🇬🇧 Interesting links / news articles somehow related to Fairphone

9 posts were split to a new topic: Highlighting the Firefox address bar on Linux

A what? I’m confused.

“Battery” is literally “accumulator” in Germanic languages.

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Only a “rechargeable battery”, to be more precise :wink:
(But accumulator is a correct british term as well; Germans spell it with “kk” instead of “cc”.)
And “non-fixed installed” would mean “removable”, if I get it right.

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I learn something new every day.

(AFAIK only applies to USA.)

Could be a win for less e-waste?

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Saw this in an iFixit article: https://myteracube.com/

Introducing Teracube – World’s first and only cutting edge smartphone with a 4 year warranty. Better for your pocket, better for the planet.

  • 4 Year Warranty
  • Android 9 (latest)
  • All Day Battery
  • Environment Friendly

No real info yet. They are in a pre-crowdfunding phase. And probably something for all the people asking if FP will ever expand beyond Europe.

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I find it funny that “all day battery” is a feature nowadays (see FP3). It should be a given IMHO.

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I would like to agree.
But whenever I am out in the open, there are lots of people streaming videos with their smartphones all the time on the train, walking, shopping 

Add to that permanent WiFi on, Bluetooth headphones, and e-mail, whatsapp, telegram and you name it more running constantly in the backgroud, ever larger displays and flatter phones.
In the end you end up being challenged to make a battery last a whole day.
My FP2 makes up to 3 days on it’s first battery, if I just use it for calling and the random five minutes of sudoko. WiFi off, of course. But having the display turned on for a few hours really sucks the battery dry in a day.

Not only that, what is all day? 24 hours? Day without sleep cycle (typically 24 - 8 = 16 hours)? Or work day (typically ~8 hours plus commute)? During what type of usage?

It could be a reference to FP2 where people had issues to get through the day.

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100% of “Made by Google products” (including Pixel phones) will include recycled materials by 2022. It includes 100% of all Google shipments going to and from customers being carbon neutral by 2020:

Not so clear how much of those recycled materials they’ll have, but all this sounds kind of related with the Fairphone mission, isn’t it ?

EDIT: thanks to JeroenH to move this to the right place

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Apple will offer more repair opportunities to customers by supporting independent repair shops as well (supplying them with spare parts and training their technicians. It’s starting in the US only for now. It is at least fairer to customers, though it’s obviously no step towards easy repairability.
Maybe in the end they sell their phones with a coupon for a special Apple-training how to change the battery. Up to now having the battery changed by an independent repair shop results in the phone working, but showing an error-message; that shall disappear now for certified independent shops:


I read about it in a German newspaper:

The German article states, that Apple collects parts that have been replaced by original parts for reuse or recycling. Just makes me wonder, why not take back at least original parts, even if they are replaced with third-party stuff? Ok, they sure want to incentivise using original parts, thereby turning the reuse/recycle approach a bit into a marketing tool.
I know, no surprise, it’s Apple (or rather not Fairphone).

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I was about to post that one, thanks @BertG

Apple will provide more independent repair businesses — large or small — with the same genuine parts, tools, training, repair manuals and diagnostics as its Apple Authorized Service Providers (AASPs)

Right now these repair manuals get “pirated”.

Here is the HN thread

The top post saying:

We run 7 independent repair shops, so on its face this is great news for us. I did sign us up for this program, and we are beginning the process today of getting at least 1-2 people at all of our locations to be certified.

There is lots of good news here for us; the biggest being that we can get official parts
finally! Although aftermarket parts have come a long way. We now stock iPhone batteries that have larger capacity than the original. (Yes, truly a larger capacity. We do 30,000+ repairs a year
we are not messing around with batteries that just say they have a larger capacity.)

The biggest problem I potentially see is profit margins. AASP’s have long struggled because Apple wants to squeeze all of the profit out of their business. If you pay $149 to get your iPhone 8 screen replaced, but Apple charges us $135 for the screen, we can’t realistically make any money off of that.

We charge $69 to replace an iPhone 8 screen currently, so there’s also a potential negative on the consumer side of having to pay more to get screens replaced. It does, however, appear that Apple will let providers in this program also offer third-party screens, which is a big change from the current AASP program.

All in all, as someone whose business is directly affected by this, I’m mildly optimistic. As long as Apple understands that repair shops need to be profitable too, this can be a really good thing for both sides.

EDIT: I found Louis Rossmann’s response here:

(Haven’t had time to watch it yet!!)

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Facebook app got caught uploading system libraries without consent. Likely abused for fingerprinting, and likely a violation of GDPR.

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For something different:
I guess, everyone here interested in privacy and data protection already has such a RFID-protective card-wallet e.g. (naturally from the netherlands):


What I noticed just now and I would like to know, if someone else has noticed something similar:
I put my phone and my card wallet in the same pocket, with the card wallet on the outside. When I took the phone out some minutes later, the curve of the battery consumption went steep down.
My guess would be, that the card wallet is shielding off the phone-signal as well. Therefore the FP2 turns up the reception to full extent, thus starting to drain the battery, could that be?
(I have posted this in the german thread as well, for the wallet.)

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Funny you mention this. I find Germany and Germans far more privacy-minded than The Netherlands and the Dutch. To be fair, there’s a difference in population size and country.

As for the product, what I do is some RFID protectors I bought at ANWB and Amazon. I use these to protect my passport and bank card. They’re not the best, but they work. I also use additional tinfoil on the outer sides of my wallet (more like a card holder TBH). Furthermore, my wallet has a separate place to have one card. I keep my OV Chipkaart unprotected so that I don’t have to take it out of my wallet. This is by design, as my OV Chipkaart contains PII. With my interests, this was the best and cheapest solution I came up with.

“Lets [
] pat them on the back for doing something good for a change.” I like his attitude regarding this surprising move from Apple.

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I would guess so too. The shielding is rather all purpose than specific for certain frequencies/waves.

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Here’s a good example of outlandish repair costs - from Samsung this time. Unfortunately, it’s in French. Basically, Samsung in Belgium outsources its repairs to Dynafix in the Netherlands, who bumped up the cost of repair initially quoted by Samsung.
Problem: crack in the back of the smartphone’s case (probably glass).
Cost: Samsung sent him (a guy called Thierry) an estimate for 69e
Dynafix then sent him an estimate for 250 euro! They claim that the front screen also has to be replaced. And the battery. Et cetera.
40 euro just to send the unfixed phone back to the owner.

Thierry had followed Samsung’s recommended repair procedure. Samsung is thus ultimately responsible for the actions of Dynafix.

A third party repair shop’s advice - NEVER follow the manufacturer’s repair advice - send it to a third party repair technician instead.
Hopefully, people will get fed-up of this sort of behaviour from manufacturers.

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