Good. Hopefully, samsung smartphones can enjoy this QOL improvement.
My last couple phones have been Samsungs (need MDM support for work) and I had no idea this even existed, let alone that everyone else has it already.
I think this was started about the Galaxy S7 times. This was never implemented by Samsung, AFAIK. But it’s been a while.
I have a feeling Samsung will dodge it once again somehow
Edit: It says they’re not mandating it, and I’m pretty sure Samsung uses their own implementation anyways, so no hopes here
What’s the hidden gotcha though?
Excellent job google.
Not just seamless, but safer updates as well. A failed boot from the newly updated partition(s) can be detected with the malfunctioning slot flagged by the lower-level bootloader, allowing for an instantaneous rollback.
This could break devices that are older
Older devices can be migrated to A/B, though, although the process is not exactly fun.
I’m sure alternative ROMs will figure out some way to implement updates regardless. You can probably trick the system into thinking it’s flashing an A/B system while it’s actually extracting an update to a directory that later gets copied back into the real system partition.
How many devices are that old but still getting updates?
My 6 year old OP6 has A/B partitions.
Older devices wont break unless you force install without creating the necessary filesystem partition layout first. Depending on how you define older that might only be a small hurdle. If you define it as a device designed for Android 4 you’re likely gonna have a bad time.
TBF it’s a major PITA to redo the partition table like this, if even at all possible given the extant layout. This was introduced with Nougat, though, with major chip vendors like Qualcomm ready with support in their BSPs right out of the gate back in 2016. I think eight years is enough time to let everyone get themselves up to speed.
Isn’t that how iPhones update? I feel like I recall reading something similar a couple years back for iPhones.