Sorry, that’s rubbish I didn’t say that, it’s only your interpretation, I said:
Hi,
no clue if someone else agree on this.
I’m wondering is it really that important to have this updates all the time?
getting the newer skin and for this topic the latest development for security.
for my knowledge Android is a well built platform wat unless you installed the wrong stuff the change of getting a virus or someone braking in to your phone from a distance is very small.
many companies just stop bringing out update completely for there devices already before stopping selling them. and many people will still use them not installing alternative OS.
so long as Fairphone keep updating if ther is a serious security problem ahead, and do there best keeping the system operationele for so many years as possible.
and more focusing on repairing bugs for example.
I will be happy.
normally i will be more ignored by changing app icons for example than happy about it, to use a more visible example than the security update wat normal will not be noticeable by the user unless it goes wrong.
i’m not trying to justify promises they won’t keep. more what i would consider important.
Will it not be fine to skip a google security update one in a while so they can focus on the new one coming, and making sure that one is working better than it will have done otherwise?
To me, it’s more about the non-existent communication and the odd priorities than it is that we’re x months behind on security updates. Overall, I’ve had a pretty bad experience with my FP4 so far, and I think it largely boils down to priorities.
They can release a kick-ass, stable experience that will make the users see Fairphone as a good choice for the average user.
Or they can release bleeding edge security updates and give Samsung a run for their money as the fastest non-Google OEM.
Currently they are doing neither, and the only indication that they are even trying is by a user now called “anonymous” followed by a bunch of random numbers which by itself is a pretty bizarre naming convention for a former Fairphone employee.
Call it whatever you want, but in my eyes Fairphone has made a “promise” to keep the phone up to date, and being 3-4 months behind regularly isn’t how the average person would take such a “promise”. I’m personally completely uninterested in feature updates as they bring almost nothing that interests me, but being a year and a half behind on those aren’t optimal either. I’m happy to see that they’ve improved with the FP5 for that, however. Qualcomm might very well be the devil when it comes to feature updates, but I don’t see how they could be with regards to security updates.
As I wrote above, they essentially have to pick a road. Fast updates or stable updates. Currently they have chosen to drive off the road instead.
I’ve never owned a FP3 but apparently they never fixed a WiFi issue with it causing some people to dump their devices, and they failed to announce to people that the fingerprint reader would stop working for some bank apps. Convenient of them to leave that out of the change log. Hmm.
I’ve never owned a FP5, but they removed the AoD instead of fixing the issues with it or heck, even force-disabling it for all users and forcing them to manually enable said feature with a warning.
But I have owned a FP4 for the past 3 years and I’ve never had these many issues with a single phone before. Camera issues, GPS issues, screen brightness issues, bootloader issues, battery issues. The list goes on.
Would people be posting here regularly if this was the one issue we had with our phones? Honestly I doubt it. As is evident with the absolutely hilarious “Fairphone’s next chapter starts now” thread, I think the security updates are just the tip of yet another iceberg that Fairphone doesn’t seem to be doing anything about.
I guess that Fairphone owners believed in the promise that the phone will get updates longer than most other phones. Even 3-monthly would probably be fine, if they hadn’t put up such high expectations. And now users ask for what was promised in the first place… even if not literally.
Besides the security updates I am also not very happy with the major updates. We FP4 users are still an Android 13! You could say, that they never published any update schedules. However, not having an update after almost three (!) years is definitely not was induced marketing wise.
For me that was the one argument to buy a Fairphone (besides the repairability, which really works).
That is the point, exactly! 
People can keep telling me updates are overrated and we should be happy the phone mostly works, but this isn’t why I bought this specific phone. Please consider:
- If I had bought some cheap no-brand Chinese phone, I would consider it normal to never get any updates and to endure lots of bugs. Totally normal, you get what you pay for.
- On the other hand, when I buy a fairly (no pun intended) expensive phone claiming 7 years support (and a top-shelf quality!), I’m excused to complain when this turns out not to be true. BTW it’s even legally questionable to try to wiggle out of your promises through some liberal interpretation of your initial words.
