Manufacturers may be required to ‘seamless updates’; S23 first?

Manufacturers who deliver their devices with Android 13 would be obliged under the new guidelines to deliver devices with seamless updates. The so-called ‘seamless updates’ would be part of the license for Google Mobile Services. Samsung might apply this to the Galaxy S23.

Seamless updates from Android 13

Smartphones released with Android 13 or higher should, according to the new guidelines for a Google Mobile Services license, support so-called seamless updates, or seamless updates. It has been offered in Android for years, but not every manufacturer has adopted that support with its devices. Devices released with Android 13 or higher would be required to support it.

Seamless updates allow smartphones and tablets to download and install new updates in the background. They become active immediately after a restart. It should improve security as well as convenience. However, several manufacturers have not applied this, including Samsung. No device from the manufacturer has received this support. Samsung could therefore be the first to offer this with the Galaxy S23.

Seamless updates use two different partitions. The firmware is installed on the system partition. By using A and B partitions, OTA updates can easily be installed in the background. Users only lose the time for restarting the phone. Another advantage is that if the update has failed, it is easy to revert to a previous update.