I think it is still no easy decision to provide information about the FP 3 release but it also bugs me since i am using the experimental 4.4.2 version for FP1. It has a lot of minor and semi bugs and i don’t want to make a downgrade since i don’t know which apps will be broken after.
One of my thoughts is that if FP would say now or half a year ago “in mid/end 2019 there’ll be the FP 3” it could cause a huge drop of the FP 2. Tbh who would buy a FP 2 if you know the next generation is coming quite soon. We don’t know how the numbers are but i still hope FP is not in red numbers.
Another thing that adds to @paulakreuzer s 60% guess: there have been no updates to the FP2’s OS in the last 2-3 months. Although fairphone has proven to provide updates monthly in the past time.
Now unless there is a big part of Fairphone’s Software Development team on vacation for months now i would guess that they are busy with a different project - something like porting Android 7 for FP2…
Fairphone recently has secured spare parts for the FP2 for at least three years. So if you buy a FP2 now, it will still receive security updates for a long time and if you break it, there will be spare parts available. (Even if Fairphone cannot provide spare parts anymore, the community will step in.)
Not sure where to add these… but my favourite ‘feature’ for any new fairphone would be a maintenance subscription.
Let me clarify…
I have a FF1, that I bought because it was fair, and repairable, promising a long life for the valuable resources that wend into it’s production. The device is becoming obsolete because more and more apps are no longer available for it’s OS. Otherwise, it’s still working perfectly and to my satisfaction.
The support for the FF1 has been cancelled because of budgetary reasons. I do appreciate that a company needs to be profitable. That calls for a business model that makes long term support profitable. One way to do so imo is to add a maintenance subscription, such that there is recurring budget to cater for maintenance and OS updates.
Given that many FF customers are interested in having a device that stays with them longer than the average smartphone, I do believe many of these will be prepared to subscribe to a maintenance programme and pay a yearly (or monthly) fee to make sure their phone remains repairable and stays up to date for longer. Clearly also this will have an expiry date. I’d hope this can be stretched >8 to 10 years
That was in May 2017. “Next year” would have been about a year ago. I know that the phone was still in concept phase in October 2018 according to this comment but that’s already 4 months ago now, has there been any changes on a possible delivery date?
I’m still hesitant in paying the full price for a FP2 when the FP3 might be coming out “any time soon”…
I can’t answer your question, I only saw that Miquel Ballester was part of the “Experiences in repairing and recycling electronic products from the solidarity economy, companies and the public sector” panel 4 at http://mobilesocialcongress.cat/en/speakers/
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