While true, it’s hardly a special situation, all software companies face the same dilemma.
And the solution is (I think) obvious: Consolidate the existing, and then add new stuff. New stuff will always come with new problems, increasing your workload and reducing customer satisfaction.
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Personally I would be completely satisfied if they updated the FP4 to Android 14 and then they put the device in maintenance mode. New security fixes get delivered ASAP but no new features. Instead they put the additional time into fixing the existing bugs.
Instead, it seems like we are getting the middle road again. Slow feature updates, slow security updates.
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There is a gray zone in fixing bugs, like for instance the camera app. I would very much like to see that improved so it can take better pictures. Does that count as a “fix”, or as a “new feature”? It’s IMHO somewhere in-between. A fix because the camera app needs one, and a new feature because, well, improving it will probably require rewriting parts of it from scratch.
(Besides I’m afraid freezing the FP4 won’t make security updates any faster.)
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Some users have written here that there are beta testers for (security) updates. Is it possible to join the beta testers and if yes, how?
No thats currently not possible, should that change it will be announced in the forum.
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Well, technically they are still only one month late. It all depends on when they will release the December Security Update - January or later?
There have been rumors that they might eventually separate the Security and the Bugfix updates, something which might potentially accelerate Security Update delivery, since that one is pretty straightforward (I assume). 
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Beta testers are for security updates but also for the other updates so they can get a phone with some important missing functionalities when some feature updates go wrong.
So if your idea is to get security updates faster, it is not necessarily a good idea.
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Thanks for explaining. I guess I’ve been a beta tester on Fedora for long enough to understand what that means 
It’s this time of the month again… 
Did anyone get the newer Security updates?
My FP4 is still on December 5, 2023, and yet we’re already February 11 2024… 
Did I miss something?
As far as I recall there is a beta for FP4 in the oven, mentioned here
so I guess soon?
Yes, but we are already a bit behind. Like last time!
Obviously there is no chance we get updates at least within the month they are published.
Yes, I recall this too, but I was thinking Security updates.
I’m perfectly fine with Fairphone tweaking any new features till they are just right, but I’d rather not have security wait along too…
And there had been some encouraging notions from Fairphone in this forum that they were planning on uncoupling Security updates and new Features. They don’t belong together, the former needing to arrive ASAP each month, while the latter are more a “it’s done when it’s done” kind of thing.
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This was exlained in length by FP…
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I think that without a paid SLA all these requests for fast updates, be it security or features, are pretty pointless. Yes, it would be awesome to get security updates for the phone as soon as a fix is available, but it’s not realistic, virtually nobody does that kind of thing, at least not publicly, and not for phones, not Google, not Apple.
Maintenance is costly and takes time to do properly. FP developers do not have unlimited resources like Google or Apple, and they are not located at the source, so it’s impossible to be as fast as e.g. Pixel (although the quality of those so called updates can be discussed, seems those device owners have been acting as free beta testers for Google…).
Recently, I was using Samsung Galaxy S10+, Samsung dumped it last Spring, after 4 years. I never got monthly updates from Samsung even when that device was new, much less a proper security update schedule (like FP does seem to have). The Samsung experience was more like quarterly or when they felt like updating something, but maybe that has gotten better with newer devices.
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True, which is why last year I finally bought me a FP instead of yet another Samsung Note.
There were/are perks in having a Samsung, like a better hardware (camera…) and things like that.
On the other hand the advantage of going Fairphone is supposed to be the better software support (as their website promised).
It’s a “hardware/software, chose one” kind of thing, and I’m fine with that. Except of course if you start getting the same rough-and-ready software support you’d get with Samsung, but without the high-end hardware. At which point you must assume you did something wrong. 
It may not be realistic to expect day 1 updates, but I think having some form of communication over what is causing the hold up is doable.
I’m a beta tester and I actually have the January 5 security update… But I have no idea why there is a delay.
Maybe there’s an issue with a major carrier or something. I dunno.
Whatever it is, I think they could take 5 minutes to tell us about it.
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Here’s an interesting read from 2022 about how updates work on Android.
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It’s this time of the month again…
Did anyone get any FP4 February Security updates?
My FP4 is still on “January 5, 2024”, and yet we’re at the end of March…
Did I miss something, or are they late once again?
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Hi @KurtF, i got 1st March for Google services, but still 5th January for system.
I feel that this time it takes longuer than usual to get last mounth (minus one) update 
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