I think Samsung should be far more concerned by your One UI 9 disinterest than your anger

By Adrian Diaconescu · Senior Deals and News Writer

Published: Sep 30, 2026, 5:53 AM

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A worrying (for Samsung) number of Galaxy S26 series owners don't seem to care about their latest OS update. | Image by PhoneArena

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While Samsung was the world's first smartphone vendor to release a new device (or rather three) with Android 17 pre-installed nearly two whole months ago, the company is clearly not doing an equally impressive job (especially by its own standards) of spreading the latest OS version to its slightly older high-end handsets.

Technically, the stable One UI 9 rollout for the Galaxy S26 series started exactly two weeks back, but it was only yesterday that the update truly became the global affair many of you may have expected to happen a long time ago. The Galaxy S25 family, the Z Fold 7, and the Z Flip 7, meanwhile, remain stuck on Android 16-based One UI 8.5 everywhere besides South Korea, which is obviously making a lot of hardcore Samsung fans... dissatisfied (to say the least).

But that might actually be the least of Samsung's concerns right now, as a recent PhoneArena reader poll has revealed what I think should be treated by the company as a significantly bigger One UI 9 problem.

Way too many of you seem to not care about this latest update

At first glance, the fact that a third of you are apparently "not that upset" with the undeniably sluggish and messy One UI 9 rollout of the last couple of weeks should be considered good news by the world's leading smartphone vendor, which probably still has (some) time on its hands to make most of its customers happy with the newest Android-based update.

How upset are you with Samsung right now?

489 Votes

But if you take the "extremely upset" and "pretty upset" respondents in the above survey together, you get a higher number than for the "not that upset" group, which should definitely sound the alarm for Samsung.

What's even worse (at least in my opinion) is that close to 27 percent of the poll's voters are not upset with Samsung for missing a few self-imposed and/or implied update deadlines because... they don't care about One UI 9. That level of disinterest is a way worse signal than a similar level of dissatisfaction or fury because it can only be tackled and quelled with new features and radical improvements that are unfortunately unlikely to come anytime soon.

Is One UI 9 really so bad?

"Bad" is probably not the right word, but it's hard to argue with Galaxy S26, S26 Plus, and S26 Ultra owners who might describe the update as boring or repetitive.

I see nothing new.

Training_Pair6642 on Reddit, September 30, 2026

The detailed changelog published by Samsung after an inexplicably lengthy wait seems to suggest there are many exciting add-ons and UI tweaks currently making their way over the air to three of the best Android phones in the world, and the same goes for the 4GB or so update size.

But a lot of Redditors who've been looking forward to the goodie pack are definitely underwhelmed by the number and impact of said new goodies, with some describing the changes as "very minor" and "nothing really to be excited about" while others claim no differences whatsoever can be noticed between One UI 9 and One UI 8.5 without digging deep in the kinds of trivial tools and Galaxy AI skills very few "everyday" users seem to care about.

What can Samsung do to make everyone happy (er)?

In short, not much. Or at least not much that I can think of. Of course, with One UI 8.5 released alongside the Galaxy S26 trio back in February, Samsung could be working on a One UI 9.5 update and perhaps roll that out to a bunch of existing devices shortly after bringing the Galaxy S27 series to market in early 2027.

Do you expect a One UI 9.5 update to increase your satisfaction with Samsung?

4 Votes

But even if that happens (and there's obviously currently no guarantee), and even if One UI 9.5 proves a lot more feature-packed than the One UI 9.0 update, that's still many months away.

Until then, the best Samsung can do is speed up the expansion of One UI 9 for devices like the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, S25 Ultra, Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7, S24, S23 FE, and so on and so forth. Who knows, maybe the reception of those using such older phones will be a little warmer, and what's looking like a potentially big issue for the company will resolve itself (at least to a certain degree).

Here are more news stories about Android 17:

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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.

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