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Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

If a tiny vendor like @Fairphone can support their product with software updates for seven(!) years, don't tell me Samsung et al can't.
fairphone.com/en/2023/01/09/an

I had the same experience with . I have the original Jolla Phone, which was released in 2013. Support ceased in 2020 — also seven years!

Big guys need to do better and need to be called out on their bullshit. Thank you to the underdogs for showing what's possible!

FairphoneAn Update on Fairphone 2 - FairphoneWell friends, it is time. *Cue the music* After an unprecedented seven years of supporting our beloved Fairphone 2, we will finally stop software support for the Fairphone 2. After March 2023, we will no longer deliver software updates for the Fairphone 2. This is an incredibly bittersweet moment: the Fairphone 2 has far surpassed […]

@rysiek @Fairphone And for the #fp2 you still get software updates from the e/OS/ from #efoundation, for at least one more year - that makes eight years and more 🙂

@caos @Fairphone @unaegeli and Ubuntu Phone, and I think some Fairphones can run SailfishOS too.

@rysiek I once used a (borrowed) Fairphone 2 for a few weeks and really liked it. I'm glad they support their phones really well and for that long.

@Fairphone

@rysiek got a 5 year warranty for my Fairphone 4. Big Smartphone really needs to do better.

@rysiek funny thing is, I used to be very engaged in Android news, read up on the latest and greatest, follow a bunch of Youtube reviewers and so on. I've gathered LOTS of fake internet points discussing all the new things in /r/Android. when I got a phone that's guaranteed not to be obsolete in two years though, I've pretty much lost interest in all of above, which is probably why the big brands don't change their ways. quite obvious, I know, but it's interesting to experience it first-hand.

@noodlejetski @rysiek I really would love to get a Fairphone. Maybe I'll save up

@rysiek @Fairphone Unfortunately its not in big techs interest one bit to support older phones or make them last longer. Spewing out new models with the slightest difference to the last is how they make money. They are answerable to their Boards & shareholders each year with how much more money theyll make than the previous year. Anything else they say is just lip service (like oil & gas companies green washing their advancements/changes. Load of BS). Very happy with my Pixel1/LineageOS still :)

@healthiswealth

> Unfortunately its not in big techs interest one bit to support older phones or make them last longer.

It is not in my interest to justify that.

@Fairphone

@healthiswealth what I mean is that I understand the reasons why it is so, but I strongly feel they are not a *justification* for that state of affairs.

In other words, I understand why it's so, but still find it unacceptable.

@Fairphone

@rysiek
Subscriptions pop everywhere these days. I wonder why no brand has created a subscription for mobile OS update yet.

This would help with our issue and with the financial issues of the companies.

@healthiswealth @Fairphone

@rysiek of all the things I helped crowdfund/preorder @Fairphone was the best investment. Their first product sucked due to a design issue, but that only mattered for power users - and you're right, they show what's possible (and necessary).

@rysiek @Fairphone Important point on big phone producers' denial to deliver long-term software support for their bloatware-infested products.

@rysiek @Fairphone
If FOSS OS for desktops can run (the same version, without any modifications!) both on the latest models and on a hardware made ~17 years ago (my personal use case) , it means that for OS for phones such a lifecycle should be all the more possible. Only there is one condition - this is only possible for FOSS. Phone manufacturers should be forced by law to open source all drivers when they end official product support

@miklo@fosstodon.org @rysiek@mstdn.social @Fairphone@social.weho.st Just open-sourcing all the drivers would not be enough. Most Android phones made by big manufacturers today already have open-source kernels, and yet they can seldom be mainlined due to the absolutely huge amount of downstream patches applied by the SoC vendor. There are not even a handful of successes porting an out-of-date device to a newer kernel baseline released by the same SoC vendor. Yes, for Android there are still userspace "drivers" (HALs) that are not usually open-sourced along with the kernel, but if one cannot even update the kernel component, open-sourcing more of the userspace won't help.

@miklo@fosstodon.org @rysiek@mstdn.social @Fairphone@social.weho.st Making the matter even worse, modern phones have TEE which includes a bunch of blobs that will probably never be open-sourced and will be useless even if open-sourced. They (along with the early-boot firmware) are all hard-wired to trust only the SoC vendor's signatures (yes, often times not even the phone manufacturers can touch those) even when in an unlocked state, so unless they also release their private key, that part of your device will stay outdated forever.

@PeterCxy @Fairphone @miklo @rysiek outside of phones, there are plenty of examples when a hardware vendor releases a kernel that just works. The patches are unmaintainable and there's no architectural view or long term plans. There's a fuckton of ARM boards with this problem.

@Nulo @rysiek I was surprised to see Apple provided a security update last summer for the iPhone 5s. My first iPhone was a 5. Still works but I don’t use it. I have an iPhone 13 Pro which should last a few years.

List of what updates are available for Apple devices. Glad it provides for a longer lifespan as they are expensive. Always trade offs depending on what one gets. Frequent security updates matter to me.

support.apple.com/en-us/HT2012

Apple SupportApple security releasesThis document lists security updates and Rapid Security Responses for Apple software.

@rysiek @Fairphone, it's not "can't", it's "doesn't want to." Their target will want a new phone with more useless bullshit anyway.

@mgorny @Fairphone they claim they "can't", so it's important to call them out on that BS

@rysiek @Fairphone There's a difference between "supporting" for seven years, and actually supporting it.

Fairphone still doesn't support android13 (released in august last year) on their latest phone, and don't even provide timely security updates - their latest system version only includes security updates from 5th December, and AFAICT the kernel they use in their official builds is still based on 4.19, which was released around 5 years ago, and will stop receiving any patches/updates in about a year and a half.

And yes, this is not entirely their fault - SoC vendors are mostly to blame here. But let's not give them a pass simply because they claim to provide updates, when the updates they do provide are outdated on release day.

@rysiek @Fairphone @VulpineAmethyst Not just phones of course.. IIRC it was a survey by which in the uk recently where they asked companies how long their "smart" devices were expected to last, and how long the software would be supported for. Answers of 10 year+ lifespans and 2 year software updates from launch were common in that!

@rysiek @Fairphone So much this. Moto's update scheme for their phones is absolutely terrible. December 2022 Android Security Rollup? Nope, buy a new phone... geez. Or install Lineage and lose access to DRM content.