The Galaxy S8 was released back in 2016, and it officially lost its support in 2020, and we were all surprised to see it get some love from Samsung. It seems uncharacteristic of the company, as, while it does offer the best software support for any Android manufacturer, that’s a bit of a stretch. Other phones included the Galaxy Note8 and the Galaxy S8.
Now, millions more unsupported phones are getting updates from Samsung
It seems that Samsung was not done with the aforementioned phones, as the Korean tech giant is still pushing updates to its legacy devices. Not only is the company sending updates to more phones, but it’s also sending updates to older phones. According to Sam Mobile, the GPS is making its way over to the Galaxy A7 (2018), Galaxy S5 Neo (2015), Galaxy S6 (2015), and the Galaxy Alpha (2014). There are expected to be more than 500 million of these phones still out there in the wild. Needless to say that these are really old devices, and most of those units probably don’t turn on anymore. However, Samsung felt the need to send the updates. If you own any of these phones, then you should be able to download the update eventually. You should keep in mind that these updates only affect the GPS tracking capabilities of the phone. You’re not getting any additional functionality and you’re not getting any security updates. Thus, if you’re still using the 8-year-old Galaxy alpha, as your daily driver, you should definitely think about upgrading to a new phone. A new phone will have newer and more secure software. Also, the battery will be much healthier and less prone to failure.
