yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Fairphone 1] Unrelashade:
I wonder why they don't develop the new kernel/ Android version publicly. Or do they?

It can't be changed that support of MediaTek sucks, but why don't they publish what they do? At least this is under their control.
[Fairphone 1] simsalonaut:
I agree with y'all; Fairphone now simply looks as though they didn't do their homework - which is unfortunate for two reasons:

I am sure at least their tech guy, Olivier, would have had a decent understanding of what can happen if you let others (A'Hong) choose your hardware.

I'm getting the idea that Fairphone never really communicated that they did not promise to open source all drivers. [MENTION=4840806]Hyst[/MENTION], I think the article you were referring to is this one; in it, they state "that Kwame hopes to get an Android release something like a month after Android’s own update."

So to get back on a constructive track, let's compile a new list of questions to be sent out to Fairphone; the most practical-oriented issue right now is the one by [MENTION=361777]chrmhoffmann[/MENTION]:

To this, I'd add another question regarding another quote from Fairphone:

Does this mean that when it comes to updates, small Fairphone is "at the end of the foodchain", so to speak? And that Fairphone's approach to that is to produce more devices to increase your leverage with MediaTek?

What is KwameCorp's role in all this?

I'm trying to stay positive, also because of the news regarding MediaTek (rumors of 4.4 updates, MTK producing the next Nexus), but it's hard if you read stuff like

If you think that because Jelly Bean is big right now, it will stay relevant, then I invite you, [MENTION=5382171]joemier[/MENTION], and everyone else, to take a look at Android distribution over time. I hope the Fairphone team realized that sustainability = Android Updates as well. I would not have kept my 2010 HTC Buzz for so long, if I hadn't been able to run current apps on it. I hope Fairphone will go the same way.
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
Guys, you're right, there are major problems imo, as you don't get security updates as well as no bug fixes (like the Bluetooth fix mentioned by [MENTION=4840806]Hyst[/MENTION]). The March update, yes, I remember that. I cannot say much, but it was planned to publish it even earlier. This is probably a MedaTek fail. I think their behaviour in relation to the kernel (and GPL) is what prevents Fairphone to update the Android system.

[MENTION=5833081]manu_26[/MENTION] mentioned, that even older devices have newer Android versions. Yes, I confirm this, even my old HTC Desire (standard support endet with Android 2.2) works now with Android 4.4.2 (thanks to [MENTION=5091819]spezi77[/MENTION]) as a media player in my car.

The quote from Fairphone brought up by [MENTION=5494566]simsalonaut[/MENTION] was shocking me at first sight. Explaining that Jelly Bean is the most spread and dominant Android version... this is completely marketing like appeasing. And Jelly Bean won't last forever. Within some months this will change. All newer devices come with Android 4.4.2 (besides some extremely cheap devices and I don't mean the recently announced OnePlus One, where no one can compete at the moment) and we all expect a new Android version after the Google I/O, at least in Oct/Nov.

[MENTION=361777]chrmhoffmann[/MENTION] seems to be the only developer who still does researches and would be able to create a custom kernel, maybe a ROM. If there are no sources, available, we probably lose his attention as well.

This is all a big problem and need to be solved, but on the other side, only complaining is not what this forum is made for. If there are too much complains and the posts would switch into rants, there will be surely a forum moderator who will "clean" this thread, means, delete several posts which destroys the conversation quite well, worst case is they close this thread. I don't want this to happen.

Of course, you're laughing, cause there is actually no development going on as well and sadly you're right. Please stay patient, I hope we get news from Fairphone soon. Meanwhile, please post news from the Fairphone forum or other sources about the next Fairphone OS or MediaTek kernel sources. At least this is interesting for us.

EDIT:
[MENTION=5494566]simsalonaut[/MENTION] "MTK producing the next Nexus"... heaven help! This must not happen. Personally I expect an Intel SoC in the Nexus tablet, no idea about the smartphone, but a MediaTek SoC would be a bad choice.
[Fairphone 1] akiro75:
I don't use often my FP on my car but it's strange because I have a Toyota Yaris Hybrid Lounge (without "&GO", only "Touch") and I can listen music from my smartphone.

