Samsung Galaxy S8 & Note 8 One UI 2.0: Change.org petitions for Android 10 signed by thousands

For anyone that has been following the smartphone industry in the past decade, it is clear than one area where Android has been falling short, compared to its competitor, Apple’s iOS is updates. On iOS, as soon as an update is rolled out, all eligible devices get the update.

On the eligibility front, Apple supports its devices much longer than any Android phone maker does. This means in 2020, Apple supports devices as old as the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus that were launched back in 2015. The best that many phonemakers can do, including Google is 3 years.

A device caught in this predicament is the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the S8 plus, and the bigger cousin, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. Launched back in 2017, these devices remain solid choices even today, powered by the very capable Snapdragon 835 that is still very relevant even today.

However, chances are that the device will not get updated to Android 10. Reason being that Samsung routinely supports its devices for not more than two major OS upgrades. These devices launched with Android 7 Nougat and have since been updated to Android 8 Oreo and they currently stand at Android 9 Pie.

According to Samsung, this is as far as they are willing to support these devices, a fact that is not sitting well with the millions of users across the globe who own these devices.

These irate users have decided to do something about this state of affairs and they have resorted to Change.org in a bid to petition Samsung to update their devices to OneUI 2.0, Samsungs new skin built on top of Android 10.

Every year Samsung Electronics releases a flagship line of phones called the “S Series” and “Note Series”. These devices have been steadily climbing in price with each release. Samsung released the Galaxy Note 8 in 2017 with a starting price of $1,000. They have provided just two system updates to this device and it is about to be obsolete in just about a year due to their decisions on software releases. This phone will not be receiving the latest Android 10 software update. With this decision, they are creating not only dissatisfied customers but also creating more environmental waste by forcing people to ditch their 2-year-old phones for their latest ones.
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These users are asking Samsung to commit to update and support these devices for at least 5 years. Compared to what Apple is doing, these Samsung users might actually have valid points.

The choice to leave these devices that are still rather capable, at Android 9 Pie might appear unreasonable, especially bearing in mind that devices from competing OEMs that were launched in the same era (OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T, Google Pixel) that also run on Snapdragon 835, have already been updated to Android 10.

As at the time of writing, these petitions had gunned 1,242, 1,210 and 142 signatures from people in support of the course.

Whether Samsung decides to oblige and update these devices to Android 10 remains to be seen. However, seeing the sheer number of devices from older flagships to popular midrange devices that Samsung needs to support and update, this might be difficult for Samsung to do.

Aftermarket options like Lineage OS, Ressurection Remix and Pixel Experience custom ROMs still offer users to, unofficially, get a taste of the newer version of Android on their devices, albeit with a few caveats.

NOTE: We have these and more stories in our dedicated Samsung Section.

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