You are not counting kitkat, which they did release, just didn’t call it a final release.
They did. Everybody can download it and all #software:fp1-beta-testing discussions are public.
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I’d this than rather Fairphone going bust - what kind of message would that send out about sustainability to both companies and consumers?
I must also agree with @Harald_bs - Fairphone needs to be more transparent about how things are going
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I own a FP2, and I am not sure to buy another one for my wife. FP depends on us, but at least I, don’t know, where the journey goes. I am not willing to pay 500€+ for a device, where I get no new battery (from the manufacturor) after 3 to 4 years. And I don’t want to regret, that I bought a FP2. I paid the higher price because of open software, transparency and a higher lifetime.
They should care about the device they have and keep their promises, before talking about a follow up device. The company is playing with their customer’s patience.
Provide fast spare parts delivery and much shorter device deliveries. Who wants to wait months for a smartphone? 4 weeks is the maximum. How can I recommend a FP to friends, and say, they have to wait such a long time. They would call me crazy. The best argument for them was the easy repairing. But how to do this without parts? And I don’t want to buy parts from 3rd parties or used parts.
And please have more ears for your community! Most users want SailfishOS as officially supported alternative OS. And FP takes Ubuntu Touch, a nearly dead OS. @z3ntu and @chrmhoffmann are doing such a great job with the LineageOS port. Please give them more support!
I don’t feel to be a part of any movement, when I read such news like this. And next year, maintainance for the FP2 ends??? Is that the idea you had???
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You are not counting that this is about:
1- a ‘pre-alpha’ firmware (which will hold-off many) , and
2- it requires quite some (Android) skills to get this running on your phone.
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This.
Seriously, I waited since when? October 2015? for news on Android 4.4. And news would have been more than “we are working on it”.
I am not an Android developer. But I would have appreciated technical information, even some commented code sections to get an idea how complicated the stuff is and probably to learn from it.
What I got was radio silence, and an e-mail in July 2017 that Fairphone does no longer plan to release KitKat. Again, no “jucy” details. Not even a “we can’t tell you more because our lawyer advises against it”.
@Douwe, I assume it is very hard to do communications with an estimated 100k people, where only a small subset is actually interested in such stuff. But your work and what happens behind the scene in developement are black boxes to us. Basically everything since the e-mail that Android 4.4 would be coming to the FP1 is unknown to basically everybody. I don’t even know if the beta testers have had better information, as I missed the opportunity to sign up for the beta testing program by hours.
If you can, change that for future developement, please. Push out the information how to find information.
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The beta testing forum of of Kitkat (#software:fp1-beta-testing) has been opened several months ago to the general audience. Everyone can read there about the current open issues, the discussion surrounding them and what is currently blocking development,
There has also been an Ask Me Anything session with the developer where anyone could ask questions and have them answered live by @jftr
If it is too long, I summarized the AMA and added any new news about KitKat to a topic which includes all the latest news with their date stamps. The link to the topic was posted several times on our Twitter and Facebook account to inform people about the status.
The information about why we can’t release the source was promptly given after the first person asked about it here on the forum. Apart from @wolf, nobody asked so far and I think we got the information to him as fast as we could.
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Bas van Abel wrote a blog post about the Fairphone 1 and how we came to where we are.
You can read it here:
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Thank you, @Douwe, for this information!
And Bas, of course. [quote]the minimum orders required to produce new batches of spare parts is beyond what we can afford[/quote]Is it possible to get some actual numbers on this? Like what would have been the minimum batch size and the resulting cost?
Just for my peace of mind, can you confirm that it would have been too much money to accumulate through a crowdfunding campaign? Because I have heard several voices on here (including myself) that would have been willing to pay extra in exchange for displays and batteries.
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Ah ok, sorry. I thought that the beta discussions are private…
That is good, but it is not promotet here: The latest news on the Fairphone 1 - Fairphone (only indirect)
I hope to see an community version of 4.4.4. Unfortunately I could only help with testing… 
Where he says that FairPhone 1 were support for 3 years and half but yet, the last software update is from August 2015 (or something like that), and spare parts were missing way before now… Again you are simply not being honest with us (nor the rest of the world). This is why people get mad at you… We don’t feel part of a movement nor a community if you treat us like this.
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Hi Douwe,
thanks for the information. I will not question how good or bad I find this decision, since it is already made and I am sure it wasn’t an easy one. However, you are forcing us to buy a new phone. I have been waiting for a while to change my broken screen because it wasn’t available in the shop, and now I know I will not get it.
Taking into account the end of support of FP1 that you are announcing here, the big difference of price of FP2 (in comparison with FP1) and the spirits of sustainability which are core of this movement, I believe the FP1 community deserves a discount to by an FP2. Otherwise, you are forcing us to either, feel a bit stupid and “fooled” buying a an expensive FP2 or to stop seeking fair technology.
