Since it is possible to upgrade (community Kitkat port) I trust Fairphone that they will do everything they can legally do to provide an official upgrade to Kitkat for the FP1.
And even if not, one can follow the tips for improved security for the FP1(U). (There has been a lot of discussion about security already. I’d like to ask you to read through the forum a bit, if you are interested. )
But back on topic: I’ve read that other phones with the FP2’s Snapdragon 801 have received upgrades to Android 6. Additionally Fairphone promised to release the source codes, so even if they cannot provide an upgrade themselves, the community will be able to do so.
@Stefan is right. lets stay on topic. there is two things i would like to say anyway:
we have a quite functional custom rom now thanks to @chrmhoffmann.
that is an assumption.
fairphone is releasing security updates regulary. the FP1 was one of the first devices to recieve a stagefright fix, for example.
crmhoffmann is even faster with some updates then the nexus ota images.
me too. and note porting a OS takes time. for the xperia z3 line for example (snapdragon 801), sony provides AOSP sources and binaries for 6.0 since a while now, still the official update seems to be at least two months away.
This is not about source code (which is mostly all GPL or Apache2 licensed) but about the proprietary vendor files (aka blobs) which MTK probably didn’t allow FP to distribute. Regarding the FP2 it would be interesting to know whether FP gained the permission from QC to distribute these files (like obviously Sony got) or if they are still negotiating (well, FP and transparency, the good old story). The sad thing here is that QC also does not publish these files themselves (unlike their CAF kernels) but - just like MTK - they only give them to the vendors directly, connected to terms for redistribution.
Unfortunately, none of these is effective in adressing the Webview vulnerabilites. Even the “visit only trustworthy websites” stuff is not effective, as we’ve seen in the past that some malware is distributed e.g. by ads shown on trustworthy websites. The bigger issue here is that just any app can make use of the Webview component, and then it’s pretty hard to check / control if the traffic goes exclusively to “trustworthy” websites. Furthermore, if you look at apps which display contents via Webview from social networks - you can only regard the network as “trustworthy” or not, but the network usually doesn’t have much control about the contents the users put there.
You can get the source code for the FP1 as well, including the MTK sources for the kernel. Still this does not help, as the device relies on those closed source blobs which only the vendor can provide (unless somebody comes up with a free replacement).
My last update was that it was not very functional (especially regarding bluetooth problems), but if this has changed meanwhile that’s very good news.
There is no real advantage in running a system which has a 3 months old hole fixed while having a 1 years old hole still open. Often, attackers (especially the less talented ones) are exploiting rather older security holes.
The validation and certification process through which official OS updates by the vendors have to go through before being released is very lengthy and complicated. Especially, when vendors provide various “branded” variants. There are loads of articles explaining this, e.g. this one:
@jftr Thanks for the answer. But it shows that even fairphone can’t break the circle of phones that are build to last only something about two years. That really pi*** me off with all the phones out there. I’ll give the fairphone a go and see how far it takes me…maybe in two years there is going to be a OS with the focus to be used more than two years (and its available for the FP2).
Oh, hello! Here in august we’re still wondering if our national Dutch football team can qualify for the european championship next year! I bet they will! Ha ha, ha… ha… ha… uhhhr
Just for the record: I meant that the bluetooth issues are not solved in Cyanogen Mod, but in @chrmhoffmann’s second ROM, namely Android Kitkat for FP1.
I think that the next Android version should be the deadline for having 6.0 working on the fairphone 2, if they want to sell the fairphones 2 in 2016 (or longer).
I got my FP 2 last week already (thanks) and I’m already talking with friends about the bad Android 5.1 bugs and limitations. Sorry.
Currently I struggle to recommend the phone as many thinks don’t work well … as before with my old one.
My ‘old’ Galaxy Nexus III is 4 years and 2 month old and the original (unchanged) Google Android 4.3 is much much better. Please update the FP 2 to 6.xx or downgrade to 4.3 (4.4 is bad too) asap !!!
Until then I need to use the old Nexus in parallel as the 5.1 is not stable and not usable
After 18 days I’m also very disappointed with Android 5.1 on my FP2.
Since today it doesn’t work and I had screen freezing and restarts in the last 14 days…
Because this is in the Android 6.0 thread: I doubt the instability you describe is related to 5.1. I work with a lot of Android phones, and I cannot say Android 5.1 is generally more buggy than any other release. It works quite stable in fact.
I am currently using the first galaxy S. Without dev like Cyanogen, it will be completely impossible to use it today, only because Android 2.3 (Gingerbread !) is to old. Almost all apps need at least Android 4 (ICS).
The most difficult part for me to buy a FP2 was not knowing if it will be stuck in 5.1, and so doomed to live “only” 2-3 years top, until no more apps will be available for this old Android Lollipop version.
And because FP is not (yet) very popular, there is far less developers ready to spent hours porting the latest version of Android on this device.
I took the bet and buy one, but mostly because I believe in the fair concept, not because I am sure that I will be able to use FP2 correctly for 5 years, like my SGS.
Bottom line, by buying a Fairphone, I am confident that the hardware should be ok for years, I am mainly concern by the software which is, for me, the main point of obsolescence.
Yeah, I did the same with my HTC Desire. It came with 2.2 preinstalled but I could update it up to 4.4. So in the end the Fairphone 1 that I bought afterwards was never as up to date as my ancient HTC Desire…
But in this case this will be different, as the license situation of the kernel sources etc is much more ROM friendly. There will be updates, if not official ones then inofficial ones
)
), I hope we can see the FP team getting some more time in thinking about updates.
ok, it could be also an hardware problem…