Galaxy S25 finally gets a long-awaited upgrade other Android users have had for a while

The Galaxy S25 phones have finally gotten A/B partition support for seamless Android updates.

Seamless updates for the Galaxy S25 series were in the rumor mill for months before the official Galaxy Unpacked on Wednesday. Luckily, like most of the leaks about the trio, this one also came true and Galaxy fans with one of the new S25 phones will finally get to enjoy an update experience that won't interrupt your time with your phone.

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Rumors about Galaxy S25 seamless updates have been present at least since November last year. The support for A/B partitions actually shortens the perceived duration of new firmware update installations.

How this works is that the system partition gets swapped from A to B or vice versa every time a new system update is installed. Basically, if your system runs from partition A, the update will be installed on partition B, or the other way around, so you are able to continue to use your phone without interruptions.

You will still need to reboot your phone once a seamless update is installed - this is done so the device can change the partition from which it runs Android. However, boot-up times are improved using this method as well.

Seamless updates support for Android was first introduced in the now-distant 2016, but Samsung didn't think to offer this to Galaxy flagship users until now. Finally though (thankfully), with the Galaxy S25, we’re getting it.

If you're curious whether the Galaxy S24 will get this feature - well, unfortunately, it won't. The feature cannot be enabled through firmware updates: A/B partitions need to be created at the hardware level, meaning a phone must be made in the factory with an A/B system partition tech. This also means older Galaxy S models won’t get this feature either.

Before A/B seamless updates, Galaxy users had to download the update and then wait for the phone to reboot and complete the installation. Of course, this meant no social media browsing, no binge-watching on YouTube, no phone calls even.

Luckily, the new feature doesn't have downsides - there is no storage penalty for this smooth software installation feature. Curiously enough, it wasn't a Galaxy flagship that first got to take advantage of it - it was, in fact, the mid-range Galaxy A55. The S25 series is the first flagship series from Samsung to adopt seamless updates, so it's great that Samsung is finally catching up to other Android phones, such as the Pixels.

Speaking of catching up, iPhone users still have to restart and wait for an update to install the old-fashioned way. But the process is usually fast, especially on new phones. Also, both Apple and Android offer automatic updates.