Pairing was fast the first time then, after couple of weeks, I had to pairing again for no known reason but I could use it to listen music.

I will try to test it again next time.

edit: Only to be more precise:

First time I didn't copy my phone book on car but I tried a make a call and it worked.

I noticed that when I listen to the music the artist and the title of the song don't appears on the display
[Fairphone 1] joemier:
Outlook on Fairphone OS Software Update, v1.2

Hi all,

I've seen the questions about kernel source code and more in-depth questions on software development. You'll be getting a more detailed answer on that.

For now, I want to update you on the next software update v1.2 for Fairphone OS. In the last week, we had a software engineer, Johnny, from our production partner (Guohong in China) in the offices of software developers Kwamecorp in Lisbon. Just yesterday Johnny is back in China and doing the last steps to finalize the OTA software update.

With this news, our expectation is that the software update can go out next week to users over Wi-Fi. Of course, this is not a promise but our current outlook.

The update should fix a number of issues including:

- Camera app fixes.

- Some instances of phone crashes and reboots.

- Optimizing some Bluetooth profiles.

- Volume default settings for headset and speaker are optimized.

- SMS app fixes.

- Further fixes on National Roaming.

- Possibility of disabling second SIM card.

- Adding more European languages to the system.

- and more...

We're trying our best to communicate about software development and work with the developer community, but I hope it's clear our ambitions and our small staff/resources must make a compromise at times. I'll share more news on that front very soon. Thanks for your patience. We definitely look forward to getting this software update to all of you!

Best,

Joe

FP Community Manager
[Fairphone 1] simsalonaut:
Thanks for staying with us, Joe.

In other news: Source code for SoC Mediatek MTK6589T released - I'm a complete noob regarding inter-company business practices, but maybe Fairphone should get together with FAEA mobile in order to get more leverage? ;) In any case, the team from CyanogenMod is (very slowly) making progress on a build for the MTK6589T.
[Fairphone 1] KimHansenDenmark:
Hi Benkxda,

Yes, you can shoot technical questions as well as questions in regards to the Widgets, bloatware or suggestions, etc.

Lower level questions about drivers, I will forward to the ChangHong engineers.
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
Ok first about the widgets. Those four widgets mentioned in the Fairphone blog are developed by Kwamecorop as the complete firmware is? One of those is quite a good idea. I am not the only one who is very interested in this one: Peace of Mind.

image from Fairphone blog

Is there a feature freeze now? Some folks I heard wish to set even more than just 6 hours of peace. Maybe they'll use it for peaceful sleep. Is it possible to make this widget also running as an app to avoid the widget? And is there a way you think you could release these widgets or other apps you'll integrate in Fairphone OS as open source/free app/somehow else? :)

Which apps are you going to integrate into Fairphone OS and which apps will be system apps/uninstallable? Are you preloading Fairphone OS with everywhere bloatwares like the Facebook app? Can you provide a list?
[Fairphone 1] KimHansenDenmark:
Yes, there is a feature freeze for this first version.

However, along with the modified Android OS, we will be releasing the widgets as open source as well, so anyone can modify them as much as they like.

The widgets will be uninstallable and there will be no bloatware.

The FairPhone OS will include the following:

Changes to Android OS, including full screen home pages, edge swipe/quick launch, edge swipe editor.

A simple mood lock screen widget.

The peace of mind widget.

The learns by doing/app switcher widget.

In the first release the peace of mind is only a widget (that launches an app to adjust the timer).
[Fairphone 1] MoreThanADev:
Hi KimHansenDenmark !

good to have you here.:good:

I asked this question some weeks ago but never received an answer, maybe you have it ? If you are working on the OS, you are probably using it.

When starting the FairPhone OS on a real device if the kernel don't start fully do you just debug it with /proc/last-kmsg (supposing you have a stable build that enable you to access it) or has the mobile bootloader a way to output debug data (including kernel logs when kernel boot well enough to handle console output) through uart before the kernel fully start ? like in many other devices ?

If so, i would be interested to know where and how it can be read.

