Samsung's Android 15 update delayed again – Galaxy phone owners will have to wait a bit longer

With Samsung having the largest slice of the Android phone market – and some of the best Android phones – anticipation for updates on Samsung devices is higher than most. There’s been a lot of rumour and speculation about when One UI 7 will appear, therefore – and we’re still not quite there yet.

Android 15 is the core software that will underpin One UI 7 and that was released by Google on 15 October. It was pushed to Pixel phones first, as expected, but Samsung has far more devices in its lineup to update, and a great weight of expectation after generally being pretty good with its schedules.

Unfortunately though, Samsung Galaxy phone owners have found themselves waiting longer than usual for the new software. The frustration is understandable, because One UI 6 landed on 30 October, meaning that older devices had new software before the launch of any new phones. For One UI 7 however, it looks like the software will make its debut on the Galaxy S25 devices, expected to launch in early January 2025.

That leaves owners of recent devices waiting for updates in a way that they didn’t in previous years.

To bridge the gap, Samsung could push out the One UI 7 beta, but this has been delayed again. In the most recent move, Max Jambor – who has a good record with Samsung leaks – tells us that we’re now looking at early December for the beta. That’s almost four months later in 2024 than it was in 2023.

Releasing the beta would mean that owners of recent phones could at least sample the new software and features even if it’s not entirely complete.

When will the Samsung One UI 7 beta launch?

According to information from 9to5Google, the One UI 7 beta will start to roll out in early December to the Galaxy S24. It could then be followed by the beta on the Samsung Galaxy S23 models and could then also come to the Galaxy S22, but that might not happen within 2024.

Meanwhile, we’ll see One UI 7 officially launch on the new S25 devices in early 2025, before then being followed by a push to older devices in February 2025. That might come as a shock to Samsung fans who were thrilled by the prospect of seven years of updates – it just wasn’t clear that it was going to be this slow.

Meanwhile, Google is already getting to work on Android 16 and said to be pushing that earlier in the year than ever before. The result could be that One UI 7 is only on Samsung phones 8 months before the clamour over One UI 8 begins.