Practically eight years after the function was introduced, Samsung has lastly adopted Seamless Updates, a function introduced by Google with Android Nougat in 2016. The function makes the replace course of appear so much faster and with out requiring a consumer to blankly stare at an replace display for a number of minutes whereas the cellphone will get up to date. Sadly, this is not a function that has been made accessible for all Samsung units however from what we have now learnt, is simply restricted to the newly launched Galaxy A55 5G smartphone.
Other than adopting a barely totally different design in comparison with different Samsung smartphones and utilizing Exynos processors, Samsung’s Galaxy A55 5G can be the primary Samsung smartphone to supply Seamless Updates. First reported by The Cell Indian, the report claims that function was seen after the set up of the March 2024 safety patch on their Galaxy A55 5G unit. The software program updates thereon confirmed two levels of set up with the primary stage being “Downloading and Putting in” whereas the second was a “Verification stage”. Put up this, all of the cellphone wanted was a restart to finish the replace course of. Devices 360 was in a position to verify this independently.
What are Seamless Updates?
Practically eight years have handed since Google launched and adopted the function. The Seamless Updates or A/B system updates have extra advantages than downsides in comparison with common updates or A system updates, however general are extra about comfort.
Seamless Updates, mainly lets a consumer use his/her gadget whereas the software program replace will get put in within the background. This reduces the standard downtime that customers face whereas a cellphone with out the function will get up to date, and which means calls, messaging and different apps are unavailable throughout the usual replace course of because the cellphone will normally show an replace display with a progress bar. Whereas this is not an issue with tiny safety patches, larger software program updates do take some time. Seamless Updates also called A/B system updates usually are not essentially about velocity however extra about comfort. The replace course of is normally slower (because it occurs within the background) and all it wants is a restart every time the consumer has the time to take a break.
How does Seamless Updates work?
That is all attainable because of A/B partitions which might imply that Seamless Updates want extra space. Nevertheless additionally it is attainable for OTA updates to be streamed (since Android 8.0) onto the B partition lowering the necessity to have a replica of the replace previous to set up however simply area for metadata (simply 100 kiB or 0.1 megabyte).
Throughout the replace course of, the brand new software program replace will get downloaded and put in on partition B, whereas partition A is busy operating the at the moment accessible software program for the consumer. As soon as the set up course of is checked and full on partition B, the system merely has to reboot after which switches to partition B, making partition A inactive and open for an additional replace.
The fantastic thing about the A/B course of is that if at any level the freshy downloaded replace fails, the system can reboot again to partition A (the older/present replace) and life goes on as standard with the cellphone rebooting to the older software program and the consumer not ending up with a damaged cellphone. Within the occasion of a failed set up on a daily A-only system replace, the consumer additionally dangers dropping all private knowledge (if not backed up elsewhere).
Samsung is certainly one of many final huge smartphone producers to change to Seamless Updates. At the moment plenty of manufacturers like Google’s Pixel, Motorola, Nokia (now HMD), OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Sony, and Xiaomi assist it.
