Samsung's roadmap means no Android 10 for its 2017 flagships

If you own one of the Samsung Galaxy S8 phones or the Galaxy Note 8, we have some bad news to pass along to you. Just the other day, we showed you an Android 10 update roadmap released by Samsung Israel and neither of these series were on it. This is not a total surprise as Samsung's handsets usually receive two major Android updates; both the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8 lines were released in 2017 with Android 7 Nougat pre-installed and were subsequently updated to Android 8 Oreo and Android 9 Pie. 

SamMobile reported last week that a Galaxy S8 owner was told by a Samsung customer service rep that the line was going to receive the latest version of Android, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all. Android 10 is part of the One UI 2.0 update for Samsung users and is currently in beta; a final version is expected to start rolling out at the beginning of next year.

So this means that Samsung's 2018 and 2019 flagships will be receiving Android 10 roughly four months after certain phones like the Pixel family and the Essential Phone received the new version of Android. It must be pointed out that the original Pixel was released half a year before the Galaxy S8 and has received three major updates (Android 7.1 Nougat to Android 8 Oreo, Oreo to Android 9 Pie and Pie to Android 10). However, Google has recently dropped support for the device.

Since Apple manufactures the hardware and develops the software for the iPhone, iOS doesn't suffer from the fragmentation problem that Android does. Google develops Android and while it does design the Pixel line, the majority of Android devices are produced by other manufacturers. While this has been a headache for Android users, it also allows them to have a wider selection of phones to choose from. One might even say that with all of these Android manufacturers competing against each other, it drives innovation in the industry.