Most eyes where on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Samsung Galaxy Gear during Samsung’s principle press event at IFA yesterday, but there was also another tidbit of information that will bring a smile to millions of Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4 owners. According to Samsung the company plans to roll out Android 4.3 for both devices during October.
The Galaxy S3 launched in 2012 with Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich and during this summer an update to Android 4.1.2 was rolled out. However the update wasn’t without its problems. When Verizon released the 4.1.2 upgrade, which also added support for features like Multi-Window multitasking, Multi-Screen and S Beam's Auto Share Shot, for Galaxy S3 users on its network reports started to appear about 4G LTE connectivity issues. Verizon pulled the update but within a couple of weeks a new release was made available that fixed the 4G issues. Since then various rumors have hinted at Samsung moving straight to Android 4.3 and skipping 4.2.2.
The Galaxy S4, which was launched earlier this year, shipped with Android 4.2.2 and the update to Android 4.3 should be hassle free considering that the Google Play Edition of the Galaxy S4 is already running the latest version.
One device conspicuous by its absence in Samsung’s announcement was the Galaxy Note 2. The Note 2, which was released this time last year, is currently running Android 4.1 and it was assumed that Samsung would upgrade it to Android 4.3 along with the S3 and S4. Since the new Galaxy Note 3 will ship with Android 4.3 it is highly likely that the latest version will come to the Note 2 but we are just awaiting confirmation and dates from Samsung.
Android 4.3 is still a variant of Android Jelly Bean (along with 4.1 and 4.2) but it does bring some interesting new features including restricted profiles (a much better way to handle multiple users on the same tablet), Bluetooth 4.0 low-energy support, OpenGL 3.0 support, a T9 dialer and improvements to the notification system.
This is all great news for Samsung S3 and S4 owners, but of course now the problem is that Google have tempted us with thoughts of Android 4.4 KitKat!
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