Sorry, but what’s your problem?
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The average user doesn’t care. That’s why.
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It would indeed be nice if updates could sometimes get a priority.
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Updates? Always a month or more late? Yes please. Updates right when they happen? Nah… we can hold our breath… When is regular not regular or when are updates not updates any more. What time span does it take? 
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I’ll tell it to the malware, I’m sure it will understand…
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I’m not sure if you were sarcastic or not, but nevertheless:
That’s not the right question, since it takes between a second and over 20 years. The right question would be:
“Do I feel lucky? Do I really want to push my luck?”… 
My point is that you could sail through unscathed for years, like you could be victim of some nasty piece of malware wrecking your life (or at least your bank account). There is no telling.
The only question is, do you want to risk it. Some people don’t. 
(Speaking of which, it’s about time the new security updates arrive. Usually they arrive around the 5th.)
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And one has to admit, that delivering security fixes is important, but if that causes other issues due to short testing many users will not be happy either. FP is in a difficult situation to balance well between the two perspectives.
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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?
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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No thats currently not possible, should that change it will be announced in the forum.
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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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