An open letter to the Fairphone community

[Alon_Brandt]

Over the past few months, we’ve fallen short in communicating with you about certain issues that you have been flagging on the forum, such as the long wait times for customer support and the long overdue Android 14 update for the Fairphone 4. We’re truly sorry about that. It was never our intention to leave you in the dark, but rather, to wait till we had something solid to share. However, saying nothing is not the way to go. We want to make this right. So we’re sharing this update to explain where things stand on these particular topics.

“Why is customer support taking so long?”

We know this one has been especially frustrating, and we’re sorry for the long wait times many of you have faced. The truth is, we have been dealing with very limited capacity, which had slowed our response times. We’re not okay with that, and we’re working hard to turn it around. That includes expanding the support team asap, bringing in outside help to speed things up, and improving our internal processes to help respond faster in the long run. Work is on to build a more stable support system even as we speak, and we’re confident that you’ll start seeing real improvements very soon. In the meantime, if you are looking for immediate help with your product, we urge you to check out our troubleshooting tool and going through our in-depth support articles on phones, audio products and accessories if you haven’t already. Reaching out on to fellow Fairphoners on this forum with your particular problem might also be helpful, with lots of solutions and workarounds regularly posted by our amazing community here. Again, thank you for bearing with us while we work through this.

“What’s happening with the Android 14 update for Fairphone 4 users?”

We had hoped to deliver Android 14 for Fairphone 4 users by the start of 2025, and we know how disappointing it is that we haven’t made that happen yet. That said, we haven’t dropped support for the Fairphone 4. After thoroughly evaluating what it would take to deliver a stable Android 14 update, we’ve made the difficult decision to shift our focus directly to Android 15. This wasn’t a decision we took lightly, but we believe it’s the best way to deliver a longer-lasting and more future-proof experience for Fairphone 4 users. We’re now actively working on bringing Android 15 to the Fairphone 4 and will keep you updated as we make progress.

We can’t commit to a timeline just yet—it’s still a complicated process with multiple partners involved. We don’t want to make promises that depend on things outside our control. What we can promise is that our team is fully focused on this, and as soon as we have something more concrete to share, this forum will be the first place we post it.

Looking ahead

From here on out, we’ll be more present on the forum—not just on these two issues, but on anything else that’s top of mind for the community. Even if it’s just a small check-in or an update that says “still working on it,” we’ll share it. We get it now: silence doesn’t help. We can do better. So that’s what we’re committing to.

Fairphone wouldn’t exist without this community. That’s something we remind ourselves of often, and we’ll keep doing everything we can to live up to your support and your trust.

Thanks for sticking with us,
The Fairphone Team

[Nabalazs]

That’s what I wanted to hear! Thank you

[loseyourself]

@Ioiana_Luncheon

From here on out, we’ll be more present on the forum—not just on these two issues, but on anything else that’s top of mind for the community. Even if it’s just a small check-in or an update that says “still working on it,” we’ll share it.

Haven’t you made similar statements before?

Communicating with the users

Hey KurtF and community ! Sorry that you feel this way. This forum is mostly self-run because we are lucky to have such an amazing community. My role here is to be the face of Fairphone for big topics, to help Angels with their requests and whatnot. I do read the forum quite often, and so do other members of the company to make sure we are all aware of what’s going on here, even if we don’t talk too often. I’m also the Social Media Manager, meaning that I can not dedicate hours to this …

Fairphone 4 software issues

Hey everyone! Just wanted to give you a quick update on the software issues with Fairphone 4 that some of you have shared concerns about. We know that some problems haven’t been fixed yet, and you may be waiting for more information about how and when it will be resolved. We want you to know that we hear you loud and clear, and we really appreciate all the feedback that helps us make things better. We’re taking care of all the support tickets that have been opened, and we’re sharing all the is…

I feel that the issue tracker ultimately lead nowhere, with some major issues being completely absent. Some issues have been on there since release, and the last update for the tracker was 4 months ago.

The battery issues for example. What’s going on with those?

I appreciate the open letter, but I’m cautiously pessimistic at this point.

