Many owners of Samsung Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 4 and the Galaxy Note Edge are eagerly waiting for the official release of Android 6.0 Marshmallow update. Before this comes, Samsung has begun rolling out a new security update to these handsets.
The security updates for these rather older Samsung Galaxy devices comes in to apply this month’s Android security patch as it prepares the phones for the soon-to-come Marshmallow update. The new patch, however, is currently headed to a number of select regions in Europe, among them the Netherlands and the UK. There is currently no word on when the update will come to the U.S. and other regions where the Galaxy S5, Note Edge and Note 4 are also being used.
Is it a counter-action by Samsung?
Samsung and other Android OEMs have been criticized for delaying the rollout of software updates to their devices. At the moment, Android 6.0 Marshmallow runs on less than 2% of all Android devices, yet it has been around for more than five months. Google’s Nexus line of devices received the update last year, but a good number of Samsung devices, including last year’s Galaxy S6, have yet to receive the update in quite a number of regions around the world.
This has even led to Samsung being sued by the Dutch Consumers’ Association, something is believed to have had a hand in the Korean company’s decision to push its latest security updates to this region first before moving on to other regions. Well, this is just speculation since it is not the first time Samsung will be rolling out its updates in a sporadic manner – it has always been its way of doing things across Europe.
Whether Samsung is pushing Android security updates to Samsung Galaxy S5, Note Edge and the Note 4 in Netherlands and the UK due to the pressure from the association or not, what remains to be an achievement for Samsung is to see it start taking care of its older smartphones. As mentioned at the beginning, every person using a Galaxy S5 or Note 4 is hoping for the day they see the OTA notification asking them to download the latest version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. But with this security update, at least, owners of these devices will address critical vulnerabilities on web browsing or MMS services, among others.
For those living in the Netherlands and the UK, keep checking your notifications panel for the OTA update on your Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note Edge and Galaxy Note 4. Hopefully, it won’t be long before the update comes to the United States and other regions across the globe.