FP3 lost Google Pay / no longer certified?

Help Fairphone 3
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So if I understand you correctly, it is rather FP who messed up a bit? And now it is harder to fix than first imagined?

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To add slightly to the speculation: My understanding is that for the FP3 more of the software development is done by Arima. This has led to delays in the publishing of source code of software on the FP3 (and GPL compliance) in the past, and it may be a reason things are taking longer now (seems Arima isn’t as on the ball as desirable). I realise none of this matters from an end-user point of view (i.e. it should just work), but I sometimes find it fascinating to see what potentially happens behind the scenes.

If there is a problem with the bootloader, I’m not sure whether this is Fairphone, Arima, or both that need to work on it. In any case, the problem will have existed from the onset, but only became an issue when CTS changed. This means it isn’t a case of reverting to the last known working state, because there isn’t one. Changing/redesigning the bootloader can have consequences for the way updates work and for whether people can choose to install their own OS. Pushing an update that breaks the ability to perform subsequent updates would be a disaster, so they’ll want to triple check that this still works. Locking down the device in such a way that Google has more control over your phone than you and Fairphone have doesn’t fit well with the company ethos, so they’ll be trying to avoid ending up in that situation too.

Finally, FP is a small company with a small development team. This means that disruption by, for example, a pandemic, can make it difficult to keep things on track as there is little redundancy in smaller teams. Past experience seems to have taught them that overall not providing dates leads to fewer problems than providing an estimate and then going over estimate.

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I would really hope that they take this as an opportunity to provide an Open Source alternative to Google Stock Android; however, due to current disruption in business affairs around the globe, I think it will not happen anytime soon.

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Ty for your explanation. I didn’t know that the software part was outsourced. It explains it well though.

(Even though I am of the firm conviction that outsourcing such a core part of your business as firmware when you are a device manufacturer can only have long standing dire consequences as their long term interests deviate from yours, never outsource core competencies in changing environments (I.e. tech in general) even if there is a short term profit to be made)

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Of course it would be desirable, if Fairphone would have a full-fledged development team for software matters. However, that is probably highly unrealistic at this point. For me, right now, it would be sufficient that FP would be “critical mass” enough for Arima to make the fix/change quickly.
@Johannes, is the supplier Arima Comm, based in Taiwan?

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I’m not sure how much is outsourced, and how unavoidable this is. As I cannot find the statement linking Arima to code releases, I may be mistaken about it being them.

However, they do produce the device, which in the phone industry often means that they are the ones who have access to the source code for proprietary drivers and the code that links them into the android system. They’re not allowed to share with their customers as part of agreements with the system-on-chip manufacturer. As there are only few mobile SoC companies, smaller companies are effectively dependent on companies such as Arima for the driver/kernel support. (See also discussions about the MTK sources in FP1). Not sure where the bootloader lies in all of this (as in, whether the issue indeed lies there, which one specifically, and who ‘owns’ it). If you want an interesting technical background read, see here.

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Also, there really seems to be some very hefty work behind the scenes, as there’s no February and no March security update… (To my knowledge)

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Isn’t a Chinese company delivering the firmware? If yes, might be earlier affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

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Seems like the software update arrived:

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Anyone brave enough to try this update?

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Am just updating now!

Edit: Update complete. I can confirm when I went into Google Pay it still said it still had the warning, but tapped the “check software” button and it pops up to say everything is ready to use. Perfect!! Can’t test right now, but will be using next time I get out (whenever that may be from corona lockdown!!)

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Thanks for that quick check. Hopefully, everything else is also working and stable?
I really appreciate that Fairphone delivered the fix quickly, but I could very well be that testing time was squeezed because customers like me are so impatient :wink:

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So basically … They can’t win. They should better close down :slight_smile: .

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I don’t think that will be the case. It is likely that it was a relatively easy fix. We got a response within a matter of days that they had identified the fix.

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I can confirm that the update fixed Google Pay as I just successfully paid in a pharmacy using my FP3.

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Another confirmation here. Updated the software today, re-registered my credit card in Google Pay (removed and added several times to troubleshoot), and used the FP3 for NFC payment in three different stores, all succes.

Thanks to fairphone for fixing this :slight_smile:

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