Apologies if this has been already posted in the 179 responses that I have not been able to read.
Looking forward to receive a communication in my inbox with some good news… 
Best,
Marta
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On the contrary. Fairphone still does all they can to help you keep your FP1 for as long as possible.
You can get one in the Market. Everything except for batteries will probably still be available second hand for a long time.
FP1 users do get fist dibs on the cheaper and refurbished FP2 “new life edition”.
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Extremely disappointing. As so many that have posted in this thread before me, I joined the initial crowdfunding effort for the FP1 out of idealism and the desire to support a project that would deliver a different kind of mobile phone.
I expected a life time of well over the three and a half years that we’ve got now. I have been careful with my phone and I am assuming that mechanically and electronically it could easily work satisfactorily for me for at least another 6 years (just as a reference: I type this on a 2010 laptop and I still use a low energy 2009 desktop computer, both running on Arch Linux).
When buying in to the initial Fairphone project, I was also expecting the possibility of running an open source operating system on the FP1, but I was disappointed in that respect as well. It never happened due to the hardware used in the FP1.
I almost couldn’t believe what I read when it dawned to me that I will probably never be able to buy a replacement battery. I mean: a spare battery! In terms of sustainability one of the key concepts is to be able to buy replacement parts so that you don’t have to throw away the costly whole.
In summary: in my eyes the Fairphone project failed to deliver true sustainability (hardware and software) and I will not soon buy another Fairphone. My solution will be to go ‘back to basics’ and buy a simple mobile phone, like the Samsung clam model that my partner is still using.
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“FP1 users do get fist dibs on the cheaper and refurbished FP2 “new life edition”.”
Great, who is selling this? can you send me a link? What I found wasn’t from your Fairphone shop.
thanks
Exactly! It is rather misleading, as the FP1 has only been supported for approx 1.5 yr. And as supporter of this project I don’t think we deserved to be mislead.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m still behind my decision to buy the FP1 at the time, but support has been extremely short, leading to an premature end of my FP1 (even though it’s still being used as a secondary phone).
Hmmm, if I had known that I might have considered bying a FP2 instead of diverting to a not-fair phone as I’ve done now. And I’m pretty sure I went through all the details on the webshop site several times before this divert.
Information about the refurbished FP2 can not (yet) be found in the webshop since that is open for everyone. It might be a good idea to add some announcement though.
You can show interest for the refurbished FP2 on the page ‘The latest news on the Fairphone 1’, a link to that page was sent with the news about the ended support.
You can find it here: https://www.fairphone.com/en/the-latest-news-on-the-fairphone-1/
About halfway through the page, right below ‘If you’re saying goodbye to your Fairphone 1’, you can enter your email address to show interest.
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As @uBkUN27v said above, there is more to support in a phone then software.
Also, as explained in the blog and as can be read in this previous post we tried very hard to release an update for over a year.
And we failed.
We think it is not in the interest of the company to keep pouring resources (money and man hours spend) into a project we do not know will ever end. As we say in Dutch: “Beter ten halve gekeerd, dan ten hele gedwaald.” (To err is human, but to persist in error is another matter.)
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And after 2-3 years, no updates anymore… - again.
In general, despite understandable frustration: lots op people totally underestimate that the whole mobile market is way to fucked up. And we are in this situation, because so many people permanently buy new phones and do not care about, what Fairphone stands for. Such a small firm CAN’T change supplier’s minds.
I would like to hear though from Fairphone in detail, what measures they take to secure FP2-support for, say, at least 4-5 years…
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And what else, if I may ask? Considering that (many) spare parts were over long time before this announcement, could you please lists some pieces of this "more to support in a phone " … I’d love to be illuminated to what was the support that have been kept for 3 years and half.[quote=“Douwe, post:197, topic:30482”]
We think it is not in the interest of the company to keep pouring resources (money and man hours spend) into a project we do not know will ever en
[/quote]
Again, this is very understandable, but still the key in all of this is communication. You kept up hope until the very last moment and then said "it is not gonna happen "…and insisting that the communication was good and you did support the FP1 for 3.5 years it is a bit frustrating as in practice this didn’t happen…
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To date you can call us during office hours and ask for help with any issue related to the Fairphone 1. Also there are still spare parts available. The battery part was for sale until very recently and throughout the last year we’ve been able to restock the display module from time to time.
Indeed. We wanted to make sure that we really reached the point of no return. As soon as that was decided we told everyone as quickly as possible. Do you think we should have informed you before we made the decision?
How do you define the last moment? It looks like the last moment arrives when you make a decision; so they logically always come together…
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