Note 8 Android Oreo Update Spotted In Wild: What You Need To Know

Though Android Oreo has been in beta testing on the Galaxy S8 for a while now, things have been relatively silent on the Note 8 front. Aside from a leaked beta build last month, we haven't heard much about Oreo on the Note 8. That may all change soon if a new post to Reddit is to be believed.

A post to the Galaxy Note 8 subreddit shows us Oreo running on a Note 8 with a Samsung Exynos processor. The person who posted the images says that he or she works for Samsung and that the phone is used to give customers hands-on demos (which explains why the phone's IMEI isn't blocked out in the images). The update apparently randomly appeared on the device, leading some to assume that a wider roll out might be on the way.

In the comments section on that post, another user gives us a partial list of patch notes for this update. The Oreo update for the Note 8 will bring a number of new features with it, ranging from picture-in-picture support for at least YouTube and Google Maps, specific long-press menus for certain Android app, and changes to the secure folder that allow you to keep it unlocked until your display goes to sleep. You can see the rest of these preliminary patch notes in the image below.

While some commenters are thinking that this is part of a soak test – a small scale test to make sure than an update works before rolling it out to a larger number of users – the update may not be that far along in development just yet. Since the Reddit user who submitted this post claims to work for Samsung and that this is a Samsung-owned device, this could very well be part of an internal test, which would likely happen before a soak test that would include non-Samsung-owned devices.

Regardless of the nature of this seemingly random update, it'll certainly be encouraging to those who have been longing to see Oreo on their Galaxy Note 8. For now, it's probably best not to get too excited, because an official Oreo update might be a long way out. Still, this could be the beginning of the process that ultimately brings Oreo to the Note 8, so we'll keep an ear to the ground for more.