Galaxy S8 Oreo Update: Here's What's New
After a false start that has sent some users fuming, Samsung has finally gotten the ball rolling again in pushing out Android 8.0 Oreo to last year's flagship, the Galaxy S8. Of course, given your typical Samsung rollout, it's not happening for everyone at the same time. To keep those who haven't been so lucky, or drive them nuts with excitement or anxiety, Samsung has finally released the changelog for the update which, of course, also bumps up the Samsung Experience custom UX to version 9.0.
Of course, there's the upgrade to Android 8.0 itself, which brings a host of improvements to the platform. Most of them under the hood, like limitations on background services in order to improve performance and battery life. This is probably where Samsung spent the most time tweaking because it has a lot of such background services. And no, no Treble here. That would be uncharacteristic of Samsung.
The update also adds new features to Samsung Experience, the UX formerly known as TouchWiz. Some of these, however, may have already been familiar to those using the Galaxy Note 8. For example, there's Dual Messenger, which lets you associate two accounts for a single messaging app. It should be noted that apps that are based on phone numbers require a different phone number for each account, that those will really only work with Dual SIM variants.
Samsung is also changing the way its fingerprint and iris scanning work. These biometric authentication features are only available if you use a pattern, PIN, or passcode lock. If you don't, those will be disabled. It might seem odd, but this is so that you (or someone else) won't make accidental payments or approvals for things like Samsung Pay. Without a secure screen lock or biometrics, you will have to manually approve such transactions.
It only took Samsung half a year to provide Oreo to its early 2017 flagship, and months to go from beta to final. And that was with a blunder even. So while Galaxy S8 owners are thankful they're starting to get Oreo, Samsung still retains its disappointing standing when it comes to updates.