Samsung has been a very busy bee lately when it comes to updating their devices. In the past year or two Samsung had taken the lead in upgrading most of their flagship devices to newer versions of Android before any other manufacturer. That lead has been slipping lately thanks to how long it’s been taking to get the official Android 4.3 update out to the Galaxy S III, Note II and S4. Early October was when HTC started rolling out the Android 4.3 update for all customers worldwide including US customers, and right now Motorola is testing the official Android 4.4 KitKat update for the Moto X too. With that being said if you’re still running the official firmware, your Galaxy S4 is still on Android 4.2, and your Note II and S III are still on Android 4.1. Samsung has the Android 4.3 update ready and beginning to roll out for the Galaxy Note II in Europe right now, but seem to be having a bit of a problem with the same update for the S III and S4. Just yesterday AT&T pulled the update for the S4, although there had been no complaints of problems that we’d heard of, and 6 days ago Samsung pulled the update for the S III citing major problems. Now we’re getting official confirmation and a statement from SamMobile regarding the Galaxy S III update and why it’s been pulled:
“As we are currently investigating the reported issues with Galaxy S3 4.3 Jelly Bean update, the upgrading service has been temporarily suspended. We are committed to providing customers with the best possible mobile experience, and will ensure to resume the upgrading service at the earliest possibility.” – Samsung Mobile UK
While this isn’t exactly a great explanation of what’s going on, it is straight from the horse’s mouth. After updating to the official release, many users were complaining of really long wake up times for the device, random freezing and battery drain among the more serious problems. Other users were experiencing audio problems including Bluetooth audio playback problems and stuttering when listening to music in general. Then there’s been issues with multi-tasking where apps would constantly have to reload when switching back and forth, and some phones would even get a black screen of death when a call is received. Last but not least were WiFi issues, although those have cropped up in plenty of Android 4.3 updates for other phones too. Basically the phone is completely useless if it receives this update, and we’d hope that Samsung support would be replacing these devices until they get their act together. Considering I’m running Android 4.4 KitKat on my Galaxy S III via CyanogenMod 11, Samsung’s got a lot of explaining to do as to why they couldn’t get the 4.3 update out without problems. Let’s just hope this isn’t a sign of things to come for Galaxy S4 and Note II owners as their updates begin to roll out now.