[yvmuell]

@Ioiana_Luncheon

includes expanding the support team asap,bringing in outside help to speed things up

as I dont see any open vacanacies, does that mean outsourcing?

[aron]

Time will tell if this is just PR fire fighting or an actual pledge to turn things around.

[aron]

About the directect-to-A15 update for FP4: this isn’t what support told me today!
They said they’re still working on A14, see my post:

Android 14 on Fairphone 4

Meanwhile I had one more interaction on my support ticket today. Response time was ~1h30m. TL;DR Confirming that A14 for FP4 is NOT being dropped, still worked on. Since it’s been aired earlier that they use support ticket to rank issues, I felt it’s my duty to complain : Thank you for getting back to me. Yes, the non-responsive support experience is really bad. Especially since the Fairphone marketing is really frequent and loud in email / on LinkedIn, so the imbalance is…

[xardasjhh]

The support is not the development team. I would rather believe the dev team on this issue.

Anyways, it is really nice to finally have a post from a Fairphone member regarding some of the issues that are addressed frequently in this forum. I really hope that the situation really improves and that this is not another false promise.

And the confirmation that they work on A15 for Fairphone 4 ist good to hear.

It is a affirmation for me that it is indeed a good strategy to point out constructive criticism in this forum, as it seems to be read from the Fairphone company (although other members of this forum think different on that).

[Ioiana_Luncheon]

Hi @yvmuell we are recruiting and had a lot of interest in a vacancy that we recently opened, so it’s already closed.

[jochen0]

Thank you,

I try to translate it:
We did not spend much efforts into support to save money.
Support shall be done by forum members.

We were not able to update the operating system of a phone which we began to sell 3 years ago.
Therefore we decided to announce skipping one version and announce Android 15 for Fairphone 4. That at least helps to silence the community for another 6 months.

Sorry, but that’s what I read it.

You’re welcome to convince us through performance.
My hope is limited because of what I’ve seen your dealing with the “ghost touches” issue.

[jochen0]

@xardasjhh

The support is not the development team. I would rather believe the dev team on this issue.

If development team and support team would make different statements on such a major topic, the situation would be worse as I thought.

[bjoern23]

@jochen0

We were not able to update the operating system of a phone which we began to sell 3 years ago.
Therefore we decided to announce skipping one version and announce Android 15 for Fairphone 4. That at least helps to silence the community for another 6 months.

Sorry, but this is just plain wrong and it does not even have any base for critizism.

First of all:
The FP4 came initially with Android 11 and was updated to 12 in 02/23 and then 13 in 10/23.

So yes, the last update is a while ago, but it is not as if nothing has happened since the release.

But furthermore, Android OS development is hard and certification is a pain.

While we can all agree, that Fairphone did not shine as bright as the sun, implicating that they are abandoning us in a malicious manner, is unjust.

[SuperMarkus]

Why not straight to Android 16 then?

Also: Use LineageOS and not regular AOSP as your upstream. Maintain hardware adaptions there and then branch off your release version with necessary adaptions for Google certification from this. Less maintenance burden, quicker releases, literally everyone involved wins.

[Paule]

Some people are just impossible to satisfy.

[jochen0]

Ok, I should have mentioned the updates to 12 and 13. Sorry about that.
The rest of my “translation” is motivated by bad experiences.

[jochen0]

I assume that’s sarcasm.

[Paule]

Sarcasm about the amount of ridiculous accusations in just one post, so yes.

[Jens1]

@SuperMarkus

then branch off your release version with necessary adaptions for Google certification from this. Less maintenance burden, quicker releases, literally everyone involved wins.

I guess the developers at FP have already thought about ways like that and concluded not to do it that way.

[Furdiburd]

Android 16 is not yet out, Android 15 is

[Nabalazs]

Genuine question though. What would it take to skip to 16? When does it release? What does release even mean? Does it mean Pixels will get it, then samsung will push it out a couple months later too? Can vendors start working on it while its still in beta?
Not that I’m suggesting Fairphone do that. More of a thougt experiment. What would it take?