This is sad new.
Anyway, can I still subscribe for the Android 4.4 Beta program? I would at least like to run the latest beta to continue using my phone as long as possible; I don’t care about the Bluetooth issue.
4 Likes
Hi folks,
what a great success for sustainability and environmental saving: I now have a 3 1/2 years young smartphone that was never developed ready (BT4 isn’t available until now although the hardware would be able to). There was a promise that the Android would be save and up-to-date… nothing!
I have a smartphonethat was bought with the promise of longevity and repareability. Well it was designed to be but without spare parts. who cares… Especial the batteries. My old Huawai 8160 uses its first battery since 5 years now and is pretty good. My fairphone battery quits its life 2 1/2 years old 
The price for a new battery was so high, i made my spare unit myself. I can do this, others not.
Now canceling the development of Android 4.4 you lost all the trust I ever had in your honesty. We, that entusiatic guys that gave you our money to move something, we are dissapointed that you dont’t care about us. You don’t care about environment and all teh rest you promised.
By, you lost me. Be sure, I’ll never buy a fairphone again and be sure I’ll tell everybody not to buy such a crap. It is much more envirinmetal friendly and sustaionable to buy a smartphone that is well supported by second source and a big open community.
Marte
7 Likes
I’m really disappointed by this bad news! You told us that you would have released an Android 4.4 for Fairphone 1, and now you simply say that it’s not going to happen… This is not a fair behavior from a company that is promoting a long life for its phones…
How much would it cost to finalize the development of the Android 4.4? If money is the problem, tell us how much you need for that, and that together we can find a solution.
How many Fairphone 1 customer are still using it? You can contact each one of the 60000 customers and ask them. Then you could launch a crowdfunding campaign …
Or the problem is that you don’t have any idea about how much it would cost?
9 Likes
Well everyone who followed the FP1 forum this last year saw this news coming. Although this situation is perfectly understandable, I can’t deny that I am disappointed. I hoped that the lifespan of a Fairphone was longer than for example their Samsung counterparts. Unfortunately that is not the case, after three years I have a phone that is highly unreliable when it comes to its performance and many apps can’t run on this Android version. Hopefully FP2 users won’t find themselves in this position in a few years.
Nevertheless, I still stand behind the company and its values and maybe I would buy a (refurbished) FP2 when I saved enough money.
8 Likes
Am not particularly surprised at this news, but am still disappointed. Communication always seemed to be a weak point from Fairphone and long periods without updates gradually worn down my expectations and hopes. At least we finally have a confirmation
I have been and continue to be reasonably happy with my FP1, but cannot see myself buying a FP2 or future phones unless something big happens to persuade me otherwise. Especially considering the price. I’m still glad I bought the phone and hopefully in that way contributed to the whole project, but frustration and disappointment remains
Am also worried for people who bought the FP2 now…
8 Likes
I think the FP2 is in a much better position: Fairphone has sold already more of them than of the FP1, so the demand for spare parts is bigger and it is easier to order bigger quantities, although we see that there are some temporary supply shortfalls already. But I consider this as a short term issue and really hope that it isn’t a harbinger for the general availability of FP2 spare parts.
In terms of software updates we see that with Lineage OS there’s a community-driven OS that is on a later Android version than the official Fairphone OS. Due to the unlucky chipset choice for the FP1 there has never been something like that.
9 Likes
well, this basically means I will probably go with purism in the future as fairphone fucked it up hard.
my advice: team up with 'em as they are good on the software part as well, but maybe not in ecological sourcing for parts so much.
Serious? I can’t believe it. Talking about sustainability, and let the product go obsolete after three and a half years? Please. Don’t. Already when I got that mail like: “Yeah, your phone is old now, and comes to the end of its lifetime”, I got sceptical. This was the preparation (“your phone is old now, time to buy the next one!”) Now come the facts. Ruins a lot of your image, sorry. No Fairphone 2 for me!
7 Likes
It is not like Fairphone had provided Fairphone maintenance until yesterday. So the very first premise is incorrect.
Displays have been unavailable for a year already. Batteries have been in short supply for ages. Motherboards have been unavailable for months and months, and the last minor update of the OS is ages ago. The only thing we, the users have seen since are endless promises of a coming update, of spare parts that would eventually become available again etc. Jesus coming real soon this time…
So all in all, as an FP1U user, I have seen active maintenance happening for just under two years, which is pretty miserable for a device advertised for longevity.
I did expect more. Now I have returned to buying second hand phones again and putting custom ROMs onto them, for me, that’s the most ethnical and sustainable thing I can possibly do. Will I give Fairphone another chance? Not before some years have passed and they have a proven track record that they can do better. Because the experience with the FP2 also seems pretty sobering. Some of the components seem to be of poor quality and spare parts are also in short supply already. At this point I don’t have trust that they will be really able to ensure a life of 5 years as they have promised.
6 Likes
I can only copy what Marte said:
“Now canceling the development of Android 4.4 you lost all the trust I ever had in your honesty.”
My girlfriend will switch to another phone supplier.
I also would like, but I bought a FP2, and now I think it was the wrong decision to buy it.
4 Likes
Could you then please publish the Beta in its current state. I am using the Alpha and it’s quite stable, but I would be happier to use the most current version.
