Samsung One UI 4 Android 12 Bugs Just Got Stomped
A few years ago, you probably wouldn't have expected Samsung to be at the forefront of Android updates. Today, however, it is almost the poster child for speedy, regular, and long-term updates, both the monthly security ones as well as major version upgrades. It's still not perfect, of course, and there are still some kinks in the process to be ironed out. More pressing, however, are the major show-stopping bugs in its latest One UI 4 release that may have finally been addressed.
Haste Makes Waste
Samsung is no stranger to buggy updates, some of which may be attributed to rushing things too much. Back in 2017, it had to retract its Android 7 Nougat update for the Galaxy S6 and S7 because of some crippling bugs. On the hardware side, its rush to use a new battery design was also blamed for the disastrous Galaxy Note 7 that exploded in people's pockets.
This time around, it's the One UI 4 update that has put the company under some heat. Even after two months of beta testing, the update that brought Android 12 to this year's Samsung flagships ended up with a few bugs that got away. Things got so bad for the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 that Samsung had to pull the update after just a few days of rolling it out.
Part of the problem was apparently due to One UI 4 not playing well with Google Play services. It might not exactly be surprising considering how many changes Samsung makes to the core Android experience. Some bugs will eventually pop up in major upgrades like these, and unfortunately, quite a few weren't caught before they hit people's phones.
Full Steam Ahead Again
Fortunately, Samsung's rollout was limited to a few select markets, minimizing the damage it caused. In particular, foldable phones in South Korea were hit first before Samsung yanked the buggy updates. Now it seems that things have been ironed out, and Samsung is ready to begin anew.
A post in Samsung's South Korean forums says that the company collaborated with Google in stomping out the bugs, at least the ones related to Google Play compatibility. With that major blocker out of the way, Samsung has continued rolling out the update for the Galaxy S21 series, the Galaxy Z Fold 3, and the Galaxy Z Flip 3 across the globe. More cautious users, however, might be well-advised to wait for a few weeks before taking the plunge, and definitely not without backing up their phones first.