Android 6.0 Marshmallow / 7 Nougat for FP2?

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It more or less still depends on the companies that create the bin blobs and proprietary SoC software (just check the bin blob tar ball to see the amounts … it’s a lot. Maybe not all the stuff is needed, but that’s another story).

Will all those different companies update their different software if Android/the API changes? Or will their hardware be to old and they will not care anymore due to R&D costs and the need to sell new stuff?

There is nothing FP can do. The only thing that we can hope (and that is something that makes project ara still interesting) is that Google makes the Android APIs for the modules so clean that most bin blobs will work for a long time.

I don’t believe it, but we will see. Maybe the APIs are “stable” enough already?

Maybe some FP insider info could help here to understand how critical this is issue is. Are bin blobs a problem between Android versions? Or is this not a problem?

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I think that is important update because with android 6.0 you will have more battery and security.
In android N you will have more advantage that will do the fairphone better.

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Related reading :slight_smile: I’m not a big fan, because Google adds stuff to get more and more of your data every time and adds more and more propitiatory software, but there are some interesting changes in regards to java and power management.

Android N power management.

Android N Combines AOT, Interpretation and JIT

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The lowest common denominator should be monthly updates for Lollipop, following Android’s monthly security patches. (An upgrade to Marshmallow or N would be pretty neat, but not at the cost of software quality, e. g. bugs.)

In my perfect little world, FP1 would get the same treatment regarding KitKat: Monthly security updates until backporting will not be possible anymore.

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That is at least planned by Fairphone.

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There are someone who knows somethig abaut cm13 for fairphone 2?

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That’s a different topic, see here:

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After I’ve read several comments on that topic, I want to put in my two cents too. I call myself a power user who owns a smartphones since 2008. After using iOS, Blackberry, Android and Windows Phone, from my point of view, Fairphone’s approach is one of the best I’ve senn so far.

Comparing this approach to the real phone, I see several issues, due to the fact, that the company is still very small. I was aware of that before I bought my FP2 and hope, that those issues will fade in the future.

I want to point out one thing, that is really important to me:
We didn’t receive many FP2 updates in the past and of course it’s a pity, that we are not able to use e.g. the privacy features from Android M. But:
The FP2 updates made things better. Times ago, something like that was quite normal. Right now, updates often make things even worst. Right now, I’ve got what I need: A stable phone, that works.

If there comes an update notification, I can install the update without being in a panic mode. No annoying update notifications (like I get on my iPad), no crashes after the update (like I had on my iPad) and a phone that does, what I expect (minor issues, like issues with dual-SIM included).

I really appreciate that.

If there is a way to stay on that quality-level and release a major Android update, I would really appreciate that. If that’s not possible, I have some time to wait for that - hopefully not too long.

But all in all: The decision to value quality over new features is a decision I appreciate so much, I cannot express.

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I’m not sure if I can agree here. The phone was released roughly 5 months ago, and there’s the second update out, with the third in testing. I think this is quite a good record, even though I’m also looking forward for a major release step (i.e. android 6.x). But I agree with you, it’s good to see that first the software team worked on stability and initial bug fixes. Now the software runs stable, and is totally up to date in regard of security bug fixes; quite a good record in the Android world.

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I would like to point out that there are many FP2 updates: 1.2.8, 1.3.6 in 4 months, expecting even more due to security updates.

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Well, I guess @HonestJay was referring to the absolute number of updates (2), which are not really many in terms of judging average quality of FP2 OS updates from a statistics perspective.
I think there’s no doubt that 2 updates within 5 months (or probably 3 updates in 6 months) are relatively many and a great job done by FP.

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Well, it seems, that some people can’t handle praise. I just updated my FP2. After that I wanted to sent a picture via Threema und my phone restarted. Now the Lockscreen is flickering, when I want to type in my login code… On the first view it seems like the software team follows Apple’s example :wink:

Back to the topic:

From my personal point of view, I’m expecting that critical security issues are fixed during hours. We can negotiate about days, but when it turns out to take weeks, that’s at least as bad as Adobe’s Update Policy on the flash player for desktop PCs.
Of course I know, that the FP2 team is doing a good job here, compared to other vendors, so please don’t get me wrong on this. I don’t want to rant about what they are doing. But in my absolutely honest opinion, it’s still not a good thing, if you are one of the best just because the rest is messing up the whole thing in a worse way than you are.
Of course I also know, that the problem is also based on the Android OS, which is - from a security point of view - a pain in the… you know what I mean… :slight_smile:

Back to my FP2 to check my mails. Monitor doesn’t flicker anymore on login. Trying it again. Phone restarts… Damm it :wink:

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Very well put. I don’t want to stigmatize a group of people, but its especially youth who want the latest and the greatest [features] (and I write that as someone who previously used a smartphone and tablet which both ran Android M!). It doesn’t make sense. You may think you want features or the latest Android version; you actually want security fixes and reliability fixes. Features are at best secondary; a bonus feature. Since the industry doesn’t have security and reliability features fixed yet, I’d rather see the industry focus on those. If you want features, you buy a new version of the phone. If every phone manufacturer would follow these principles this world would be a lot better off, and actually lot more safe. This is also part of the whole mindset of the Fairphone movement; to make a durable phone with longevity. Its actually sad I feel like I need to thank Fairphone as a company for doing this; it should be default! Yet, because it is not, that makes the Fairphone movement and Fairphone as a company all the more progressive. And, if I may add, gives the product more value.

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Well, I basically agree with you, but there is just one thing: Android 6 vastly improved permission management, and this feature is a big step forward in regard of privacy features. So particularly because of that I think that Android 6 would be an important step.
Having that said, there are alternatives; I for instance use xprivacy in this regard, but for a beginner on Android, installing the xposed framework is not the easiest thing to do. So that’s why I think Android 6 would be good to have.

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They say that Android 6 also vastly improves power management (Doze and App-Standby). If I had a FP2 (I’m still on my FP1), this would be the feature I’d be waiting for.

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Very true it does and I agree that is a huge feature. I can confirm from my own experience with a phone and a tablet which I used for a long time on respectively 5.0.1 and 5.1.x for a long time and then recently got an upgrade to respectively 6.0 and 6.0.1 that this is a big deal. (Although 5.0.1 also had its own set of issues.)

For myself I don’t care much about permission management in 6.x but I can imagine others do care. Its a big step forward, it is user friendly (also from first hand experience), and the right way to do this.

IIRC both features get further polished in 7.0. Not sure on that, nor on the details.

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Hi all,
is there any development in this area? 2nd half of 2016 started, but haven’t seen any updates regarding Android 6?

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Hi there

And +1 to thorwaler question.

My Fairphone is like unusable without permissions managements.
How can I accepte to use application that want to crawl my privates messages ?
And I don’t want to be root.

Please give us news about the v6.

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As a workaround you can install the xposed framework and xprivacy, but yes that requires root.

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As they only now seem to get in the right rhythm with updates in the monthly step, and there are still some difficult bugs to get fixed, I think that the originally stated date will be shifted to later this/beginning of next year. (which of course is just a private estimate). Then, what did people use before? I mean, mm isn’t on that many phones today, and before you simply needed root to get control of permissions? I’m perfectly happy with xprivacy or (simpler,) appopps exposed