When Samsung unveiled their KNOX security suite with the Galaxy S4, it was welcomed by many. Of course, those more interested in a custom ROM experience weren’t too impressed. For business users however, it finally offered a secure solution to use your own device, within reason. It seems like Samsung is sticking with the suite, and much like they do with other software features they’re bringing it to other Samsung smartphones.
SamMobile have been sent a leaked document that reveals which devices will be getting KNOX and with which update. Certain devices will only receive an icon to install the software, such as those in China. Also, there’s the possibility of carriers disabling the software altogether if they don’t want to join in the program. The devices that are slated for an update to Android 4.3 we already knew but, the document has a couple of surprises in it for us:
In the future, these devices will come preloaded with KNOX. From the table, it looks like devices with 1.5GB of RAM and above are the only devices able to take advantage of this suite. Which raises questions about last year’s Galaxy S III, which shipped with 2GB of RAM in the States and 1GB in Europe, so that will be interesting to see. The surprises that the document reveal is that the GS4 Mini and the Galaxy Mega are listed as getting upgraded to Android 4.4, KitKat. This isn’t too surprising as Samsung is pretty good with their updates but the Mega and the GS4 Mini are hardly high-end devices. Devices such as the Galaxy S3 and Note II will of course be getting Android 4.4 at some point next year.
The verdict is still out on KNOX at this point but, it is good to see that Samsung is moving ahead with plans they made some time ago. Software updates like this need to keep coming and we have no doubt that Samsung will keep things moving as they always do.