With the Galaxy S9 being announced on February 25th, and an expected release date just three weeks later, on March 16th, it's clear that Samsung is using the availability of the latest version of Android as a selling feature. Forget the Galaxy S8 for a moment — most people updating to the S9 will be coming from an S6 or S7, which, in the case of the S6 series, won't receive Oreo at all, or receive it later this year, as promised to the S7 line. A jump to Android 8.0 out of the box, with all its performance improvements and additional features, is leverage that Samsung hopes to use to sell a few more phones.
Whenever I take this indignant stance towards Samsung's languid approach to software updates, I risk not taking the other side into account: with great power comes great responsibility. Given that Samsung has the world's largest fleet of phones waiting for updates, it must ensure that the experience is largely bug-free, with UI elements and software features adapted to its numerous regional partners. I don't envy the teams in charge of such quality assurance.
Whenever I take this indignant stance towards Samsung's languid approach to software updates, I risk not taking the other side into account: with great power comes great responsibility. Given that Samsung has the world's largest fleet of phones waiting for updates, it must ensure that the experience is largely bug-free, with UI elements and software features adapted to its numerous regional partners. I don't envy the teams in charge of such quality assurance.
