Millions of Pixels are now running Android 15, following Google's release last week. "These updates," it told users, "include security features that help keep your sensitive health, financial and personal information protected from theft and fraud." Security and privacy are certainly "the update's highlight," as Ars Technica put it, with "new tools aimed at phone snatchers, snooping kids or partners, and cell hijackers."

And those security upgrades have been heralded by users and press -- theft prevention, device protection and sensitive app privacy were available right away, with AI-fueled live threat detection to disable dangerous apps due in a few weeks.

Not for Samsung Galaxy devices though. The nasty surprise confirmed at SDC earlier this month is that its own Android 15 rollout via One UI 7 is not due until next year, alongside the S25 Series. Even the timing of the beta release remains unclear -- all that Samsung told SDC is that the beta will turn up before the end of 2024.

That was bad news for millions of Samsung Galaxy users -- especially those with expensive flagships. Many will have assumed they'd be nearer the front of the queue for Android 15 and its security upgrades, given Samsung's status as Android's leading OEM. That bad news has been made worse. As reported by 9to5Google, "the Android 15 floodgates are opening," with Motorola, Asus, Vivo and Oppo all now updating phones. "A notable omission for the time being," it adds, "will be Samsung, as the company has confirmed that One UI 7, based on Android 15, is delayed into 2025."

The chart below shows just how dominant Samsung's Android market share remains. If you have dropped $1500 on a Samsung flagship, you might expect a faster update.

Maybe -- just maybe -- Samsung is now responding to this wave of updates. SammyFans has just reported that "there's some exciting news for Samsung Galaxy owners... You might try out the new One UI 7.0, built on Android 15, much sooner than we thought. We've found information from two different sources, each claiming to support our expectations... Samsung's development team is reportedly pushing to finalize a 'mostly stable' build of One UI 7.0 by the end of October 2024."

This is materially better than the loose expectation of before the end of 2024, albeit there's no hint of any sort that the stable Android 15 rerelease will come to Samsung phones any earlier that with the release of the Galaxy S25 Series next year. Others will receive their own full updates much earlier than that, which means enjoying all those security and privacy upgrades months before Samsung Galaxy users.

There is also still a lack of clarity on what will and won't be in One UI 7. Google didn't mention Samsung in its list of early adopters of its live threat detection, and the cellular network security that's awkwardly missing from Pixels is unlikely to come to Samsung deviates anytime soon, albeit there's an opportunity for the S25 to come with the right hardware to make this upgrade work. I have asked Samsung for clarity on which of these updates will make their way into its own OS.

All of this complexity and fragmentation doesn't help the case for Android versus iOS, with a patchwork quilt of manufacturer, region, model and carrier. And I've commented before that Google's control of its hardware and software puts it at an advantage over other OEMs. That has seemed more evident with the release of Android 15 than ever before, showing the clear separation between Pixel and the rest.

This is likely the most significant bad news for Samsung and its users, given Google isn't targeting the budget market but just the more premium categories dominated by Samsung and Apple, where both use security and privacy as a competitive advantage. Samsung's delayed rollout of Android 15 versus Google's accelerated Pixel upgrade may now change user perspectives. It's notable that Google enjoyed its best ever sales quarter with the Pixel 9 launch, and is now being lauded for its Android 15 upgrade.