Software update: FP4.SP29.B.069.20230510

It would be really great to know when some serious usability bugs will be addressed. It’s awesome that the release schedule is finally back on track with more timely updates. But since day one of the FP4 release there are some very annoying bugs. Some very small and are e.g. UI issues, but there are also issues that make the phone hard to use. Some were addressed, others are new and we’re still waiting for a fix. I’m contemplating buying the FP5 when it’s released, in the hope that one will be more usable. That’s not a great sign for a phone that’s made to last.

I’ve kind of given up to contactsupport since they just combine all issues into one ticket and then sneaky close that one without any feedback. Happened a few times by now. It’s almost like the performance of the support team is measured by open tickets, not by how many issues are actually solved. Is the dev team by the way understaffed? I saw news articles where money is thrown at the support team. But wouldn’t it make more sense to throw money at the devs? Because if they make the phone work fine, then support has less complaints.

Another thing I sometimes wonder is if FP uses their own device. Since many times it takes a lot of effort to convince them that these issues are happening, while anyone could identify them by just using the phone for 5 minutes. I’m not just wondering about this in terms of the support team, but also the dev team. Because sometimes after installing an update issues are discovered within minutes. As if the devs don’t have a device themselves to test it but use some kind of emulator to develop on.

To anticipate the reactions from the community, yes, I know the dev team is outsourced and I know Fairphone is a small team.

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