Android users love to install the latest software updates as soon as possible. One handy feature for this is “seamless updates,” which allow updates to be downloaded and installed in the background. Until now, this hasn’t been the case with most Samsung phones. But good news: the new Galaxy S25 series now supports this feature!
What are seamless updates (A/B updates)?
There are basically two ways to install Android updates:
- Non-seamless updates: Here, your phone has to reboot into a special mode (recovery mode) to install the update. During this time, you cannot use your phone. Also, there is no easy way to go back to the old system if something goes wrong during the update.
- Seamless updates (A/B updates): With this method, your phone has two copies of important system areas. While you are using your phone normally, the inactive copy is updated in the background. After a restart, the two copies are simply swapped. If the update causes problems, the phone automatically starts with the old, working version.
Seamless updates have been around since Android 7.1 (Nougat), so why did it take so long for Samsung to introduce this feature?
This was mainly due to storage requirements. The original implementation of A/B updates required twice as much storage for system updates, which meant less space for apps and files.
Google has recognized this problem and introduced “virtual A/B updates” with Android 11. Complete copies of the system areas are no longer required, only compressed snapshots. This saves storage space and makes seamless updates attractive even for devices with less storage. With Android 15, Google has even done away with non-seamless updates altogether.
Although these improvements have been around for a while, Samsung has not provided most of its phones with seamless updates. One exception was the Galaxy A55 last year. So it’s all the more pleasing that the Galaxy S25 series finally supports this practical feature.
Some users complain that seamless updates can take a little longer. However, the advantages clearly outweigh this: updates run in the background, the phone remains usable and there is an automatic fallback option in case of problems.
Hopefully the Galaxy S25 series is just the beginning and Samsung will equip all of its phones with seamless updates in the future.
