For a company normally pretty well put together, two things didn't go great for the (intermittently) largest mobile OEM in the world. First was that it made a mess of its One UI 7 release schedule. While other OEMs got Android 15 rolling out to their most popular phones before the year ended, Samsung will only start its stable One UI 7 to older devices today.
The second thing is Android 16 won't release as late in the year as its predecessor did. The window between last year's major Android release and the imminent one is set to be shorter than usual, by more than a full quarter. To get back on track with software, it looks like the Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 will launch with One UI 8 out of the box, an atypical move.
No Incremental Update for Samsung's Foldables This Year; Z Flip 7, Z Fold 7 Will Launch With One UI 8
If you're a smartphone enthusiast, then you almost certainly know about Samsung's mess of a One UI 7 release program. Users were left waiting over half a year since the new software was made available, even if they spent as much as $1,000+ on last year's S24 Ultra.
That aside, Google also made clear its intentions to release Android 16 in the first half of the year as opposed to the second half, in order to allow the bulk of flagship releases to ship with the new OS out of the box. While this isn't much of a problem for other OEMs who had no problems releasing their respective takes on Android 15, it was going to present a problem for the one major OEM that was lagging behind.
As a result, Samsung has decided to fast track things. The OEM would traditionally still have One UI 7.1 and One UI 7.1.1 to release before Android 16. However, since Android 16 is in a few months and so are the new foldables, Samsung has decided to synchronize and launch those devices with One UI 8, according to SamMobile. That's certainly good news, and almost certainly necessary considering the spot that Samsung is currently in.
Samsung's One UI 7 Launch Was a Pretty Notable Mess
Ever since Samsung introduced foldables into its smartphone family, it has had to shake up how it paces its Android releases each year. Typically, the big release, coinciding with the next big Android version, would come sometime in the final quarter of the year. The new lineup of S flagships would bring a minor x.1 update, and the foldables would then bring an x.1.1 update.
With that in mind, everyone expected stable One UI 7 to begin rolling out before the end of 2024. Other OEMs managed to make things happen like that, but Samsung seemed to have a very hard time with that. Today marks the first day of the official One UI 7 release schedule, so at least there's that, but it can't be denied that the release was botched and has left a sour taste behind.
There's little room for Samsung to release One UI 7.1 before its foldables launch in June or July, and with an earlier-than-expected Android 16 release, the brand was likely going to have to switch things up anyway.
