It ’s always a pitiful daytime in Androidland when a popular smartphone formally gain its end of life . Samsung will no longer force software update to its Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 + smartphones .
Samsungwarned usersof the eventual end when it switched the Galaxy S8 and S8 + to quarterly security update last yr . The Galaxy S8 Active will still meet quarterly updates , along with the S8 Lite , which is now on a biyearly update schedule . Both of those models establish later in the S8 lifecycle and thus have a bit more rails . If you ’re a Galaxy user , be trusted to bookmark the company’smobile updatespage for consultation .
TheGalaxy S8 and S8+launched in 2017 to great flash and groovy play . It was Samsung ’s first flagship model come after the battery - exploding fiasco of the Galaxy Note 7 . It was also one of the leading smartphones in term of design at the time , helping usher in the new era of unibody , bezel - less Android phones . Samsung kick the bucket on to sell20 million unitsof the Galaxy S8 and S8 + in its first yr .
The Galaxy S8, an impressive device when it was released in 2017, will no longer receive security updates from Samsung.Photo: Alex Cranz/Gizmodo
It ’s not clear how many current user of the Galaxy S8 the end - of - life tidings will affect , thoughrecent statsshow hoi polloi lean to reserve on to their smartphones for up to three years . Samsung promised up to four year of software support to its bequest gadget , and Google and Qualcomm havepledgedfour years of updates for Pixel gadget going forward .
Meanwhile , Apple ’s latest operating scheme , iOS 14 , supports twist dating back to the iPhone 6S , which debuted in 2015 , and those exploiter get incremental iOS update that mend security issues . Consistent package updates have always been the Achilles bounder of being an Android substance abuser , even with the legion attempts to amalgamate the huge and fragmented mobile weapons platform . Using an Android equipment without the appropriate surety patches is like riding a bike without a helmet . You might be OK get from one point to another , but when disaster come to , there ’s nothing there to cushion the shock — unless you ’re one of the many tinkerers who decide to take Android updatesinto your own hands .
Regardless , the musical theme of have a bun in the oven and reproducible software package update is always effective to hear as an Android user . It ’s also an opportunity for a manufacturer like Samsung to push its user towards upgrading models . So much has changed since the Galaxy S8 plunge , and with the transition to 5 G becoming a essence focus , it ’s not a unfit theme to get a gadget that’sfuture - proofed .
It does beg the interrogative of whether we ’ll ever slow down the rat race of smartphone upgrades . After all , even a pandemic did n’t stop Samsung from launching a barrage of new smartphones this year . And there are more forthcoming .
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