This story was updated on January 18th. Update below.
Supporting your expensive phone with several years of operating system updates is, fortunately, in vogue. Samsung joins Google and Apple in promising at least seven generations of Android updates and seven years of security patches for the Galaxy S24.
This is a huge step for the company, which currently offers four years of OS updates for the Galaxy S23 and other select Samsung handsets. In 2021 the Korean company was offering three years of Android support for its phones, so the new policy is a significant improvement from just a few years ago.
This is welcome news for all Android users because other companies will follow suit. After Samsung announced in 2022 that it was extending its level of software support to at least four years, OnePlus matched the policy later that year. The days of promising one Android update for an expensive phone is over. It took the threat of Google’s seven-year promise of parts, security patches and OS updates for Samsung to act—or react—but we got there in the end.
What’s not clear is if Samsung will support the Galaxy S24 with seven years of spare parts, too (I have asked), like Google does for the Pixel 8. This is a key piece of Google’s offer when it comes to challenging the iPhone 15, which is blighted with locked software that makes it awkward to repair without Apple’s authorization. We will have to wait to see if Samsung has pulled a similar software lockdown trick with the Galaxy S24 when one of the knife-wielding YouTubers does a teardown.
We also don’t know if Samsung will be extending this new policy to other Galaxy phones. It did precisely this in 2022 by adding more support to existing devices. I have asked Samsung if that’s the plan, and I will update this story once I receive a response.
In the small print of the press release there’s an important detail to note, which says that “availability and timing of Android OS upgrades and security updates may vary by device model.” The new update policy may not apply to every Galaxy S24 model or every region; we’ll have to see how Samsung expands on that.
Despite the phone’s new AI abilities and improved hardware, this is quietly the most important upgrade because it represents true value for money. Your Galaxy S24 should still be alive and kicking in 2031, which shouldn’t be a shocking sentence to read considering the phone costs over $1,000.
All phone manufacturers have been talking up their environmental credentials in recent years. Indeed, Samsung says that the S24 range includes more recycled materials in its design and components. But how long the phone lasts has been a sticking point for Android phone makers, who have happily dabbled in creating disposable handsets for years. The new update policy is an integral piece of the environmental puzzle that could no longer be ignored.
Update January 18th: Samsung didn’t get back to me about how it was able to extend its Android support policy, but an interesting tidbit in the terms and conditions on the Galaxy S24 webpage (spotted by TechRadar) might offer some insight.
“Galaxy AI features will be provided for free until the end of 2025,” the T&Cs read. That obviously opens up the possibility that the Korean company could charge for certain AI features that it announced yesterday, like Live Translate and Chat Assist. This may well be the price for that longer support. Samsung can recoup some costs for keeping your device up to date—and keeping those AI services running—through a regular subscription to some core device functionality.
I made this point in a recent story about Google’s revamped services. The company is in the middle of an aggressive marketing campaign and running several serious discounts to its Pixel 8 range. At the same time it has revamped services like YouTube Premium, Google Podcasts and Assistant—it also ran a big discount for Play Pass. There’s a good chance we’ll see a paid-for version of Bard soon, too. The goal isn’t just to sell people a phone, but also get them into as many subscriptions as possible inside of Google’s ecosystem.
Both Google and Samsung have announced seven years of software support for their devices in the same launch cycle, and both are flirting with paywalled AI services. This is a glimpse into a very near future and perhaps an explanation for how these companies can pay for nearly a decade of software support.
