Samsung has now confirmed the feared bad news for millions of Galaxy users, as they fall further and further behind Google’s Pixel and other Android devices, to say nothing of Apple’s iPhone, its arch rival in the premium smartphone category. For those who have paid $1000-plus for a new flagship, this will come as a nasty surprise.

Currently, you can add a digital key for a smart lock to your Samsung wallet and open that to access the lock’s control from your phone. With this new function, you won’t need to unlock your phone or access the wallet to control the door; just tap your phone or smartwatch on the lock, and it will open.

It's a problem that may be familiar to some Galaxy S10 owners. Samsung also released an update that broke the phone back in 2019 where users were asked to enter a PIN even though they never made one. Entering any PIN would cause the phone to reboot and ask for the PIN again. Similarly, the only fix was a factory reset.

Even as Samsung flagship devices fly from shelves, there’s bad news coming for million of Galaxy owners who have paid significantly more than $1000 for a latest, greatest smartphone. And with the launches of Apple’s iPhone 16 and Google’s Pixel 9, there’s little room for mistakes with competition fiercer than we’ve seen before.

A new framework update is crippling older Samsung smartphones, according to users who have had to reset their devices to get them working.

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