The Fairphone 2 from 2015 has been updating with Android for 6 years and we wonder why other manufacturers do not do the same, In July of 2015 the Fairphone 2 , a modular and sustainable smartphone that once again stood out for its repairability and for its respect for the environment . What we did not know is that six years later this mobile would continue to give good news. FairPhone 2 with Android 10. It is true that it is far from the most recent version of Android, but that 6 years later this mobile continues to be updated is fantastic ; The sad thing is that the rest of the manufacturers – with Google at the head – do not follow those same steps.
Whoever wants, can They commented on it for example in Android Authority , where they realized that the Fairphone 2 is one of those few examples that show that our devices could actually last much longer than they can . Not because we continue to use them, which too, but because manufacturers continue to support and update their software.
At Apple it is something they boast about with strong arguments : the iPhone 6s / Plus can be upgraded to iOS 15, the last version of this mobile operating system, and that has also passed six years since its launch .
It is true that Apple’s situation favors it: they release three mobile phones every year, while some Android mobile manufacturers may get to get dozens of them – we are looking at you, Xiaomi -. Others have less excuse, of course, and although they barely take out 4 or 5 terminals a year, updates to new versions of Android are few or late. Or both .
The truth is that the fact that a company with very limited resources like Fairphone can support a terminal for six years it makes the situation very criticizable for manufacturers with much more ability to move token.
The Fairphone 2 continues to wage war six years later.
Almost all of them are guilty, although it is true that there are efforts to extend this support period . Xiaomi has promised up to three versions of Android OS and four years of security patches recently, and Samsung announced also recently 46 of their terminals will have Android 12 in the next months.
However the problem persists, and Google itself sets a bad example : it was rumored that with the Pixel 6 would come five-year cycles of updates to Android systems, but actually those five years, but nothing of that: they will have five years of security patches, but only guaranteed Android version updates until October 2024, that is, three new versions of the operating system.
That makes the Eternal criticism of Android fragmentation remains very real: Android 11 currently has a 24, 2% fee , while Android 11 have a 24, 5% and Android 9 a 18,2%. The latest data from Google does not even include Android 12, which has barely been on the market for a month.
The The fragmentation problem doesn’t really have that much impact thanks to efforts that Google put in years ago. Project Treble was one of them, but so was that gradual transition to a model that reduced the weight of Android as an operating system to give more prominence to updates to its services and applications.
The idea was simple: your terminal may not update to Android 12, but you will enjoy many of the advantages of these terminals because many services and applications are independent of that version and make the terminal feel relatively new despite the passage of time.
That, of course, does not matter, because even so, many manufacturers should follow the example of a Fairphone that has shown that whoever wants can , and that terminals from four, five or six years ago could receive new versions Android without too many problems.
Image | Denny Müller
