Mario Bautista
Update warning issued for millions of Galaxy owners
Republished on January 10 with a new report into Samsung already testing Android 16, weeks ahead of Android 15’s stable release.
Samsung has released details of its first security update for 2025, which combines the latest Android fixes (also just confirmed) with a raft of its own. Nothing unusual so far — and thankfully no urgent attack warnings so far either.
But what this will highlight is the usual slow burn rollout as devices wait their turn, lining up by model, region and carrier through most of the rest of the month. This frustrates users, who watch Apple’s everyone, everywhere updates with some envy.
Such is the pain in. this process, that December’s security fixes are still rolling out to some devices, and there’s no reason to think this will change. At least not for owners of flagships still on the monthly schedule — that means the S21, S22, S23 and of course the S24 which is due to be displaced by the S25 this month.
And that S25 launch has serious implications for this monthly security update. Samsung is expected to introduce seamless updates for the first time with its newest flagship, as well as launching Android 15 through One UI 7. Seamless updates catch Galaxy up with something that has been available to Pixels for years. An A/B system, whereby devices don’t need a long reset to update new firmware. The download is done in the background and then a simple reboot enables the new software.
Android 15 also brings a huge swathe of new security advances — some from Google but others from Samsung, which has now set its stall out to catch iPhone (or at least narrow the gap) in the security and privacy stakes, as well as advancing its Galaxy AI — it hopes beyond anything Apple Intelligence can yet offer.
The most recent (for now) S24 flagships are now being updated with January’s security fixes. And while those enrolled in the One UI 7 beta were first to the table, this has now been expanded to S24 Ultra, S24+ and S24 phones running One UI 6.1, which mean s Android 14 still. Per SamMobile, “The update is rolling out in Korea and to some carrier-locked variants in the USA. A wider rollout that brings the update to more countries and regions shouldn’t be too far behind… You can identify the January update for the Galaxy S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra with a build number ending in AXL1 or AXL2.”
SamMobile also confirms that S24 devices are not “getting anything but security fixes with the January update,” which it says “should come as no surprise… with a massive Android and One UI update on the way.” It’s that “massive Android and One UI update” that brings seamless update, of course. But there’s every chance those will only come for the new Galaxy S25 and beyond, given hardware changes that may be required.
As SammyFans explains, “Seamless Updates is an A/B Partition solution in Android. It is a core-level configuration that can’t be applied through software. Samsung seems to have experimented with the feature with the launch of the Galaxy A55… This process significantly reduces the downtime, making it a task of seconds. It is also secure from the legacy method as a software failure doesn’t corrupt the system firmware due to temporary installation in the secondary partition.”
The standouts from January’s update are five critical updates to Android’s core system, “the most severe” of which, Google warns, “could lead to remote (proximal/adjacent) code execution with no additional execution privileges needed.” All other fixes of note — both for Android and Samsung — are high severity, but can still lead to exploitation if discovered and compromised before patching.
Although Samsung hasn’t issued any critical updates of its own this month, it does warn that “some items included in the Samsung Android Security Update cannot be disclosed at this time,” which could mean more serious notifications to come.
January’s update will come first to those S24s running the One UI 7 beta, with flagships to follow — as we have seen with the S24, which is out of the traps first, as per usual. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S25 expected to launch one or around Jan. 22.
One theme that will be something of a hangover for Samsung after its S25 launch will be the delays in its release of its One UI 7 (Android 15) beta and stable release. Pixels and some other — including much cheaper — OEM devices have been much earlier to the party, which has made for some awkward headlines.
We already know that Android 16 — due this year — is running to a faster schedule than we would usually expect from Google, and so the question has been asked as to whether Samsung will see a knock-on effect from Android 15 and further delays.
Given Google (with stock Android) and Samsung have both been on this mission to upgrade the security and privacy capabilities of their devices, narrowing the gap to iPhone, this could be painful for those dropping $1000 to $2000 on a new flagship.
Perhaps some welcome assurances on this front then, with SammyFans reporting on Friday that “it seems Samsung is internally testing the Android 16 even before wrapping up the One UI 7 Beta. Recently, it has been revealed that the company has kicked off internal Android 16 testing, which could be a good sign for Galaxy users. Some latest Samsung apps reportedly included clues about the upcoming One UI version, the One UI 8… Early testing of the new OS is a good sign and we can expect an earlier public rollout too.”
This doesn’t mean Samsung will catch Pixel — which has the inside track and was first to Android 15 and its key upgrades, including live threat and call protection, but it’s certainly encouraging given the disappointments of 2024.
“Google officially announced the shift in Android distribution from Q3 to Q2,” SammyFans explains. “The move is to streamline the adoption by Android vendors. The company aims to help phone makers ship their new flagship devices with the latest OS. Android 16’s Developer Preview is already running for Pixel devices. The new OS is expected to enter the Public Beta stage by the end of February, with the Stable update’s distribution may start by the beginning of June 2025.”
While none of this is certain or maybe even more than 50/50 at this stage, SammyFans suggests you may get your 2025 upgrade in the fall, which means a summer beta. As such the timeline between One Ui 7 and One UI 8 will be extremely tight. Just like those monthly releases, we could see one update bleed into the next.
