Samsung stops providing security updates to the Galaxy S8 at grand old age of four years
- Reference: 1620146830
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/04/samsung_galaxy_s8_support/
- Source link:
Early signs of the phone's looming discontinuation came last March, when Samsung ceased offering monthly security updates, switching to a quarterly schedule.
By the standards of Android, four years of continuous support is good even if the S8 never received a software update beyond Android 9 Pie. By contrast, Google's Android One programme only mandates vendors to provide three years of security updates.
[3]
[4]
Still, it's not quite as impressive as [5]Fairfone's decision to continue providing the Fairfone 2 with system updates almost five years after its initial release.
Although most S8 owners have likely upgraded their devices by now (various analysts have put the refresh cycle length between 30 months and three years for premium devices), there are likely to be some holdouts given its impressive [6]first-year sales of 41 million.
The S8 has remained available for sale via third-party vendors, sometimes new, but most frequently in refurbished form. Older Galaxy devices have increasingly been positioned as a premium alternative to handsets in the sub-£300 bracket, and the Galaxy S8 remains competitive here, despite its older internals.
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Fortunately for the upgrade-averse, it's possible to upgrade the Galaxy S8 to a more modern version of Android provided you're willing to get your hands dirty. Devices running Samsung's own Exynos chips (models sold outside of North America and East Asia) can run the Lineage OS-based [8]Project Sakura third-party ROM , which brings an upgrade to Android 11.
Sadly, custom ROMs for the Qualcomm-based S8 are less common due to the prevalence of encrypted bootloaders on carrier-sold devices. ®
Get our [9]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/29/samsung_galaxy_s8/
[2] https://security.samsungmobile.com/workScope.smsb
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YJHD-xmlaROTI@lbIm5hAQAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YJHD-xmlaROTI@lbIm5hAQAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/18/fairphone_support_comment/
[6] https://bgr.com/tech/galaxy-s9-sales-are-better-than-the-galaxy-s8-but-thats-not-saying-much-5626434/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YJHD-xmlaROTI@lbIm5hAQAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://projectsakura.xyz/download.html
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: "For an Android"
> note to butthurt downvoters: your tears are delicious
To be fair, the article writers were probably hoping to avoid some loony fanboi jumping in with a FRIST POST!!1!!1 comment.
Ah well.
Equally, assuming your're talking about a certain fruity company, I'd note that there's a big difference in business models. Not least when it comes to the total number of unique handsets.
E.g. in 2020, Samsung released approximately 55 models - and that's not counting any hardware revisions or variations (e.g. Exynos vs Snapdragon, or even models where the base design gets less RAM).
https://www.samsungsfour.com/mobiles/samsung-galaxy-smartphones-complete-model-list-released-year.html
And that means that there's a hell of a lot more needed when it comes to getting software patches for all these models and variations tested and certified.
Conversely, our Fruity Friend has released just 29 different iPhone models in total - and another 21 iPad models. And I think it's safe to say that Apple's profit margins on their hardware is likely to be significantly higher than Samsung's.
Especially since - as per the current case with Epic - Apple gets a large chunk of secondary revenue from the App Store.
So yeah. I'm not entirely sure who's meant to be butthurt. From what I can see, given the different circumstances, Samsung actually look to be doing reasonably well when it comes to pushing out updates...
Re: "For an Android"
Your logic makes no sense - the Samsung is not that much cheaper.
So a samsung galaxy s8 buyer subsidised their other product launches?
I dont care to subsidise a multibillion dollar corporation's product strategy nor bottom line.
They can choose to launch 550 variants, it doesn't mean I should pay for it, nor apologise for that.
As for epic, https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/15/epic_games_google_fortnite_competition_lawsuit/
Samsung store happens to be dumb. That's their failure, it should not be their customer's.
I'm not sure how they build their software...
But I would have put together an automated build system that uses meta-data to define the various platforms so that updates only had to be applied to one set of files* for all handsets using a particular version of Android.
Sure, there will be a few "special cases" as well.
Re: "For an Android"
I’ve owned several Samsung phones over the years since about 2010. Plus Acer. Plus Nokia, plus Microsoft. The Samsung’s were lucky to receive 2-3 updates in their lives.
Three years ago I finally bought my first iPhone out of sheer curiosity as well as a smashed Microsoft phone, a 6s for just £350 new.
First released in 2015, September 25, that’s approaching 6 years. I’ve had security and functional updates every couple of months and last weekend it upgraded to iOS 14.5.1….same as a £1000+ iPhone 12 series.
Not only is the software up to date, the hardware is rock solid and in superb condition and the photos and audio remain excellent despite being 6 years old. Best phone I ever bought.
And no, I’m not a buyer of fashion, fanboy etc, just always choose function and this time i got a superb ROI for this phone primarily used for my business.
Re: "For an Android"
I would rather no updates at all than one that artificially cripples my hardware, encouraging me to replace the hardware ;)
Imagine my S5 feeling lonely
I guess this means my S5 will continue to not receive updates?
Yeah,yeah. Still works, still does what I need. I keep it as stripped down as I can and have no "apps" that come anywhere near any personal finances or health.
I'm not even sure Lineage supports it anymore though to be fair.
