Samsung is preparing for the release of the official, public Android 8.0 Oreo update for the Galaxy S8 flagship series, and while the OEM still doesn’t have an exact date for when Oreo will arrive, it recently reassured its Beta program participants that they will be the first to receive the initial public build. More specifically, beta testers will receive the official Android Oreo public version one day ahead of non-testers once the rollout starts in the coming weeks. The information was shared by Samsung through a notification sent recently to beta participants, and according to the same notice, Samsung is looking to start distributing the new software as quickly as possible.
Samsung has been actively working on testing Android 8.0 Oreo and Samsung Experience 9.0 for the Galaxy S8 flagship series since November. The beta program encompassed multiple stages of development, and after some hurdles leading to the beta distribution being put on hold in the United States, Samsung revealed its intentions to conclude the beta period on January 15th. This hasn’t come to pass as the OEM postponed this date and moved it back to January 17th, only for it to be pushed back once again to the 26th of the month. Although the beta program didn’t seem to have gone as well as Samsung may have hoped, the testing period now finally came to an end, leading to the recent notice informing testers of their planned one-day head start.
In the meantime, Samsung is also preparing for the release of a direct sequel to last year’s flagship lineup. The OEM recently confirmed that it will attend Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, near the end of February, and given the press invites sent out by the company, it’s likely that the Samsung Galaxy S9 series will be the star of the show. The upcoming device is expected to run Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box but it remains to be seen if the proprietary Samsung Experience Android skin will also be bumped to a newer version with more features and improvements. Samsung’s MWC 2018 conference is scheduled to take place on February 25th.