As currently there is no “Critical” bug listed in the bugtracker, take your pick from the existing ones with severity “Important” …
… 6 are listed, 2 of which are closed, and 3 of which are for Fairphone Open OS (“Sibon”, due later after the release of the Nougat Fairphone OS) … leaving the Mail App being absent under circumstances, which might be pretty inconvenient.
… Or the culprit isn’t listed yet, or has a lower severity which wasn’t increased yet.
I’m also guessing it’s not the “cannot reboot out of charging mode” or “cannot turn device off” with the new camera module as these issues have been known long enough.
How are we on the H.264 acceleration front? I’d consider that quite a bad regression, and one that should be relatively easy to fix considering it’s most likely just a missing firmware file or (user-space) module.
The missing legacy Email app would be my guess, too. It’s been reported just four days ago, has “High” priority and could be really annoying if you still use that app in Android 6.
To be honest, I’ve been on Android 7 since the first beta, reported quite a few bugs but never noticed that. I switched to the Gmail app and disabled the Email app a long time ago so this wasn’t on my radar. Wondering how many people still use it?
Full ACK.
I don’t use a GMail account, and have a sneaking suspicion that the GMail apps will route my e-mail through Googles servers one way or another for all the fancy search features (… and the tailored ads). No proofs on this practice, but I’m less suspicious about the simpler E-mail app.
That being said, the e-mail app hasn’t seen any updates in a while, so I’m a little concerned about the security of this app…
I’ve never had a Gmail account. The Gmail app communicates directly with the mail servers (an Exchange server in my case). People often seem to confuse the Gmail app (which is just an email client for all kinds of protocols, including POP3 / IMAP / SMTP / EAS / Gmail) and the Gmail service hosted by Google (which gives you a “free” email account in exchange for your personal data which is used for targeted advertising).
Exactly. I don’t think it’s a good idea to use an unmaintained app. So I’m curious how Fairphone will deal with this issue.
As far as I know the stock email app is part of AOSP and therefore maintained with the rest of Android regarding security. If a flaw is found it will be fixed with a future monthly security update.
If you don’t want to rely on that though, K-9 Mail may be a privacy compatible alternative for you.
Thanks for the clarification, and rest assured I fully understand the difference. The problem is that I don’t trust Google quite well enough, and nobody has done a study towards the behaviour of the GMail app. I would not be surprised if the GMail app uploads parts of my (third-party) mailbox to their cloud under the pretense of offering good search facilities through my e-mails. I honestly wouldn’t know if they do, but until I have guarantees that they don’t stick their nose in my e-mails I do not wish to take what I deem an unacceptable risk at violating my privacy.
Agreed 
Which is why I raised this in the bugtracker as well.
I’m slightly confused about this, as Techcrunch and others report that the app has been killed. Yet it exists in the AOSP repositories and receives infrequent updates. Are these two different apps?
I don’t believe it offers any search functions of its own. IMAP search at my mail provider is extremely slow and the GMail app just uses that & times out, giving no results.
I just performed the upgrade using Fairphone Updater and it was not successful. FP OS 18.04 (not FP Open!) with Android disk encryption. After the upgrade I have to enter the decryption PIN and Android says it is correct, but my data is corrupted. The only solution offered on the phone is a factory reset. I think this is pretty severe and I also - like Fairphone - wouldn’t release this version to the public.
This should be the bug in the bugtracker: https://bugtracker.fairphone.com/project/fairphone-android-7/issue/39
Perhaps you should comment over there … it’s only about Fairphone Open OS there at the moment, and it’s marked “Needs Info”.
I’m in the process of doing this right now. I just wanted to gather a log before posting so that the developers have something to work with.
Frankly it was my guess. I don’t believe the Open Handset Alliance let known security holes open in any part of AOSP. The email app may not be developed anymore, but if it was totally abandoned they would have removed it from the codebase, wouldn’t they?
Hello Monica, is there any update to the timline of the release? Thanks for informaition…
Hi Lukas, no update on the final release timeline. As soon as I receive more info, I will share it with you of course. Our software team is hard at work, so hopefully we have more news in the coming days. Best, Monica
For what it’s worth … the missing Mail App bug was closed today.
I can confirm that the link to the form doesn’t work. Is registration closed?
Pinging @Monica.Ciovica & @jftr : The Android 7 RC testing sign-up form isn’t working - has the Beta programme closed to new entrants?
Hi guys, the program is still running. We need to make some fixes for the form error, should be back up and running today 