Galaxy S25 may be the first Samsung flagship with A/B seamless updates

Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S25 series might be the first flagship to support the A/B system partition feature, also known as seamless firmware updates. The Galaxy S25 lineup should become official early next year and run Android 15 (One UI 7) at launch, and it may set the tone for other high-end Samsung phones coming later next year.

While the latest rumor (via @chunvn8888) suggests that Google's seamless Android updates feature will be coming to the Galaxy S series for the first time, we need to remember that it won't be the first Samsung phone to do this.

Samsung tested the waters earlier this year with the release of the Galaxy A55. The latter became the first Samsung phone to support seamless updates, which Google first introduced all the way back in 2016.

As of this writing, the Galaxy A55 remains the only Samsung phone with A/B partitions. Samsung may have learned whatever it had to learn from its release. And if the rumors are true, the Galaxy A55 won't be the only one to support seamless updates for much longer.

Exactly what are seamless updates?

In short, A/B seamless updates allow devices to boot up faster upon installing new firmware. This is achieved by swapping the system partition from A to B or vice versa every time a new system update is introduced. If your system runs from partition A, the update is installed seamlessly on partition B — or the other way around.

Essentially, your phone will always run Android from a different partition than the one your phone uses to download and install new firmware updates. This allows new system updates to be applied while you continue to use your phone without interruptions.

You are still required to reboot your phone once a seamless update is installed so your device can swap to the other partition. However, boot-up times are much faster. Even so, Samsung hasn't really bothered with this feature until earlier this year, even if it's been around for nearly a decade.

More details after the video

The other interesting thing to know about this feature is that it cannot be enabled through firmware updates. A/B partitions need to be created at the hardware level. A phone must be developed with an A/B system partition structure. If it doesn't have A/B support from day one, it never will.