Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Samsung Health no longer supports devices running Android 9 and older, according to an uncovered message.
- Affected users can still run older versions of the app, but with “limited services and features” and no support.
Samsung Health has been around for well over a decade now, debuting as S Health way back in 2012. Unfortunately, new versions of the app are no longer available on much older Samsung phones.
An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
Android Authority and app expert AssembleDebug spotted a message in Samsung Health that version 6.27 of the app is no longer available for devices running Android 9 or older. The message notes that this move took effect on June 24.
“You may still use Samsung Health, without upgrading Android OS, but will only be able to use limited services and features without further support,” reads an excerpt of the notice.
AssembleDebug/Android Authority
We can also confirm that version 6.27 of Samsung Health on APKMirror indeed lists Android 10 or higher as the minimum version. By contrast, older versions of the app list Android 8.0 Oreo or higher.
In other words, you’re out of luck if you encounter a problem while using the older versions of Samsung Health on an old phone. This statement also suggests that you’ll be missing out on features.
Either way, this news means that phones like the Galaxy S8 series and older, Galaxy Note 8 and older, and a host of older A and J series devices can’t get new versions of the app. So you’ll need to either stick with the older version of the app or get a new Android phone.
This isn’t the first time Samsung Health dropped older Android versions, either. This most recently occurred in 2021, when Samsung dropped support for Android Marshmallow and Nougat devices in favor of Android 8.0 Oreo and newer.
