Microsoft Has Reportedly Deprioritized Surface Duo Updates

If you’ve noticed that Microsoft has slowed down updates for its Surface Duo devices in the last couple of months, you’re not alone. Following the release of Android 12L on the Surface Duo and Surface Duo 2 last fall, the company has yet to address some bugs introduced by the major update. Moreover, the company didn’t release a security update for the two devices last month.

According to Windows Central’s Zac Bowden, the future of Microsoft’s Surface Duo family could well be in trouble due to multiple factors. First of all, the Surface Duo OS team, which is said to be working on a single-screen foldable device, has been affected by an internal reorg. The report says that many of its members are now working on Microsoft’s Teams Rooms on Android software.

“For whatever reason, Microsoft considers this effort more important than supporting the Surface Duo with new features and bug fixes, so work on Android for Surface Duo has slowed while the team focused on Teams Rooms on Android. That’s why Android 12L launched in October and has received pretty much no fixes or improvements since,” the report reads.

Bowden also heard that as of late 2022, Microsoft had no plans to release Android 13 on the Surface Duo and was considering waiting for Android 14 instead. “That might have changed since, but I’ve not been able to confirm it,” Bowden said. When asked if Android 13 was coming to Surface Duo devices, Microsoft gave Windows Central a “nothing to share” response.

It certainly doesn’t help that Microsoft announced 10,000 job cuts earlier this year, and projects that failed to get a significant amount of momentum are likely going to be affected. Foldable devices remain a niche market, and it’s hard for Microsoft to compete with established manufacturers like Samsung that also iterate faster.

Another reason for the slow-down of Surface Duo updates could be Microsoft’s troubled relationship with Google, as the Android maker has reportedly stopped giving Microsoft early access to new Android code. “This is why Android 12L for Surface Duo took so long, because unlike Samsung and other OEMs, Microsoft had to wait until Android 12L was finished in March 2022 before it could start working on porting the OS to Surface Duo,” the report explained.

While we may still see a Surface Duo 3 with a single foldable screen, this device may not arrive until late 2024. This would be 3 years after the release of the Surface Duo 2, which is pretty much an eternity in the mobile devices industry. In the meantime, we’re likely not going to see any substantial updates on existing models. As pointed out by Windows Central, even the recent Bing chatbot integration on Microsoft’s Swiftkey keyboard has yet to arrive on the Surface Duo and Surface Duo 2.