Thanks for your answer, tank's for being here, can't wait for my phone and the Peace of Mind app ;) (also i might be trying to extend the maximum duration once i got it. ^^)
[Fairphone 1] KimHansenDenmark:
The bootloader for now is the standard bootloader from MediaTek. We didn't change it.

In regards to the UART, I have forwarded the request to the ChangHong engineer and I will respond when I know more about the kernel driver.
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
Ha, you really open source it? Beautiful, very nice. :good:

I updated OP with some additionals, like the Q&A with you now.

EDIT: Next question: is it Android 4.2.0/4.2.1/4.2.2 what finally Fairphone OS is based on?
[Fairphone 1] KimHansenDenmark:
The first version will be 4.2.2.
[Fairphone 1] KimHansenDenmark:
In regards to the Peace of Mind widget, we will release it both as an app and as a widget!
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
[MENTION=5465780]KimHansenDenmark[/MENTION] will the updates of Fairphone OS come Over The Air (OTA) or will you bring a software tool for PC (Windows+Linux) / Mac for downloading and installing a ZIP file or maybe both ways?

[MENTION=5382171]joemier[/MENTION] Are there accessories planned, for eg some bumpers, cases or stuff like this?
[Fairphone 1] joemier:
Hi. We are starting small with accessories - for now, we're only working on protective casing. We'll have some designs and explanation in the coming weeks on our blog (www.fairphone.com/blog). But keep in mind that the casing should be ready before phones are shipped so they can be ordered and shipped together.

Cheers,

Joe

Fairphone Community Manager
[Fairphone 1] KimHansenDenmark:
There will be a script solution and we are doing some experiments with an OTA solution. But it is not decided yet.
[Fairphone 1] asmaron:
Hey there,

first I want to thank you all (esp. Benkxda) for this thread and your work. I followed the fairphone-project since the beginning (and ordered one! ;)). Now as I see, that there comes more and more life in this thread I cant resist from registrate myself here in the forum. I'm quite excited to see how the open-source developement of the fairphone will develop in future (Ubuntu/FireFox/Android).

My questions on the fairphone-project are:

- On the fairphone-blog it was always said that you are working on a social exchange plattform (like a forum) instead of these Blog-Comments. Is this still actual?

- Is there any plan to bring ubuntu/firefox on the fairphone?

- Since the 13th September there was no update to the Tec-Spec-List on the fairphone-website. One thing that is still not confirmed is the SAR Rating of the phone. It said: "0.318 W/Kg (waiting for final results!)" When do you expect to have these results?

- Can you anything say about the expected battery life? We know its an 2000mAh replaceable battery, but do you have some results about the expected standby-time?

Thanks a lot indeed for your hard work! I'll hope that projects like yours will be the future of the IT-market. :fingers-crossed:

Regards,

Asmaron

P.S.: Sorry for my poor english... its not my native language! ;)
[Fairphone 1] KimHansenDenmark:
Hi Asmaron,

- On the fairphone-blog it was always said that you are working on a social exchange plattform (like a forum) instead of these Blog-Comments. Is this still actual?

Yes, that is the plan. We are however focused on creating the release candidate until the end of October. Shortly thereafter, we will setup the community tools, like forum, wiki, bug tracking, public repository, etc.

- Is there any plan to bring ubuntu/firefox on the fairphone?

Not in the first version. But we have contact with both Ubuntu and Firefox. If there are enough people requesting this, we will investigate what is possible.

- Since the 13th September there was no update to the Tec-Spec-List on the fairphone-website. One thing that is still not confirmed is the SAR Rating of the phone. It said: "0.318 W/Kg (waiting for final results!)" When do you expect to have these results?

Let me connect with the ChangHong engineers and get back to you with more details.

- Can you anything say about the expected battery life? We know its an 2000mAh replaceable battery, but do you have some results about the expected standby-time?

Only when we are closer to the release candidate, will we provide more details about expected standby-time. This is definitely very important to us.

Best,

Kim
[Fairphone 1] asmaron:
Hey Kim!

Thanks for your fast answers! :)

I'm looking forward to hear the news of your investigation at ChangHong! Thanks for working on it!

