Samsung is pressuring US carriers to release Android updates faster

Many of you may have wondered at some point why it often takes months after Google releases and update for Android for that update to actually make its way over to your phone. More often than not it’s the OEM that can take the blame for these delays. When companies create their own custom Android skins and features, they need to test new Android versions for issues before they can release the update. This often takes a long time, especially with US carriers, which is why Samsung wants to speed things up this year.

Like anything you read on the internet, always hedge your bets, but chatter on Reddit appears to have confirmed that early 2015 is going to be the beginning of a big push to update a lot of Samsung hardware to Android 5.0 Lollipop. The moderator “verified” Samsung “rep” shared an image of an email providing some broad strokes as to what Samsung employees needed to do to prepare for the updates which will begin in January. The email was lacking in many specifics, and the rep also provided the caveat that there was no hard-and-fast date schedule, and “milestones get missed, variables can go far left.” He did reiterate however, that if the higher-ups felt confident enough to send out this information about how to prepare retail units, then updates will be coming soon. Now we must also provide the caveat that “SES,” as referenced in the email, means Samsung Experience Store, as in what one might find in a Best Buy store. Because of that, this indirect channel communication may not be totally dialed in with what Samsung is planning. Then again, retail instructions like this are not generally outlined unless there is some expected action coming down the line.