Both the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition phones are getting the Android 4.3 JWR66Y security update

BY Stefan Constantinescu

Published 13 Sep 2013

Want a flagship Android phone, but you absolutely detest any Android experience that isn’t the stock Android experience? Google’s got your back. Earlier this summer, they took what are arguably the two best Android smartphones currently on the market, the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4, and began selling them via the Google Play Store with pure bone stock Android. They also promised they’d get updated about as fast as Nexus devices. Has that happened?

Let’s take the Android 4.3 JWR66Y security update as a data point. It’s a patch that was issued to (allegedly) improve the random number generator in Android. The Nexus 4 got it on August 21st. The HTC One Google Play Edition got it on September 11th. And finally today, the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Phone got it too.

Don’t have a Google Play Edition phone? Well then you’re going to be at the mercy of your handset maker, which shouldn’t really be all too surprising for you. What I want to stress is that most people who own Android devices don’t even know what version of Android is on their device, much less care about when it’ll get a security update. so while I respect all you ROM flashers out there who play with nightly-s to pass the time, you’re a very, very, very small minority.

[Image Credit: Android Central]