There is another thing i want to know:

Is there a plan for any software-solution (integrated in the android system or even an system app) for protecting our privacy while using our fairphone. Well I know, that android/google/privacy is a strange debate, but coming from CM7 and CM10 there is the option to withdraw different apps single rights (CM7) or to run the apps in kind a "privacy" mode (CM10), so they have no access to data like contacts, calender, gps, ect.

Of course I know, that almost all my data are known by google, but I dont want that all these "third-party-apps" from the playstore get access to them too. This was already mentioned at a post at the fairphone-blog (htt p://ww w.fairphone.com/2013/09/20/fairphone-operating-system/#more-3448) and it seems that (according to the resonance of commenting) this is a question a lot of people are interested in.

Regards,

Asmaron

P.S.: Sorry for posting the Link above like that. As a new member i cant post external Links until i have ten posts... its the blog-post about the operating system of the fairphone... you have to errase the blanks and copy it to your browser...
[Fairphone 1] baum2:
External memory?

I already bought a fp1.

How much Extrenal Memory is possible?

Like on the first Post of this Tread 32GByte or like on the Fairphone Site 64GByte?

And would you sell a fairsd as well? :)

Or other question, witch SDCH would be the fairest, allready on the Market?

Thanks for your Work!!!

PEACE
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
It is very possible, I have an old information. Usually Fairphone can give us information, if they change anything, I don't get a information or so.

Also other sites have problems, check out the mobile device related website Techstage, even this is a part of the Heise company, they still have old information.

Thanks for updating me! :good: And I updated the OP ;)

EDIT: Also added more information to Bluetooth instead of just the status. It's a pity that these changes are not included in the "Logbook of changes" (scroll down, end of page). No one gets mentioned, if there is nobody like [MENTION=5483622]baum2[/MENTION] :)
[Fairphone 1] Unrelashade:
Hi there,

I have not heard of that a privacy feature like that is planned and I'm sure they'd have it up front if they were planning it. And now there's not enough time anymore (things like that take a lot of time). Also this work would be kind of wasted since Google is probably doing it already. So Kwamecorp will just have to update Android to 4.4 or whatever version will enable these permissions-settings.

You can of course just install the CM version you like. This will be easy because Fairphone will be pretty open and modifiable, so very low risk of something going wrong like bricking your device. (There is also the possibility of using the xposed framework to revoke apps permissions, there was an article on this on the xda portal, here it is: http://www.xda-developers.com/android/manage-individual-app-permissions-with-xprivacy/ however it is not easily installed.)

Easily installed however is a firewall app, since we will have root access on Fairphone. I don't know which one is the best, but I have used Droidwall successfully in the past.

Or one can just not use any apps that store data on servers or is open source/ free(dom) software.

Regarding the issue that Google has a lot of data, this is a good read:

http://fsfe.org/campaigns/android/liberate.en.html

(more on the background of this by Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html )

There is also development going on on xda, like in this thread:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1715375

To the Fairphone team:

I'd be very happy to see you mention or even team up with the FSF, like mentioning their article and/ or F-Droid, the alternative app market (https://f-droid.org/) since this relates to the Fairphone philosophy.
[Fairphone 1] topnomi:
This sounds like a great idea!

I only have one concern: 1GB Ram

This is simply not enough!

Since i've gotten my note II, with 2GB ram, i haven't looked back. The difference is VERY noticeable. I'm not sure what sort of cost increase it would be to double the ram, but i can't imagine it's too much. Without more ram this phone will only ever be outdated/underpowered hardware.
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
I know also both variants, I have a device with 1 GB and two with 2 GB. If you just use normal apps and don't always leave them opened, then you won't come in any trouble. Even on my 2 GB devices I regularly check the recent apps and kill all with the kill all shortcut in the recent apps menu. This device is not set up as a high end device. I think, the SoC and the 1 GB RAM match with their power. The 1 GB device I have is a Galaxy Nexus, which even clocked at 1.8 GHz probably won't be able to keep up with the quad core SoC Mediatek. For using this mid range device as a daily drive for average users, this device is quite good powered.

