Google Releases Free Android Upgrade To Millions: Samsung Galaxy Next

Samsung and Google are working towards bringing Android 17 to millions of phones in the next month. For Pixel owners the update started yesterday, Google announced.

Samsung Galaxy users won’t have to wait too long though, with One UI 9 now in its third beta and the full release expected within the next month as the Korean company races toward stable release.

Both One UI 9 and Android 17 bring a fresh look and new features, but the real upgrade—Gemini Intelligence—won’t land until Samsung Unpacked in July. With it comes some next generation agentic abilities, but also some serious questions about how safe they are to use.

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Here’s What’s New in Android 17 On Pixel Phones And Samsung The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra will get Android 17 this summer. (Photo by Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images) NurPhoto via Getty Images Android 17 brings a refreshed design and some new features. Bubbles, for example, lets you turn any app into a floating window that sits on top of whatever else you’re doing, useful for multitasking on larger screens. Screen Reactions lets you record your screen and selfie camera simultaneously, without switching apps. MORE FOR YOU For foldable users specifically, Android 17 introduces a dedicated foldable gaming mode with a 50/50 split layout. The game view is on top and dynamic gamepad below. Security improvements include temporary location sharing, selective contact sharing, and an enhanced Mark as Lost feature that locks a missing phone with your biometrics so a thief can't access it even with your passcode.

Samsung Is Moving Quickly To Bring Android 17 To Galaxy Phones Samsung’s One UI 9, which sits on top of Android 17, released its third beta for the Galaxy S26 series yesterday. According to Samsung tracker Tarun Vats and SamMobile, Beta 3 is now live in the U.K., Germany, India, Poland and South Korea. It's a stability update, fixing camera preview cropping, lock screen widget errors, S Pen home screen swipe issues, and a bug that caused the phone to reboot during video streaming. Beta 3 also adds a Quick Panel icon for Summarise Notifications, with a transparency label that tells you explicitly the summaries are AI-generated. Samsung has also started internal One UI 9 testing for the Galaxy A56, according to Tarun Vats. Check out the current list of Galaxy devices receiving the update here.