of this announcement, the company introduced its new update policy last year. According to this new policy, the select eligible Galaxy device will now be able to get four major OS updates and five years of security updates. Back then, even Google, who is the founder of Android OS, did not promise to take the update policy that far, and neither did the other OEMs. With this irreversible step, the company has left no choice to its rival Android provider other than to walk in its footsteps.
OnePlus also joins the same but?
After all, the Chinese manufacturer OnePlus has recently announced the same policy as Samsung. Now One Plus also tends to deliver four major OS and five years of security updates to its select devices. However, the manufacturer still hasn’t cleared which of its devices are lined up to join this update category. Apart from Samsung and OnePlus, leaving the other OEMs on the side, even Google has not taken this step this far and currently promised only three major OS updates for its Pixel phones. Hence, it proves Samsung has now been the best update provider across the Android industry.
Gratefully, this update policy generated by Samsung may also be helpful with environmental perspectives. As the manufacturers now will deliver more updates to their devices, there is no longer the need for replacements. Because the users will get newer service in their old model devices too, there may be no need to change the phone in a short span; consequently, it will reduce the amount of e-waste, which will be satisfactory for the environment.
Google’s Android ecosystem is always reliable for users, whether it comes to customization or availability, but it sometimes lacks in the security department. However, the company is improving in this department, and over the years, it has been dedicatedly working towards it. Now a new report also specifies the improvement.
Google has recently published a post where it shared details about the encounter with the application that hasn’t followed the terms and conditions of the Play Store.
According to the report, Google has detected 2.28 million apps that have violated the rules, and therefore, the developers are not able to publish them on the Play Store. This is all possible due to the company’s continuous effort, which developed the mechanism.
Along with this, there are almost 200000 applications detected that did not follow the rules and did not guarantee the correct use of sensitive permissions, and there are more than 330000 accounts that were banned for violations that were severe and repeated or the presence of malware in published apps.
In a recent report, the company also mentioned that there are almost 1.5 million old applications that lack the support of the recent APIs, and therefore they are not available for users who are using the latest version of Android. Additionally, Google Play Protect and real-time app scanning have allowed the Mountain View giant to identify over 5 million dangerous applications that are downloaded unofficially. For more information, you can read the full official post via this link.
Google and Samsung are coming together as their partnership goes beyond Android. On one side, Pixel smartphone devices use Samsung-manufactured Tensor chips; on the other hand, Smsung’s flagship Galaxy smartphones have AI features, like Circle to Search, noticeably before even the Pixel 8 series got this novelty.
In the report it is being unveiled, Rick Osteroh, SVP of platforms and devices at Google, stated that the brand’s “partnership has never been stronger.” A post on X shared by @rosterloh pointed to a positive meeting between TM Roh and @SamsungMobile leadership. It highlights a strong partnership between both and excitement about future collaborations, particularly in the area of AI.
Following the statement, he also attached a selfie with TM Roh, president and head of MX Business at Samsung Electronics.
Then, @SamsungMobile reposted Osterloh’s post and teased that both brands are actively working on expanding the functionalities of AI features for Android and Galaxy devices to enhance Galaxy experiences.
Google has already announced at the last Galaxy Unpacked event, back in January in San Jose, that the Samsung Galaxy S24 series will use Gemini AI models to power the forthcoming AI capabilities in the applications and services built by the Korean giant. The brand also brought new functionalities for Google Messages and Android Auto, powered by Gemini Nano.
For enhancing the summarizing facility, Samsung’s Smarter Notes, Voice Recorder, and Keyboard applications use the AI model Gemini Pro, whereas the Galaxy S24 series smartphones use Imagen 2 text-to-image technology to offer “Generative Edit” features in the Gallery application for upgrading photo editing.
Finally, Qualcomm has debuted its new ARM-based processor, the Snapdragon X Plus, designed for laptops. We anticipate Samsung to incorporate this chipset into its upcoming laptops.
However, this new chipset appears a bit below the company’s high-end laptop chipset, the Snapdragon X Elite, which was unveiled a few months ago and is expected to be used in Samsung’s forthcoming Galaxy Book 4 Edge.
The Snapdragon X Plus is a 4nm chip with a 10-core CPU. The Snapdragon X Elite and this newly launched chipset use the same Oryon CPU cores. This chipset is expected to be used in more affordable laptops running on the Windows OS. The CPU of this chipset operates at 3.4GHz, while the Snapdragon X Elite clocks at 3.8GHz.
Snapdragon X Plus’ integrated Adreno GPU has 3.8 TFLOPS of power, which could be equivalent to the Intel Core Ultra 7 series. The noticeable thing that remained constant in this new chipset is its NPU, which still offers 45 TOPS performance for on-device AI inference, similar to the Snapdragon X Elite.
This qualifies the chip as an AI chip, according to Microsoft Copilot’s minimum requirement of 40 TOPS. The brand has assured that the Snapdragon X Plus delivers 10% faster CPU performance than Apple’s M3 chipset while running at the same power. On the other hand, the Snapdragon chip claims to be 37% faster at the same wattage as the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H. This chip is expected to appear in laptops and will debut in the second half of this year.
Previously, Samsung has used Qualcomm’s top-of-the-line and mid-range Snapdragon chipset in its ARM laptops, and the giant has already unveiled that the forthcoming Galaxy Book 4 Edge will use the Snapdragon X Elite. Given this fact, it is quite possible that the brand could launch a more affordable Galaxy Book 4 series laptop with the Snapdragon X Plus.