But if I think about the future, you maybe are not wrong as well. This should be a device with fair raw material, with long support and of course with a long life time, not only 2 years, maybe 4-5 years. If I think, what happened the last 4 years, where I started with the HTC Hero (288 MB RAM)... well, with the HTC Hero you are not able to run Android 4.3, not 4.2, not 4.1... so back to Android 2.3 - that may work ;).

So in this case that you wanna use this device for 4 years or more with the newest Android version, your concerns are totally right and I agree with you. I don't know, how Fairphone will face this problem. [MENTION=5465780]KimHansenDenmark[/MENTION] what are your plans, staying with an Android version which works good with 1 GB RAM?
[Fairphone 1] drcyber:
AFAIK it is completly useless to kill tasks manually in Android. In Linux Unused RAM is wasted RAM!

The only reason to do this is when an app hangs and does not respond at all: See here:

http://www.mlove.com/are-task-managerskillers-good-for-your-android-device.html

http://www.xda-developers.com/android/the-view-on-task-managers-for-android/
[Fairphone 1] joemier:
News on early May Fairphone OS update

Hi all,

As of Thursday, May 1, the software update for Fairphone OS still has a few minor issues that were fixed and now need to be packaged by software engineers in China. Unfortunately, this means that this week we cannot deliver the OS update Over-the-Air. For now, we've published the software change log for Fairphone OS v 1.3, named Chestnut. We're delivering a larger collection of bug fixes - including initial software development work of version 1.2 Release Candidate - to bring these updates in this combined version 1.3.

Read the update log for Fairphone OS version 1.3.

To give some clarity on the workflow for software development:

Neither Fairphone (Amsterdam) nor our software developers Kwamecorp (Lisbon) have a license to build the final update package.

1) Once we've solved issues in Portugal and China, files have to be collected in China to build the update package.

2) Once the package is built and tested in China, it will be sent to Lisbon and Amsterdam where it will be tested.

3) If issues are still found, we have to go back to Step 1.

You can see this workflow creates delays with timezones, as it will be nighttime in China when a new release is sent to them for packaging and vice versa.

We were almost ready to deliver beginning of this week when we found minor issues that needed to go through this development workflow. We're also dealing with timing with the weekend approaching, as we don't want to deliver just before the weekend due to anticipated Support questions. I hope this gives you all some background to our software work, and why it's taking longer than expected.

Thanks for your patience!

Joe

FP Community Manager
[Fairphone 1] manu_26:
Thank you, Joe. Background information is always appreciated.

Gesendet von meinem FP1 mit Tapatalk
[Fairphone 1] dirtycutmaster:
As we investigated further in the massive logfiles topic, we found out that "MyPhoneExplorer" and "Titanium Backup" somehow recommend the USB-Debugging mode - and THIS is the root cause for the logs in /data/log_other_mode.

So yes, I still think, the FP could have a more fashionable partition size for apps (mine has 4 GB now, which I find perfect), but some users also reported to have absolutely no problems with the original size of the partition, as they never touched the USB-Debugging settings. And so it's definitely not Fairphone's bad if users have this option activated and therefore get the "Storage space running out" message...

edit: all BS, my bad this time. Logs are back since 3 days, although even developer options (and of course the USB Debugging) are off / unchecked... Now what... ? *headscratch*
[Fairphone 1] Fisher_AZ:
Re: News on early May Fairphone OS update

Joe, thanks for the clarification on the workflow for software development.

The update log for Fairphone OS version 1.3 certainly looks good. More bugfixes are of course always welcome.

Have you taken into account that some advanced users have already addressed this themselves via the GravityBox module for the Xposed Framework ? Has the update been tested with this scenario ?

A similar issue may present itself in a future update:

Some advanced users have already re-partitioned the internal storage themselves (it made sense to do this as early as possible, as re-partitioning usually involves wiping the data-partition - so it was best to do this prior to installing a lot of apps and changing a lot of settings).

Therefore, please make the re-partioning optional if/when it is included in any future update, because (1) some users may not want and/or need it; and (2) even if you manage to come up with a repartitioning solution that does not involve a wiping of the data-partition, this solution might misbehave when the actual partition scheme on the phone already differs from the factory-state partitioning.