Thanks - I’m really looking forward to the old icon size. The bigger ones really break my arrangement. That’s also why the second most annoying thing to me is the panel-on-demand idea. I want to be able to have emty panels! It now feels like somebody is cropping my desk, every time I tidy it up!
The little dots at the bottom (indicating which panel I’m on), are irritating and of no use at all (to me), but I’ll get used to them.
That beeing said, apart from the disappearing-icon-surprise, the update went flawlessly, as allways. (I’m not using any google stuff at all.)
I’m very glad I own a Fairphone, and I wouldn’t ever want to replace it! I’m sorry you guys are getting so much negative feedback. Keep up the good work!
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Hello, update went well. Now I tried to reinstall Google apps installer, but once dragged to the homescreen it says ‘Google apps already installed, please uninstall’. I tried to switch on/off wifi, rebooted, but problem remains.
I don’t think the icons look bad personally, but I don’t like the loss of ‘real estate’ on the screen as a result. I think having the option to set a grid size is far nicer, if possible.
jempix, I feel fully in line with you. Even if you leave the FP community, my general advice for the future is: when an update is announced, WAIT a couple of days at least to see how people react to it…
I for one didn’t update, and am extremely happy since I understand this morning basically my device wouldn’t work, because I had no time to spend hours re-setting everything. And indeed this would have been a memorable catastrophy.
Think about it even if you switch to Samsung!
IMHO, what a part of us (where I don’t belong, and have been almost insulted for this) is asking, is a real upgrade to the real Kitkat.
I’m almost certain nobody here asked for look and feel, but for real kitkat features allowing new bluetooth gadgets to be used etc.
I’m not sure these persons will be delighted with just a look and feel.
-and, just to be clear, I may be the single one here, but I never asked for changing look, feel or kitkat altogether.
If there is something I expect from an upgrade it’s some real improvement, for instance a faster switch between addressbook and phone in presence of 200 contacts, or faster reactivity in general. Not “look”…
Thinking about it, the only reason I see for a ‘look&feel’ upgrade is a wish to seduce new customers. Which is totally without purpose, since there are almost no more phones to sell at this time, and the next generation will presumably be based on a more recent OS version.
Wrong timing, wrong reason, IMHO.
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I did the manual upgrade (i use the cwm recovery) and this worked without any problems in about half an hour. I spent another half an hour playing with the icon size (app settings module in Xposed). I actually like the new launcher. the overall performance of the new version seems smoother. Nice to know that the software for the FP is still being developed.
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I agree - whilst I can appreciate these might be useful for some people, it would be much better if we could customise the size. I’ve only had the update one day and its already annoying me!
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I really liked the Most Used and Recently used boxes on the previous version. Will they reappear?
I never had problems with a senstive touch screen before, however, I have now after the update. Jumping icons and icons that get lost halfway while dragging them to the screens last night weren’t exactly what I needed additionally to the trouble with the new launcher. I tested the option with Xposed but didn’t get satisfactory results. Now I’m back to the old launcher which meant that I had to rearrange all the apps and widgets twice yesterday night. 
However, the touchiness of the touch screen is driving me (kola) nuts! (Matching name for a nut update by the way. 
)
What? The icons are not only bigger in the app screen but also on the home screens? If this means that I can put less items on the home screen(s), then I’m seriously considering not updating. Why can’t these things be optional?
Also, I read of many things going wrong with the updating process. I thought after many software update iterations FP would have smoothed this proces out more (by testing more before rolling the update out).
I found them. Is there a way to rearrange what goes in Most Used?
@keesj: please have a look at my post about the UnifiedStorageUpdater with v1.8
here and here. Any comments?
The phone will not leave the community, the person who convinced me to buy a fairphone will tomorrow own it and I will have his smartie which is simply the more expensive version of the one I had before.
Already I need the smartphone for work. On top of that I have the most important meeting of the year this afternoon, the final submission was in a digital safe house accessible only by registered devices, the sys admin is unexplicably unreachable, I need to reassemble the whole file manually from the beta draft, at the same time I need to get the fairphone to work. By this time I’ve stayed in the office since 5, it’s now 3 in the morning… etc.
I can’t afford that kind of problem. Why did I update? Was it foolish? Microsoft and SAP keep updating all the time, it always works, a few small five-minutes niggles from time to time, that’s it. If I was trying to break into the mobile phone market, I’d follow that example, NOT issue an update that is half-baked.
I finally managed to get the file cobbled together, I have also access to the cloud again with this phone, my nerves are wreckted for days, I have no use for the aggravation. I am extremely peeved off at the undiluted amateurism of the whole thing.
A good thing now they still haven’t fixed their pay-per-bank issue, that saved us the purchase of two more fairies.
If one does noeed this phone for work and has a spare one, this is one beautiful piece of hardware (except the drop case which I had remade immediately it was so ugly). Unfortunately its software and case handling is complete and utter "*ç%&.
I love the hardware, I am so sorry to see it go. I hate everything else about, I’m so glad to see that go.
Today I will live on a truckload black coffee. Tonight, if I don’t drop dead into my bed, I will kill my punching bag to become normal again.
You are so right, (one should know from past experience that they are not to be taken seriously (yet?) and) therefore wait a few days before updating. But my mind was on the meeting, I haven’t had an update problem since the early WinXP, it was a grey winter’s day followed by a dark evening in front of my screen.
I also noted in passing that the five-screen desktop has been replaced by an abomination. Ok, if they like it, but at least give me a choice. I had 30+ apps in 7 folders on three screens, power control on the last, the first one was cooly empty, only showing the marble wallpaper. Had taken us hours to get that set up. It was the best desktop I ever had. Gone. For no reason at all, the exact same mistake so many software companies do, because, contrary to my profession where you don’t mess with it when it works, fairphone seems to be of the opinion, if it works, break it. So angry.
Yep, you understand that right, I leave off part of the steam that is still in my system from this sleepless night. But I’m already now at the stage where I don’t swear and smash things anymore.
This is my final word in this sorry affair.
Thanks for your message, it’s most appreciated, all the best and here’s hoping they will get it sorted.
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I absolutely second your input. Why to pretend anything? Fairphone has Android 4.2.2 - point. To pretend anything is not “fair”.
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Google play app and widget are gone too… can’t even re-install that.
Software deleted bunch of my customizations
My inactivity-sleep indicator app is not working anymore
Overall, I wonder if this update was tested in any way before release???
@Manuel_V we did quite some testing and also documented the fact that there was a new launcher (resulting in an empty startup screen). What is inactivity-sleep function?
Sorry, “quite some” is not enough - as it turns out now!
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So once again, your users are your test-team 
First of all: the software reverted BY ITSELF from 1.8 back to 1.6… There was no error, no message no warning, it just flipped back after installing 1.8
The Google play store AND the underlying services are disabled by the updater itself (not by v1.8 per se) … the only way to re-enable them is to manually download the APK file for the google play and afterwards re-install the google play services.
The link on how to do this is here: http://www.androidauthority.com/how-to-install-google-play-store-312812/
I’m glad to be on 1.6 again… and I’ll stay there for now. It’s totally unacceptable that one of the main components of and Android phone (the google play services in this case) is BROKEN by your update (let alone the keyboard, lockscreen and so on…)
This item should have been a so-called show-stopper during your testing process.
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