Samsung admits issue in Note 3 update with third party accessories; will fix shortly

Just a few brief days ago, we reported on the update to the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 which appeared to break some compatibility with third party accessories, like the Spigen Slim Armor View case depicted above. While speculation was rife that this was intentional on the part of Samsung, it does now appear that this was unintentional.

Samsung recently gave this statement to Ars Technica:

We have currently identified a software compatibility issue with the Galaxy Note 3 update to Android 4.4 (KitKat) and select 3rd party accessories. A software update will be available shortly. We are committed to offering a diverse and reliable mobile experience for all customers, providing continued support and solutions for any issues that arise with product updates for both Samsung manufactured and third-party accessories.

It looks like what’ll happen from here on in is that Note 3 devices already updated to KitKat will receive a small update to fix the incompatibility soon, and quite likely before the update hits other markets the incompatibility issue will be resolved so hopefully it won’t materialise at all.

It’s a strange turn of events, and one hopes we can trust Samsung’s statement that it really was only an inadvertent issue, and that we aren’t seeing a backtracking from a failed lockdown attempt.