Samsung has been rolling out the September SMR (Security Maintenance Release) to its devices for about two weeks now. It has updated dozens of smartphones and tablets with the latest security patch during this period. Last week, the Galaxy S10 Lite joined the party. The flagship models which arrived almost a year before the Lite phone are finally getting it too. This update patches over 50 vulnerabilities affecting the Galaxy S10 trio, and other Galaxy devices. The majority of those patches are for privacy and security flaws in the device. Samsung mentions flaws in device components such as Photo Editor, Video Editor, System UI, Call background Provider, and more. The flaws enabled malicious actors to gain unauthorized access to the affected device. This month’s SMR also patches 20-odd vulnerabilities found on Android OS. These are flaws found in Google’s operating system and affect Android products from all brands. The company patched the bugs and said that almost all of them were high-severity vulnerabilities. If you’re using a Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10, or Galaxy S10+ in Europe, you should be getting this security update anytime now. Watch out for a notification prompting you to download the patch over the air (OTA). To manually check for OTA updates, navigate to Settings > Software update and tap on the Download and install option. If you don’t see any pending updates, check again a few days later.
The Galaxy S10 series will not get the Android 13 update
Samsung launched the Galaxy S10 series in early 2019 with Android 9 Pie out of the box. Over the past three years, the phones have received updates to Android 10, Android 11, and Android 12. And that’s all they are eligible for. Samsung won’t push Android 13 to these flagships. You will get a few more security updates, though. The Galaxy S10 Lite, meanwhile, arrived running Android 10 in early 2020. So it is eligible for one more Android OS update, i. e. Android 13. Samsung should roll out the last major update for this phone in early 2023. It will bring the company’s One UI 5.0 custom software with improved UI, animations, and a bunch of new features.
