Smartphone users in the US are just getting their hands on new Galaxy S IIIs, and while most carriers in the States haven’t so much as touched the phone’s software since its release, we’ve just learned of Sprint’s plans to distribute the second-such OTA update for its own GS3; why is this one carrier edition receiving so much attention?

The first update for the GS3 on Sprint started going out late last month, before the handset was even available in Sprint retail stores. The carrier described it only as a “security update”. Today’s release, bringing the phone up to system software L710VPLG2, gets a similarly vague explanation, noted as containing “Google security updates”.

That leaves us with a bit of guesswork to get to the bottom of this. This second security update being Google-related gives us a few ideas, especially since this is a Sprint handset; that means fully-supported Google Wallet with the phone’s NFC hardware.

We know that there have been some recent problems with Wallet on HTC’s EVO 4G LTE; could Google have come across an issue while working on a fix for those bugs that would have also ended up affecting the Galaxy S III? It’s only a theory for now, but considering how we’re only seeing these updates for Sprint’s GS3, it seems like a possibility that Wallet could factor-in somehow. Until Sprint shares more, we won’t really know. At the least, we feel a little better knowing that someone’s on top of patching these security issues, even without knowing their full scope.

Source: Sprint
Via: Android Police