Verizon squeezes in a sneaky Galaxy S20 update before year-end

Verizon just sneaked in another monthly firmware update for the Galaxy S20 series. Or tried to, at least, but we’re still hazy on the details. The official changelog from the wireless carrier is pretty generic and appears to be a simple copy-paste job reiterating the contents of the previous over-the-air update that Verizon started rolling out earlier this month.

As it turns out, that was a pretty major release, seeing how it included an upgrade to One UI 3.0 based on Google’s Android 11. Be that as it may, a new firmware package, identified by version number RP1A.200720.012.G988USQU1CTL4, is now making its way to owners of the Galaxy S20-series devices on Verizon’s national network.

Are Verizon’s software update practices finally approaching acceptable levels?

Verizon started deploying the said update last week and no other carrier in the United States or abroad appears to have followed suit with a second Android 11-based update. Meaning we’re most likely looking at something that Verizon cobbled together after identifying at least one crucial defect in its original implementation of Samsung’s software.

Such missteps aren’t anything too out of the ordinary. That’s especially true for stateside mobile service providers who have a tendency to pre-load all sorts of shovelware onto their smartphones. Naturally, the more mandatory apps you have in your OS base, the trickier it is to optimize general-purpose updates in a timely and problem-free manner.

Though we can’t say Verizon hasn’t been improving on the update timeliness front over the last several years. Granted, it’s still difficult to say how much of that progress is directly thanks to the company actively intensifying its efforts. As we might simply be looking at some long-overdue results of Project Treble.