Latest news [11-07-2017] and FAQ - Fairphone 1 KitKat 4.4.4 update

Hi,
The Update or Android to version 4.4 was announced for Sept. 2016. Could you please tell me the schedule for release. I’m waiting for it.
Regards
Clemens

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The last updates were added to the first post of this topic by @Douwe two weeks ago:

Hopefully that lengthier update that Douwe mentions will be released soon. If you want to take a look at some of the beta testing issues in the meantime, the #software:fp1-beta-testing category should be readable now.

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It would be nice if it comes soon now!!! It looks like the app-making people have given up Android 4.2.2 now :unamused:

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I just want to thank you for providing this information on FP1 software updates. Personally, I find it relevant, informative, and interesting. I think this type of communication is very important to build up and maintain trust among FP users.

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any news? It’s getting a bit urgent, I really like my fairphone (and I’m proud of it), but I can’t trust it anymore, he freezes, crashes etc, to often. I don’t have many apps, but I like the ones I have to work.

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It’s not going urgent! It is a MUST to publish a reliable plan now!
And let it be the first of all reliable plans in Fairphone history! Till now (and I am one of the first 10.185 supporters as engraved in my Fairphone) all schedule were worth nothing! I am really angry about this policy! I never imagined such deception!
My alternative is an iPhone quite soon, I just got my bonus for the year …

I am waiting for this update for more than 6 month when I got my new car. The hands-free-device does not work any more as the blue tooth connection breaks. So when I use my Fairphone in the car it’s illegal!

How can you blame Fairphone for that? Just don’t use the phone… :wink:

It is indeed annoying that KitKat is still not available. But If you look at the top of this topic you see they do a lot of effort to explain what is going on. Can you direct me to the website of any other electronics manufacturer who does this?

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… because Blue-Tooth is not brought to the latest standards! It worked in my former cars well, but world is evolving and a SUSTAINABLE phone has to evolve, too (this is in the promise that was given to us crowd-funders).
Yes, they are putting effort in development but they are not giving a reliable release date after they PROMISED a release in September 2016!
I myself worked as a software developer for more than 20 years. None of my customers would have accepted such a no-planning and dis-information!
Again: I am one of the first funders of Fairphone, I still like the idea, but as I want to be able to use my phone while I am driving my car (~60.000km/year) I need a date now, to decide whether I have to change to a more reliable solution for my purposes!
I need to use my phone while driving!

Take some responsibility and get a headphone with a mic. Works better then pointing fingers and pressing CAPS-LOCK.

And really… don’t drive and make phone calls. If you have an accident are you going to use this explanation and blame Fairphone? I don’t think the police will care much for your story…

ps. this is a community forum, so no matter how loud you shout, you won’t get a date now. So better start looking for a replacement.

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It’s a sad thing, but we all bought the phone the way it was when we bought it.
We are in no way entitled to receive any updates whatsoever. (Although it would be great if that were the case.)

So, all of you encourage me to act against sustainability one of the foremost values of Fairphone!
Thank you for this! (very ironic)
I don’t believe this was the demand Fairphone started with, when it raised it Crowd-Funding. Please note that I was very, very patient when I received my Fairphone 6 month AFTER I was promised it to be delivered (with a horrible update policy on delivery schedule!).
Now I am waiting again 6 month only to get a reliable update plan for an update that seems crucible to me to do a educated decision.
Regarding the “promised” I used: Please have a look at

This is a promise!

I think you linked to the wrong topic. That is not a promise, it is a question.

And it was answered by community members with, links and

I disagree!
Please read the title!
And this title alone demands a clear update schedule in this (more or less official threat) of Fairphone!
All of you refuse to give a clear clear schedule!
Don’t you see that this schedule is important to make an educated decision?
All love to the Fairphone!
You try to steal out of responsibility!
You are not giving me the info I need to do my decisions!

The topic you linked to doesn’t contain a single post by a Fairphone employee and the title was chosen by the person who asked the question.

We are the community. This is a community forum. We don’t work for Fairphone, so we don’t have the official schedule.

Also please try to make up your mind: Do you want Fairphone not break promises or do you want them to give you a promise about when the update will be released. Because those are the only two options.
You can either expect them to make promises they can’t keep or expect them to keep promises they didn’t make. You can’t have both.

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I want to have an official and reliable statement but never got one!
I am deeply disappointed!
I believe this is not too much!

This is the only statement they can make that is reliable. If they were to tell you any timeframe then that would only be guesswork. When they said “September” that was a guess - not a promise - and it wasn’t far fetched as guessing how long you’ll need to port an OS may not be too difficult. They were actually done in June and obviously didn’t expect that beta testing would take longer than July.
Then they encountered severe issues with bluetooth and battery and are trying to fix them. But guessing how long you’ll take to fix bugs is obviously not that easy.

So once again: You can either hear what you want (an exact schedule) or something reliable. Both is simply not possible.

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No no and again no

FairPhone is a product, not a charity or a one time project I don’t need to align to any of the expectations you raised. Commitments that made need to bo fulfill, and defects such security holes and reliability bugs need to be fixed in timely manner as long it’s a supported product. I couldn’t care less that the dev can’t fix it in the year passed since the base os provided to fp - hire another dev, reach to the soc vendor or the open source community.

For 4 months now my employer not allowing to sync this os to the company email systm due to all the security issue in the product. The industry standard for security fixes going as around 3 months expected from bug disclosure to a fix for available to users, fair phkne is well behind, and currently I’m holding two phones because of this (very sustainable).

Gidi

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With all given respect, but you knew that you bought a telephone from a startup company that is completely dependant from its suppliers. Furthermore you knew that the Android update situation is less than optimal with all manufacturers.

For such a small company Fairphone did extraordinarily well in supplying security patches. They even got hold of the source code for the totally blobbed Mediatek Android - something different manufacturers wouldn’t even waste a thought about.

Really, get to your senses. Different Android phones don’t do any better.

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This is just talking. The truth is that the phones are dying in our hands and nothing concrete seems to happen to FP1 owners. More and more users are switching. Phones are freezing, crashing, and rebooting like there was no tomorrow. Soon these talks will end because there will be no one left complaining. Hence, no tomorrow for FP!

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Yes, the phones are slowly dying. But the things you mentioned (a broken power button) and the issues I have (my second battery seems to be in bad shape) are hardware defects of a already very old phone and nothing Fairphone can do about now. (It looks like they have learnt from it and corrected some of the issues in the FP2.)
They won’t be fixed by installing new software.

And BTW: You make it sound like this affects a majority of the phones. I’m using my power button probably more often than I should, my phone is now more than three years old and I don’t have an issue with my power button. It’s not that dramatic as your comment suggests.

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