In typical fashion, Samsung wowed the whole world with its new fleet of flagship phones, the new S22 lineup. Of course, it is the larger S22 Ultra that made the headlines, with its behemoth form factor housing a sleek stylus on its side, along with a slew of exclusive features and a unique design that sets it away from its relatively smaller S22 siblings. However, Samsung has managed to do something few of us would have imagined. Despite Google’s recent endeavors in the Pixel 6 series to assume the default choice of Android, Samsung may have just stolen Google’s thunder with its release of the S22 line.
Software support — a surprising change of tide
Compared to the Cupertino giant, this has been one of the weak points of Android smartphones in general — the 7-year-old iPhone 6s has just been updated to iOS 15.3.1, the latest stable iOS update that has been pushed to the iPhone 13 series. Still, there have been some notable improvements as Google has committed to providing 3 years of major software updates and 2 further years of security updates to its Pixel 6 series. Many OEMs have been inspired by Google’s commitment, with Oppo committing to providing three generations of Android updates for its flagship X series going forward. Chief among those inspired by Google’s commitment is none other than the South Korean giant. This year, Samsung has even upstaged Google by promising four years of major Android updates, followed by another year of security updates for its newly released Galaxy S22 family, as well as its preceding Galaxy S21 lineup. This is a very impressive feat considering how heavily-altered their OneUI skinned version of Android is. The S20 and Note 20 series are still entitled to receive ‘only’ three generations of Android updates as initially promised by Samsung, which is the same software support guaranteed by Google for its newer flagships. Not only does this put its competitors to shame (look away, OnePlus), Samsung has even managed to blow Google out of the park ruthlessly. Not only that, Samsung continues to consistently release its monthly security patches to its flagship phones in an almost as timely manner as Google, if not even besting it out occasionally. Compared to its other contenders, Samsung’s endeavors are simply outrageous. And when you consider their timely manner in delivering these updates, it almost feels as if Samsung has had its hands on some sort of a cheat code. Long may it continue, it’s a huge breath of fresh air to see such a dramatic improvement from a company that was well-known for dumping its flagships so fast.
Stability and performance — irony abounds
Apart from the timeliness of these updates, the stability of said updates is a whole different matter to deal with. Take OnePlus, a company that seemed so rushed to push its Android 12 update to the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro, only to halt the software update to resolve the glaring issues this update has brought. Of course, being first to push any updates matters, but so does its stability. Once again Samsung managed to score incredibly high on this front, taking matters into their own hands, whereas it has become some sort of a lottery of wondering what is going to break next with every monthly security update pushed to the Pixel 6 series. The reason it has become quite laughable is that Google’s Pixel 6 phones were built around 2 distinct features: camera performance and software support. In other words, software support, in terms of longevity, promptness, and quality, is arguably the phone’s main selling point. At the moment, Google is no longer the benchmark to which we compare other OEMs regarding software updates. Samsung has, very much, usurped the throne Google has been claiming for so long.
Exclusive features from Google
Usually, Google’s Pixel devices boast a fair share of exclusive software features, at least for some time before they are spread across the other Android phones. This year, it is quite the opposite, as three of Google’s new features for Duo made their debut exclusively on the Galaxy S22 series, namely Duo Live, YouTube Previews in Google Messages, and Voice Access support built-in. While it is quite impressive to see OEMs working closely with Google to adopt new features, it is quite interesting to see Google sidestepping its own phones and debuting new features exclusive to now one of its big contenders. It will be quite interesting to see how this situation further develops and whether we will be seeing further collaborations between Google and other OEMs in the same manner.
It’s not all roses
There is no doubt that, with the release of the Galaxy S22 series, Samsung has cast a great shadow over Google’s software support with its recent endeavors. However, it has not been all smooth sailing for Samsung, at least in Europe. Surprisingly, Samsung chose to only release its Exynos-powered variants in Europe. Unfortunately, as most would expect, the Exynos-powered S22 phones have been marred with performance and stability issues. Elsewhere, several Galaxy A52s 5G users have reported numerous issues after updating to the latest OneUI 4.0 update. Then there is the matter of Samsung allegedly throttling thousands of apps deliberately without user consent on its flagship phones, which some may consider pretty scandalous. It seems that Samsung has indeed encountered a couple of bumps down the highway road to software support supremacy. With that said, I think Samsung’s recent endeavors are more than enough to warrant its title of the default Android phone.
Featured-Image: The Verge
