Samsung made a big announcement at its first Unpacked event of 2022, and we’re not talking about the Samsung Galaxy S22 range. The company revealed that it would offer extensive support for its latest phones and tablets, and now we’ve learned that it’s made a similar promise for the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 range.
In a press release, Samsung stated that the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, and upcoming Galaxy Watch devices (such as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 presumably), will get up to four years of upgrades to Wear OS and the company’s One UI Watch interface.
That “up to” bit is slightly concerning, as it could give Samsung some wiggle room to offer less, but it certainly sounds like the company is aiming for four years of software support.
That’s almost a match for the promise it made about recent phones and tablets, including the Galaxy S22 range, the Samsung Galaxy S21 range, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 range, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3, and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3, along with upcoming devices in those ranges and the Galaxy A range.
Those devices are also slated to get four years of operating system updates, but they’re additionally promised five years of security patches, which isn’t something Samsung has mentioned for its wearables.
Still, four years of updates is still a big boost, and should see Samsung’s wearables leading the Wear OS pack on that front.
Analysis: Samsung might actually match Apple here
While Samsung’s smartphone support plans still aren’t quite a match for Apple’s, its smartwatch plans might be.
Currently, the oldest Apple Watch that is still getting software updates is the Apple Watch 3, which was four years old at the time of its most recent major update (to watchOS 8).
While not confirmed, there’s a good chance it won’t get watchOS 9, especially as it was also the oldest watch to get watchOS 7 – so it seems like it should have reached its cut-off point by now.
We probably won’t find out for sure until around September when watchOS 9 is likely to land, but either way, Samsung is probably either matching Apple here or coming close. Now we just need other companies to follow suit.
