During its SDC (Samsung Developer Conference) 2022 event, Samsung showcased One UI 5.0 and new features for Bixby, Samsung Knox, SmartThings, and Tizen. After the event, a Samsung executive revealed more about the company’s One UI 5.0 rollout plans and what it is working on for the next version of One UI.
Hyesoon (Sally) Jeong, VP at Samsung Electronics and the in-charge of One UI development, mentioned to Android Authority that the company is looking to roll out the stable version of One UI 5.0 to almost all of its compatible high-end smartphones before the end of this year.
Currently, Samsung’s phones lack Android’s Seamless Updates feature, which means that whenever a firmware update arrives, one is locked out of the phone for 10-20 minutes while the update is installed. Sally confirmed that Samsung is working on Seamless Updates for Galaxy phones and tablets. She hopes the feature will roll out as a part of the One UI 6.0 update sometime next year.
With Android 13, Google made it mandatory for smartphone OEMs to create virtual A/B partitions. So, when a firmware update arrives, it is installed in the background on a ROM partition that’s currently not being used. And when the phone is rebooted, it boots directly from the partition with the newest firmware, making the update process seamless.
The Samsung executive said that the company works very closely with Google’s Android team and contributes a lot to stock Android.
