Top 7 Reasons to Update Your Cell Phone OS

99.6% of mobile phone owners use either Android or iOS devices. Very few still stick to other mobile operating systems like Windows Mobile.

One of the main reasons why the first two top the ranks is because of their frequent cell phone OS updates. These updates all focus on improving the phone’s capabilities and giving a better mobile experience.

Well, that’s what the developers say.

• But is this true?
• Why should you update your mobile OS?
• Do you really get better features or is it only a means to push customers into buying the newer phone models that support these OS releases and updates?

To help you see the advantage of updating your phone:

Here are 7 Reasons to Update Your Cell Phone OS

1. New Phone Features

With each new OS update comes new phone features. You might get a more powerful camera app that takes full advantage of the phone’s hardware or the ability to reply to chat messages in the notifications bar.

One great example is the implementation of split-screens. Android’s new OS update, included in the launch of Android 7 Nougat, enables multi-window support. This allows people to access two different apps at the same time by putting them in different windows, akin to multitasking on a desktop computer.

Other new features can include better keyboards, emoji support, and vertical augmented reality.

You can get new first-party apps like Apple’s Health Records or Android’s capability to pin apps to the shared menu.

If you don’t update your phone’s OS, you may not be able to continue communicating with other people. If you use your phone for business, this could become detrimental to your profits. What if a client wants to share screens or use a heavy file-sharing app that your phone doesn’t support- because it lacks the latest update?

You can also expect an abundance of new camera features. A new OS update could bring better camera stability, new filters, new camera settings, or new networking options like instantly uploading photos to the cloud or Facebook with a single tap.

It’s essential to gain more info about these new features and what great service providers can offer to ensure your business takes full advantage of them. You’re updating your phone constantly so take the time needed to use the new features given to you.

2. Updated Security

As long as there’s technology, there will be people trying to hack and steal your information. This becomes an even bigger issue nowadays since people can use their phones to store credit card information, PayPal information, and bank account details. People shop online, on their phones, making them more susceptible to hacking and identity theft.

The good news is that by updating your OS you can fight back. Each new update, whether for Android, iOS, or other mobile systems, bring in new security features. These features help encrypt vital information, especially when conducting a transaction wirelessly, to fight against potential theft.

New updates bring in anti-spy software, better password solutions, and stronger firewalls or anti-virus features. These become necessities when you use your phone for stock market apps and daily business transactions.

Go back a few years and the only means of locking your phone was a pin code system.

Nowadays, updated mobile OS systems enable face recognition, fingerprint scanning, and pattern locks to ensure no one can pick up your phone and access its data.

There’s also updates behind the scenes, like stronger encryption for Bluetooth transferring or when using Facebook on a public Wi-Fi network.

3. Continued App Support

Fond of using the latest chat or SMS apps for iOS and Android devices?

They won’t work on your phone if you refuse to update to the best phone OS available. Many app vendors keep up with the launch of OS updates, ensuring their apps will work for the latest versions. This means that as time passes, their apps will no longer support the older OS versions.

App developers do this because it makes sense for their business. Most people update their OS as soon as new version releases and their apps should be able to run for that new OS. Their apps may also include newer features to take advantage of the added stability, bug-free environment, and capabilities.

This is why a chat app may support live videos on Android 7.0 Nougat but not on Android 5.1 Lollipop.

Game apps, in particular, demand constant OS updates. The stability of an OS update benefits most games and the developers jump on the next opportunity to improve their game. If you don’t update your mobile OS, your game might not run as smoothly if it runs at all.

4. Updated Cell Phone OS Improves Stability

If you read up on the long list of Apple iOS updates, one of the most constant features of their mobile OS updates includes improved stability. These little improvements prevent phones from crashing, lagging, and running into app-breaking or file-corrupting bugs and glitches.

Stability improvements aren’t solely for the OS running behind the scenes. Sometimes, an OS update will improve camera stability as well. Other updates will focus on stabilizing a phone’s multitasking capabilities or ensuring heavy apps, like video games, run smoothly even when other apps still run in the background.

The stability updates also guarantee that your phone won’t slow down over time. As apps become more demanding on a phone’s hardware and software, updates ensure that the phone can keep up. Ignoring these updates can lead to a slower, less capable phone.

Upon first glance, these little updates might not seem that important. However, as more and more updates pile on top of each other, it becomes easier to see how a phone with an updated OS runs faster than one that’s left behind.

5. Improved Battery Life

Then there’s the issue of battery life.

Late last year, Apple ran into trouble when they admitted their latest OS updates were intentionally slowing down the battery life of older iPhone models. They explained they did this because the OS updates were becoming more and more demanding and they had to reduce the battery life of older models so that they could keep up with the processing demands.

However, this brought a lot of negative backlashes and now Apple released newer OS updates to help improve battery life, even on older iPhone models. They now allow you to check if your battery got throttled and how much longer it may last.

Other mobile OS’s do the same – they often focus on improving battery life, ensuring it’ll take less time to charge and more time to drain. This is crucial because newer, more modern apps are more demanding in terms of processing power, meaning weak battery support will lead to batteries draining quicker than they should.

If you don’t want your phone’s battery to drain quickly or die out within less than a year of use, it’s advisable to keep up with OS updates.

6. Enhanced UX and UI

One of the many reasons developers release updates for your cell phone’s OS, creating a better user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) are among the top priorities.

A cleaner, more streamlined UI guarantees mobile users can access apps, respond to messages, and flip through features with ease and speed. New updates focus on reducing the number of steps needed to get something done. They focus on making phone usage feel less clunky and closer to the wide arrange of things you can do on a desktop computer.

This is why you can now reply to chat messages directly on the notifications bar. It ensures you can keep chatting without having to move away from the app you’re accessing. It’s why you can take screenshots by swiping multiple fingers on the screen because having to press a few physical buttons on the side can feel awkward and cumbersome.

Don’t want to go through multiple screens and menus only to change a screen setting? Update your phone’s OS to get the new one-touch settings option. It’s the little things like these that make phone usage easier and more accessible.

7. Outdated Phones Degrade Over Time

As mentioned, an outdated phone with an old OS version won’t be able to run some of the newer apps. Those apps move on with the times and they get optimized for the newest versions of a mobile OS.

But that’s not all. If you don’t update your phone’s OS, you’ll deal with a degraded phone that slows down and glitches out. It may run some of the modern apps but it will struggle to keep up and the apps will constantly crash or lag as a result.

This means you’ll have to deal with a progressively degrading phone. It’ll get slower as it bypasses each new update. You can circumvent these issues by updating your OS as soon as a new version comes out. The good thing is that most updates nowadays are automatic and when they’re not, you can find a tutorial on how to upgrade android phone or iOS devices on YouTube.

Discover More Tech Guides Today!

Yes, upgrading your cell phone OS benefits you more than it would cause trouble. You get a bevy of new features, better security options, and your phone maintains full support for modern apps.

However, an OS update isn’t the only tech-savvy aspect you should consider.

If, for example, you use WordPress as the backbone of your website, give us a visit and read our other guides. Discover new tips and tricks such this one that lists the 8 best WordPress plugins to grow your blog.