PS: Regardless of the unsatisfying news today, I would buy FP1 to “start a movement” again.
Thanks, Niko
4 Likes
Hehe 
That’s a good move! 
It’s seriously quite stable. The only thing that bothers me a bit is that the battery statistics are messed up (not battery life itself). At the end of the day I am still at 40%, but then it drops to 15% in a minute. Still, I think that most people wouldn’t notice that the alpha Android kitkat is not actually labelled as “stable”.
Thanks to Google they can’t. Google has long ago stopped releasing its Android Security Bulleting for versions below Kitkat.
@hagmeier @nikos You can download and install the last alpha build from this topic. The last version is “alpha-pre3” and there was no beta release.
5 Likes
I hope you do! My FP1 still runs great, but I’ll keep an eye on the spare part situation (batteries in particular) with the FP2. Another failure like this after promising a long life cycle of your product, and I’m done buying from your company.
4 Likes
This is really unfortunate news.
I have replaced my FP1 after just one year of using it with a Galaxy Note 3 due to the hardware being completely outdated for my usage profile very quickly - and the nonavailability of security updates. I have kept the FP1. I have lent it to people who broke their phones a couple of times and I’ve used it on holidays when I had a local SIM card in my main phone. I’ve been using unofficial builds of 4.4.4 for a long time and was hoping for a final, official build - with monthly security updates, but that hope was in vain.
I really bought into the Fairphone concept because I wanted to buy a phone supporting alternative distributions and having longtime support.
The funny thing about it is: My Galaxy Note 3 is about as old as the Fairphone. It also was released with a build of 4.3 or maybe 4.4 The difference to the Fairphone, which was created to be supported for a long time? I can still buy spare parts and batteries for the Note 3 - AND its beefy hardware runs the latest builds of Android 7.1 (although not official ROMS, admittedly) WITH monthly security updates like a charm. I can see myself using the Note 3 for at least another year, if not longer. I keep asking myself - from a usability and durability perspective - which one is the more sustainable phone?
Maybe my next phone will be a Fairphone 3 - but only if the support (spare parts and up-to-date software) is top-notch. Otherwhise my next phone will be one that’s easy to repair and has a big community of 3rd-party ROM developers to ensure longevity. We will see!
2 Likes
I understand the decision to focus all resources in the future, but also I’m very disappointed about it.
You distrust my hope in a long lasting product.
Why should I trust Fairphain again in buying the next model generation?
8 Likes
Same for me!
(More than 20 characters)
5 Likes
(“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” - Samuel Beckett)
It seems to me the Fairphone 2 is at least the better fail already, and perhaps the hardware problems and parts availability can get sorted out, which could turn it into a real success in the long term.
Fairphone learned from the Fairphone 1 to create and support the Fairphone 2. They will learn from the Fairphone 2 to create and support the Fairphone 3.
All you Fairphone 1 buyers out there made it possible for me to have a Fairphone 2. I can understand the frustration about this announcement now and I know this doesn’t help you at all, but I’m really thankful for you for buying the Fairphone 1.
Early adopters almost always have it rough. It is the same with Fairphone, they couldn’t and can’t do magic afterall. I hope they keep trying though.
20 Likes
Must be pretty flattering for a startup as Fairphone (then 4 people, now 50 or so) to be compared to Samsung and Apple all the time.
If I read all the hopes and dreams people projected on the first phone of a company that didn’t exist 5 years ago… No wonder you are disappointed…
By the way I give my FP1 battery to the first person who points me to some official Fairphone communications in which they say that the FP1 was built to last and that people will be able to use it for more then 3 years guaranteed.
Don’t confuse the future goals of the project with the current capabilities of the phone.
18 Likes
I don’t think I was asking for magic. When I bought their product I trusted that they know what they are talking about.
And if they didn’t, and they find out after a while that they were making promises that they couldn’t keep, they should be transparent about it, instead of trying to placate the users by making promise after promise after promise which again would end in disappointment.
That it is quite difficult to get producers for spare parts for such a rare device couldn’t have come as a surprise to them. Didn’t they investigate before putting the promises out? It is not like all manufacturers had joined a conspiracy to embarrass fairphone, but they have just done what they always do. They didn’t suddenly change their politics when fairpone came along, or did they? Also, that when you choose a mediatek motherboard, it is going to be very difficult to support newer Android versions also couldn’t have come as a surprise. Mediatek was known not to be open source friendly in the first place. And yes, this fatal design flaw which make the USB jack come loose after a year of úse or so was such an obvious and quite fatal design flaw that the least I would explectd from them would be to be transparent about that they screwed this one up. Else, how am I going to trust them for the future? (And there are those other aspects, where they were not fully transparent: That the workers didn’t receive living wages for instance was a fact that I did not find on their website but through news articles only
6 Likes
Of course, they didn’t. They haven’t build a smartphone before.
The whole point of the Fairphone project is to find out and communicate to the world what it takes to build a fair phone. I am very grateful that with Fairphone I actually get to know where and how the product is made. I don’t know any other manufacturer that provides that much insight.
And to those who are disappointed, remember: when I got my Fairphone 1, a postcard reading “Failphone” was included. So we all knew.
15 Likes