Samsung has ended its Beta program and skipped the Android 7.0 update to directly seed the Android 7.1.1 to the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge starting January. Samsung has traditionally been the slowest to roll over to the latest version of Android, and usually the next S series launch makes the update available. However, this time it seems that the company will start pushing the update on Jan 17th in a phased manner. Meaning, not all devices will get the update at the same time.
Android Nougat 7.1.1 was made dev friendly in November and the Google Pixel devices were the first phones to run this build of Android. The new update will bring some new changes to the user interface and also enable the new multi gender emojis.
Samsung was the first company to ship multi window in their large size phones, now with the official update the S series phones will also get that ability. Samsung had recently announced that the company will skip 7.0 and seed 7.1.1 directly to keep up with the competition, thus confirming this rumour.
“We have to ensure that our final rollout of the update is free of any bugs and, and can be pushed OTA without causing damage to the devices of users Data. We have taken proper steps to ensure the rollout is smooth and the Samsung Galaxy users are happy” – Samsung India spokesperson.
Samsung is also prepping for the launch of the Galaxy S8 and S8 plus which is expected to launch in the end of February with S Pen support and a larger screen to body ratio than before. The next major Galaxy phone should be launched at MWC 2017.
