Compared to the rest of the world, U.S. buyers had to wait a bit longer for the Samsung Galaxy S3 to finally hit stores. This may be one the reasons why many are suggesting that American owners of the Galaxy S3 may have to wait longer than others for the upcoming Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update.

Earlier, it was rumored that the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update for the Galaxy S3 would be ready by August or September of this year. We also heard that Samsung is currently testing the update, which normally suggests a rollout date is nigh.

But we’ve heard that from manufacturers and carriers before. We’ve also heard them assure customers that updates will be coming soon, without announcing any official rollout date. That’s essentially what Samsung is doing now to Galaxy S3 users, particularly in the States – an update will be coming soon, but how soon is soon?

Using a history as a guide, soon may be anywhere between a month and half a year. It’s been nine months since the launch of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, for instance, but thousands of Gingerbread phone owners have yet to receive confirmation of an ICS update. Also, it took six months before a major update to ICS (a new version of the platform) was released for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Using this logic and the June-July release dates of American Galaxy S3 variants, “soon” may finally arrive late this year or early next year, if the August or September timeline is intended for Galaxy S3 owners in general.