In the same spirit, I never complained about the lack of an A14 update: Fairphone was upfront about it and said from the start “they will try”, given the FP4’s chipset is out of support from Broadcom. Meaning that it was to be expected the FP4 would never get A14, which might indeed be disappointing, but there is nothing to complain about.
See how that works? …
Final note, I do not suppose Fairphone had any intent to cheat, they most likely just bit off more than they could chew, and their lack of vision and management did the rest. 
I just blame myself for haven fallen for their hyperbolic promises, I should have known better. 
Hi, I’m a regular reader of the forum. @Lars_Hennig
and @KurtF nailed it on the head what’s wrong and how I too feel about it.
I don’t care what resources they may or may not have, or how bad Qualcom may be as an industry partner.
3 years ago I bought my FP4 on the promise of long support.
Yes, I enjoy the fair aspect and repairability too but not at the expense of product support.
I feel like they sold me a promise they are failing to deliver on.
At this point I’d rather have the 2.5 years of high quality support than 7 years of shoddy rollercoaster this is turning out to be.
There is a new update C.0130 for the FP4 as of today
EDIT: Just updated this post accordingly. It’s for the FP4, sorry!
Interesting. Where do you get the C0130 from? In my today’s update the update number ends with B.098, yours on C.0130?
Just finished the update and the build number now is FP5.UT2K.B.098.20250109
Edit: Okay, FP4 and FP5 got their updates simultaneously, sorry for the confusion
Any news?
2 months have passed since the January 5, 2025 security update, today is March 25, has anybody seen the March security update? …
Yes, it just arrived yesterday for the FP3.
Hold on tight for a week and your phone will be kissed by the next security update, I’m sure.
My FP5 has the February Update since approx. 2 Weeks.
Well, in a week we will be in April… So, have the bi-monthly updates silently turned into three-monthly ones? 
What’s next, twice a year? “Oh no, don’t worry, it’s still bi-monthly, we’re just 4 moths late…” 
I mean to be fair, the last update was released January 27th:
So if they manage to release it tomorrow then that’s exactly two months after the last one.
Not that waiting 2 full months for an update is very fun, but I could see how they think they’ve improved in this regard.
Well, even if they release it tomorrow and not in a week as you initially said, it will still be late(-ish): Security updates are dated, and the one I currently have is dated “January 5th”…
Releasing the “March 5th” update at the end of March (or even the beginning of April) is not “on time”. But that might just be my exacting nature.
Are we going to read this debate over and over ?
- Nobody forces you to read it over and over. I mean, you know by now this is the “security updates are late again” thread. What do you expect to find here besides people complaining?
- And to answer your question, yes we will, as long as this issue isn’t addressed in a satisfactory way. If we don’t complain, it becomes normality (=“See, it’s OK, nobody complains”).
BTW: Which is the better way to address complaints? To silence the people complaining, or to fix the issue they complain about? 
Thank you for your service 
Do you also interact with FP support? Because I think that might be more effective. They mentioned many times that support tickets are their way to prioritize certain issues. Of course support is swamped by tickets and won’t respond for weeks, but still.
I’m with you brother. I’m just saying that from Fairphone’s point of view, they are delivering a patch every 2 months. That’s all they’ve promised recently.
I also think it blows that we’re regularly 2 months behind on updates while waiting for the next one to drop, but things are what they are with this company. I just hope that something will be done by Google in the future. More updates through Play Store or whatever.
That lesson I have learned! 
Henceforth I’ll only interact with Fairphone support when absolutely necessary, and about a monetary value of at least €100… Check the “Complaining about Customer Support thread” for details.
Seriously now: I understand what you mean, but if Fairphone hasn’t realized by now that many people bought their Fairphone for the promised long-time support and now strangely insist on getting it, there is nothing sending some messages to their overworked support guy will fix.
I’m sure they know there is a problem, for some reason they can’t deliver on their promises, and apparently they are not willing or able to do something about it. So they just wait, hoping the problem will go away on its own. Which of course it won’t.