The Android 5.0 update (also known as Android L or Lollipop) has been very slow to roll out on Samsung flagship phones. Ever since it was announced in June of last year and officially launched in November of that year, its trickling down has been very slow, especially for those who are users of the Samsung Galaxy S5, the S4, the Note 4, the Note 3, and the Note Edge. There have been reports that Android 5.1 might be just as delayed as Android 5.0.
Gotta Be Mobile reports that Android 5.0 was supposed to roll out to the Galaxy S5, the company's most recent flagship phone, in December, but this just didn't happen. Instead, it arrived sometime in early February, after it showed up internationally.
To make the matters even worse, there was a Samsung Galaxy Lollipop update for Android 5.1 Lollipop. There was a leak of the roadmap for the rollout on SamMobile, and it shows that Samsung hasn't even started development on Android 5.1, which is supposed to fix a lot of the bugs that arrived with Android 5.0. This report is two weeks old, and there still are no positive signs of Android 5.1 anytime soon.
The good news is that when Android 5.1 does come to the Galaxy S5, S4, Note 4, Note 3, and Note Edge, it will follow the pattern that will be on the Galaxy S6 with TouchWiz experience. With the Galaxy S6 being the latest of Samsung's smartphones, it stands to reason that older generation mobile devices (but not too old) will be receiving the Android 5.1 soon.
A Samsung representative in Europe has some possibly credible information about the Android 5.1 rollout, but still has no idea of the release date of the rollout. He states that Samsung "concluded that they had punched themselves in the gut with the L update for the S5" and that "they will test the software over a much longer period internally, but will mean more stable and generally better software on end-users devices."
Part of the problem is simple: bugs. Actually, it is not simple as the Galaxy S5 Lollipop update has shown some issues with the battery life. This is something that I haven't noticed, even though I have upgraded my Verizon Samsung Galaxy S5 phone with Lollipop recently. However, not only has the Lollipop update caused buggy problems with Galaxy S5 users, but users of the Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy S4, and Galaxy Note 3 have noticed all kinds of issues before Android 5.0 officially comes to the United States.
It is pretty apparent that Samsung doesn't want to allow the rollout of Android 5.1 until these bugs have been taken care of. This means that there is a potential of even more delay of Android 5.1 to the Galaxy S5, the S4, the Note 3, the Note 4, and the Note Edge. This brings a lot of frustration to users of these phones, as some of them haven't achieved the Android 5.0 rollout.
