Got up this morning and found my Nexus 7 was running Android 6. And frankly, without going to a review of Android 6 vs 5 and then checking out the changes, it’s virtually impossible to tell the difference. The clock has a different font (wowee!!) and you can launch Google Now from the start up screen … though you then have to log in to do anything with whatever Google Now dredges up from the net.
The only really good thing (I think) is that you can apply permissions to apps after they’re installed; so the useful but pesky app that demands access to all your photos, contacts and music can have that access denied after you’ve installed it. Price of apps now set to rise!
anyway no biggie - I think there will be more difference between stock 5.1 and FP2 5.1 than there is between 5.1 & 6!
Thanks for sharing your experience and for this realistic valuation!
kwamcorp also announced a self made feature like this for the OS the FP2 will be shipped with (not beeing 6.0!) and they appreciated this development from Android!
And for all concerned about security: FP tries the best to supply FP1 & FP2 with most important security fixes, independently on which Android-version it is settled.
But maybe I got it a little bit wrong while reading it the first time…now it sounds a little bit different.
Sorry for making maybe a false message. Now I find:
Our responsibility to our users is to make sure we empower them with the
ability to quickly understand the impact over their privacy, by the
various apps they use. As we were preparing this line of work, Google
announced that in M (their next version of Android) they were doing
something similar. Applause.
Cheers, Robert
Now - about three month later - there are a few articles (see here: FP2 - Rewies/Previews of the phone) that tell about work on an update for Android 6.0.
Sadly that we only hear this from unofficial sources, instead of FP itself. Although it is obiously not yet official for announcing it at a blog (or micro-blog @Douwe) , I wonder why FP tells it to the press but not to their supporters here…
Most likely: there are more important things (FP2…), which keeps FP busy and don’t let time to announce ANYTHING at all at the moment…
I would assume that this is actually their busiest time! Their phone already started with production, there’s still a million issues to fix before real mass production starts, there’s lots of last minute fixes to be done with the software, as they announced they’re also working on documentation for custom OS and then there’s far too many press appointments. And meeting with the press and talking with them is both, time consuming but also very important, because Fairphone also runs on money just like any other company. And if they do their job right they create more demand and maybe some big companies like T-Mobile, KPN, Vodafone or 3 might get interested and help Fairphone to level up
I’m just sitting here, becoming impatient, waiting for my new phone, but at the same time still confident that they’re doing a great job! I didn’t support them and paid for a new phone aaaaages ago, only to lose faith in the very last days and couple of weeks!
We have a wealth of information to share with you this week! We agree it was so quiet, too quiet as we where waiting for SAR results, iFixit results, the Gold video, SailfishOS news, FirefoxOS news, Delivery news, battery replacements, screen replacements, microblog (I hear you @therob!) developments and of course at the same time staying on track to deliver the FP2 to all you!
But, these week we’ll start sharing the stories of many of these adventures and how the are going. Starting today with a Fairphone 2 production update.
And, yes, I am meeting later today with the software team and will squeeze every single bit of information I can get of them. But it could be that the information is; Android 6.0 will still take a while… so don’t set your hope to high.
News about having more news is awesome news (but still, I’d rather have the news themselves ;)) I’m looking forward to whatever you will publish later this week.
The unofficial reply I just got from the developers is that FP2 will 99% sure support Android 6.
The Fairphone 2 will be shipped with Android 5.1. Starting next year our chip supplier Qualcomm will prepare android 6 for the chip currently used in Fairphone 2. After that we can start working to make it ready for the the Fairphone 2.
Pressed to give a date, our developer said that in an optimistic scenario Android 6 will be ready for the Fairphone 2 in the summer of 2016.
I hope this answers your questions regarding Marshmallow.
Any new updates will come after Qualcomm have prepared Android 6 for their chip beginning next year.
Never say never, but very highly extremely unlikely we will ever see Android 6 on FP1. Not even Android 5.
As you might know there is an ongoing community effort to have [Android 4.4.4 on FP1][1] and we follow and support that with great enthusiasm. Hopefully we can officially support that one day.
Security updates and fixes will continue to be released, but also depend on the severity of the bug and company resources.
I do not think of that as a huge problem – unless you are a developer eager to test out Android 6.0 features. I will be a while majority of apps will take advantage of Android 6 APIs. Looking at this: Distribution dashboard | Platform | Android Developers (the Android Version Distribution as measured by Google), i project even in autumn 2016, less then one third of all Android devices will run Marshmallow.
At this point I don’t think we can really talk about 99% that would require one of those glass balls to do predictions and I can’t find a working one. I would first like to see Qualcomm release a 6.0 port for the msm8974 and continue the discussion from there on.
One thing seems more certain: By the time we would release 6.0 the next Android version would be lurking at us.
I thought [Sony got that already (Z2/Z3)][1], or do they do stacked releases? I don’t want to create trouble [I’m totally fine with 5], I’m just wondering how “open” the process works. Do all OEMs get the code at the same time by the webpage or do they release their “open” code later?
Or is Sony doing their own thing (That’s what I assume)?
