That’s part of the problem with Android, and the biggest gripe many people have with the operating system. It’s not bad in general, but the messy situation with the updates has been getting on some users’ nerves.
Not only that, but the situation is usually made even worse when one considers the added delay from individual manufacturers like Samsung. It’s up to them to keep up with the release schedule of Google themselves, but that’s not always so easy as we have seen already.
Samsung in particular are notorious for the slow pace of their releases and their users have generally given up on the idea of being in line with the main Android channel. That’s partly because the company has its own customizations in the OS and those take time to implement once a new major Android version has been released. What’s more, sometimes those modifications aren’t taken very well by the community as they tend to lag the OS.
All things considered, the situation with the S4 is not really that surprising and people were actually expecting this to some extent. Regardless, it was a disappointment to hear that this is indeed how the situation will be in the future.