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Samsung could offer more than five years of security updates
- Samsung is apparently thinking about offering more than five years of security updates.
- The company reportedly wants to up the ante due to new regulations.
Google upped the ante in a big way last week when it confirmed that the Pixel 8 phones would receive seven years of OS and security updates. This promise handily beats Samsung, which was the previous leader among major Android brands as far as update policies were concerned.
Now, it sounds like Samsung is thinking about delivering a longer security update pledge than it currently offers. Samsung executive Shin-Chul Baik told SamMobile that the company was “actively discussing” more than five years of security updates for its phones.
Baik added that Samsung was preparing to offer more than five years of security updates due to new regulations looming. This is presumably referring to proposed EU regulations calling on companies to offer at least five years of system updates for their smartphones.
How many years of security updates do you want on a phone?
Samsung wasn’t talking about OS updates, though. So it’s possible that the company could move to more than five years of security patches while still sticking with four major OS upgrades. This would still be a positive step for the Android ecosystem given Samsung’s number-one status and the sheer number of phones in its portfolio.
Either way, we’re curious to see how Samsung could offer longer security update policies. Chipset vendors are one major challenge in this regard. Samsung indeed uses its own Exynos chips for some phones but also uses chips from Qualcomm or MediaTek in other handsets. So the Korean brand might have to convince these silicon designers to step up.