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Android 14 is here. Here's what's changed. - Fairphone
(www.fairphone.com)
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this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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Android
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Fuck features, security is the important thing here. If they are 10 (11?) months old on major systems version jumps, the fuck are they doing for monthly security patches?! A year? 18 months?
For me, the biggest drive for me when getting a phone is rapid security updates. Then, openness of the bootloader. My phone - everyone's phone - is a golden ticket to a huge trove of data about the person. Modular parts and repairability are important (and very desirable for me), but absolutely not at the cost of security.
And it's not like it's difficult to put these together. Android... 8? Set the framework for modern updates. Everything is separate and only what you need to update has to be touched, so they can be very small and quick to install. We aren't in the multi-gig full system images days, requiring full QA and deep testing anymore. Patch, ship. It's not fucking difficult!
Arghhhhh!
Wait, what does one have to do with the other? When a new Android version comes out it doesn't mean that the previous one stops getting security fixes. You can stay on a previous version and still be up to date on security.
You can, but if one isn't providing consistent and timely patches, you're not secure. And if it takes nearly a year to push a version bump, they aren't going to be on the ball with smaller fixes either.
Tell me you never had to maintain software without telling me you never had to maintain software. 😂
(It's actually opposite: If someone were slow on the smaller patches that'd bode ill for the big ones, but the opposite has no meaning)
I used to write code as a hobby for a few years; technically still do but for a tiny project. It drove me mad when I discovered issues with a version, or that I hadn't implemented this big feature that I envisioned, and while I took classes on the subject it was just for credit and to pass the time, I wasn't learning any new material that I didn't already have. So I'd be angry at myself about learning new abilities and not immediately putting them to use in ways my users - mostly just family and friends - could benefit from. I never worked with anyone else, just one dude being super hard on myself, all the time, for no reason. One could see the same effects in other avenues of my life, but programming it was visible front and center.
it was one of my reasons for burning out. Perfection and the fear that I wasn't good enough, self-imposed fears, made for lots of late nights and missed sleep, and as I learned languages the feeling never faded. So I hung up the towel because I didn't want to die at 30. We'll, and partially because I became disabled, so it wasn't completely my choice, but I was already turning a passion into a nightmare so it was going to happen eventually.
But that was just me, self-taught, and trying to improve things however I could by my lonesome for about a decade as a teen and beyond. I don't expect someone of my level to handle an OS project, but I damn well do for those hired and paid for the task. I hate them for many reasons, but Samsung ships OS version bumps on their flagship models in like a ~month from launch. I believe others do, too, but it's been a while. And custom rom devs are still pushing them within a week or two. FP has just a couple models to support. This shouldn't be a nearly year-long process.
Why would you compare a tiny company like Fairphone to the largest Android manufacturer Samsung? That makes absolutely zero sense. Fairphone's net turnover for 2022 was €59 million. Samsung's net turnover for 2022 was $246 billion.
Because if they want to be a real player, they need to do better. FP is small but they also aren't shipping hundreds of devices. Defending them because one is small and one isn't, without taking the number of devices sold or supported, makes this point moot. Now if Sammy offered like two models worldwide so it's an even playing field, that'd be different.
At the end of the day, all I'm expecting is a reasonable timeframe for (major) updates, and 10 months ain't it, regardless of company.
Fairphone doesn't want to be a "real player", it wants to advocate for, and pursue, change within the industry. This is a company with a profit margin of 0.07% that spends a lot of its time and money on industry level activism like the Fair Cobalt Alliance it launched earlier this year.
You seem to have absolutely zero knowledge or understanding about Fairphone as a company and it is really showing in these weird criticisms and comparisons. It's not just another generic consumer electronics company trying to become the next Samsung or Apple.
So they want to be known as slow to release updates and in no rush to improve that, then? Another provider of devices that receives updates 'eventually'? That was fine a decade ago, but there's no excuse for it now. Trying to be better about sourcing and sustainability is good, but that doesn't detract from other factors. If they have too much on their plate, they shouldn't have added more.
Likewise, defending such behavior so strongly is 'really showing'. 10 months for a version bump when it takes others weeks is bad, I'm sorry that you think otherwise. Nothing you say changes that - not sales numbers, not net profits, no 'but they are small' avoidance tactics. They don't get a magic pass just because. It's become easier since their launch years ago to speed up this process; there's simply no excuse.
It doesn't take others weeks, only Samsung. Basically every other manufacturer is months behind. Motorola is a full year behind and it is one of the largest companies in the US. Fairphone's version upgrade schedule is not the outlier you seem to think it is.
Jumping to a new major version takes more effort than releasing incremental updates for a version they already have in production (presumably for several models).
What does security have to do with feature updates?
Fairphone for example patches security updates pretty (not perfectly, granted) quickly, but is about a year or so behind on feature updates.
They incorrectly assumed that when Fairphone was working on the A14 feature update that they halted any and all security updates for existing versions which is not true.
There is no relation, this person just seems to have fallen for security theatre.
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/18682800465169-Fairphone-5-OS-Release-Notes
So far, security updates have been delivered after 1 Month. Security updates can also be delivered after the release of a new Android version.
Hrm, not bad. TIL.
They come out with all the security updates (anywhere between 2 weeks and a month after Google pushes them out). They don't wait for a feature update to push out security updates.