Samsung has announced that they will be rolling out Android Oreo to the U.S. unlocked Snapdragon Samsung Galaxy S8, Samsung Galaxy S8+, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 within the next 2-3 weeks. Carrier models of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ started to receive this update starting last week and have been rolling out since. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8, both carrier and unlocked models, hasn’t received any official builds of Android Oreo yet, but there have been many leaked builds of it.
Android Oreo has many new features such as picture-in-picture mode, notification channels, background app optimizations, notification snoozing, and more. There are also plenty of Samsung-specific changes with Samsung Experience 9.0.
Credits: Reddit user /u/bigmoe_7
This might come as a surprise to people that the unlocked models are getting the update weeks after the carrier models, but in the post on the Samsung+ forums, they explain why. For a carrier firmware to be released, Samsung needs to develop the firmware then send it off to the carrier to test on their own network and release on their own. However, when Samsung releases updates to unlocked devices the company needs to develop the software then every carrier that it supports needs to test and verify it. That means Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T and all the other carriers need to approve the same version of the software. This can cause issues because if there is an issue with one carrier, the software needs to be re-tested for all other carriers. After it has been tested and approved by all carriers, it is released to all eligible devices.
That being said, Samsung has still taken their sweet time releasing updates to the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, and Galaxy Note 8, so this explanation doesn’t excuse the fact that the initial release for any model has taken so long. At least finally, users with the unlocked Snapdragon Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, and Galaxy Note 8 should expect official Android Oreo to be rolling out to their phones within the next 2-3 weeks.