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Over the past few years, Android phones have come and gone with lengthy promises of guaranteed Android feature updates for years to come. While these promises are nice, they seem to become less meaningful as Android OS updates bring AI-driven features that aren’t always available on older phones.
Samsung is about to release One UI 6.1 to all devices that have committed to receiving the update, including those that are due for years’ worth of feature upgrades and Android version changes.
One UI 6.1 is packed with many features first introduced in the Galaxy S24 series, making it arguably the most AI-forward smartphone lineup. The list includes features like Circle to Search, Interpreter Mode, Chat Assist, and more that aim to make life a little easier using machine learning primarily running on the smartphone itself.
As the update works its way through the Galaxy lineup, the number of features available for each series has increased bit by bit. The latest series to receive the update are the Galaxy S21 models, which consist of four smartphones: the Galaxy S21, S21+, S21 Ultra, and S21 FE. What’s interesting about this update is that Samsung appears to have stripped out a fair amount of the AI version from the device-specific updates, meaning that the S21 won’t have many of the AI features found in the S23 and S22 series.
The Galaxy S21 FE is even worse, not even getting “Circle to Search,” a feature that doesn’t necessarily fall under the “Galaxy AI” suite.
The Galaxy S21 series is now in its third year since its launch and is nearing its final update, One UI 7 based on Android 15. But with One UI 6.1, most of the glitz and glamour that Samsung touts is in its AI suite, and the Android update is slimmed down to minor improvements.
This begs the question: what’s the point of promising Android updates if most of the features aren’t going to be delivered?
There could be a few ways of looking at this. From Samsung’s perspective, they may have thought it was a good idea to promise three years of updates for the S21, and in theory it was. The LLM and machine learning landscape is so fluid that most companies don’t even know what features are coming soon until hardware improvements make them possible.
On the other hand, OEMs may think that simply promising a calendar value for Android updates is enough, even if the content is insufficient.
This question is not posed to criticize the efforts of Samsung and other companies to promise updates. Rather, security updates and Android upgrades are important for performance and, of course, security. That being said, the fun part about Android upgrades is the set of features that come with them, many of which seem to revolve around AI, which each phone handles differently.
There’s no clear answer as to why Samsung decided to limit the Galaxy S21 series to Circle to Search, but it’s certainly a disappointment: as future updates are released that add more AI features, we expect phones that are guaranteed to support it to get bigger updates than Samsung’s three-year-old devices.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments: Does the promise of Android version updates mean anything to you in today’s mobile phone landscape?
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