Re: Imagine my S5 feeling lonely
Still using an S5 here too.
I don't understand why it's legal to drop support for a durable consumer item which is less than 10 years old (in any field).
Re: Imagine my S5 feeling lonely
It does (depending on the variant): https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#samsung
Re: Imagine my S5 feeling lonely
My S5 is doing sterling work as my standby brick in case my I-toy gets nicked. My S3 still switches on but no sim currently inserted. It would be nice for a law requiring support for a minimum of 10 years & a right to repair these devices. I know - dream on !
planned obsolescence
Galaxy S8
launched
- April 2017 for $725
last full OS update
- Android 9 march 2019
security update
- EOL
iPhone 6s
launched
- Sept 2015 for $799
last full OS update
- iOS 14.5 may 2021
security updates
- current
So an iPhone older by 1.5 years, got 2 additional years of full OS updates, and is continuing to be supported. So 3.5 more years of product life than the samsung. That is nearly double of the entire support life of the S8. So an iPhone 6s at twice the price would be comparable.
These have Samsung's own Exynos so there is little excuse. The phone has 4 GB of RAM so the OS update is not limited. There are no killer features in newer phones in the last four years in Android OS to justify EOL.
A new mid tier phone released today with Android 10 is probably of comparable performance to this 4 year old Galaxy.
https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=8161&idPhone2=10574
No the S8 still performs better.
And the iPhone is still being supported, so the above comparision is going to get worse for Samsung.
So much for FOSS - I'm leaving the Android ecosystem - its clearly better for my wallet and the planet.
Re: planned obsolescence
"So much for FOSS - I'm leaving the Android ecosystem - its clearly better for my wallet and the planet"
The last thing I heard was that Google are going to be increasing their support time for Chromebooks (a good thing) whereas certain individual Android phone manufacturers, including Samsung, only offer limited time support, presumably in an attempt to boost sales, but that's not good for the customer or the environment.
Re: planned obsolescence
I'm not sure why FOSS has anything to do with Samsung's decision.
Re: planned obsolescence
It doesn't. Android as it exists in Samsung devices isn't FOSS. It's a locked-down encrypted bootloader proprietary OS that has some open source components.
What runs on Samsung phones out of the box is no more FOSS than iOS is. Here, have a kernel: https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu
Apple supports even further back than 6S
The iPhone 5S launched in Sept 2013 just received a security update TODAY - it along with the iPhone 6 is on iOS 12.x which Apple no longer supports with new features, but it still gets the same security updates as iOS 14.x.
security patches for the venerable Galaxy S8
wait! what about my S2, eh?! I'm still waiting for MY security patches. That said, it's rootable, so Samsung can foad...
The S8 might be 4 years ago since it was launched, but not everyone bought it the day it was released. When did Samsung stop manufacturing them? Or the last new one to be sold by the mobile network? I suspect its more like 3 years than 4 years ago
"signifying its end of life"
I'm sorry, the end-of-life of a product should not be when the vendor is tired of supporting it, it should be when the last example of the model has ceased functioning.
Okay, one might argue about security and such, but in that case, the vendor should be required to provide an up-to-date model at bargain price to replace the model that is no longer secure.
It's time we stop allowing companies arbitrarily decide what they wish to support. You put it out there, you deal with it until nobody is using it anymore.
Galaxy S8 User
I bought an S8 the year after they were released, because current flagship phones cost stupid money and offer nothing I want. Last years model is fine.
The hardware is pretty good, nice screen, really good camera and the fingerprint reader works most of the time. A glass back is a stupid design decision however and if you don't keep it in a case it will last 5 minutes I would think.
Samsung's take on Android has gone from being "meh" to being terrible to being great and is back to being terrible.
They made the weird decision to start playing an ad every time I opened the music app, then they put up persistent notifications about moving my data from the Samsung cloud to Microsoft's one because Samsung's is shutting down and I had a great deal of trouble turning the stupid thing off.
This will be the last Samsung phone I own, but now that The Register has pointed me to Project Sakura I can at least figure out how to unlock it and install a current OS, even if it is developed by someone called "LordShenron".
Have you actually seen the performance of a 5+ year old iPhone with the latest Software?
For all the iPhone lauders.
Your 5+ year old iPhone,
Does the battery still reasonably work and hold a decent charge?
With the latest software update does the phone still perform nicely or has it slowed down considerably?
I know few people in my friends and family that are happy with the performance of their iPhones after 4 years, let alone more. Generally a mix of either battery life / battery issues or the latest software updates making the phone crawl force them to upgrade their iphones in 3 to 4 years at the most.
Re: Have you actually seen the performance of a 5+ year old iPhone with the latest Software?
I have a 6s and an SE from 2016. Both now updated to 14.5.1 same as their latest 12 series. Works as quick as always. Batteries at 85% and 95% respectively.
I make sure my photos etc are uploaded to iCloud and OneDrive and a few times a year i hard reboot and all is well.
"For an Android"
No one dare speak of the other major mobile device vendor that is currently providing updates on even their low-end devices for 5-6 years past introduction and 2-3 years past end-of-sale, without anyone having to make a fuss about it. (note to butthurt downvoters: your tears are delicious).