Fairphone, the Dutch social enterprise devoted To creating shopper electronics (extra) sustainable and moral, collectively with by assisting repairability So as that clients can maintain onto their hardware for prolongeder, has introduced public testing of Android 10 for the six-yr-previous Fairphone 2.
House owners of the modular handset that was first launched again in 2015, working Android 5, ought to anticipate To have The power to improve to Android 10 (launched date: 2019) in early 2022, Fairphone said right now, saying the beta rollout of the improve.
Fairphone stopped producing (however not assisting) the Fairphone 2 again in 2018 — Occurring to launch the Fairphone 3 (in 2019); the Fairphone 3+ (in 2020; additionally out there as a modular improve to The three); and, earlier this fall, the Fairphone 4, its first 5G handset — which it said Can be assisted till A minimal of 2025.
Given the Fairphone 2’s impending replace to Android 10 subsequent yr — Which might imply It is going to have been assisted for An complete of seven yrs — 2025 appears like a conservative estimate of how prolonged Fairphone 4 owners ought to anticipate to acquire Computer software assist.
Fairphone says it collaborated with its group of clients for the Android 10 improve enterprise — and with a Computer software developer in India, Bharath Ravi Prakash, which it says labored as a volunteer open supply dev — and by doing That says it was In a place to streamline The tactic and shrink the time required To maintain out the improve.
So whereas the prior Fairphone 2 OS replace (to Android 9) took 18 months, this time The tactic has been condensed to 10 months.
Google, implywhereas, has gone on to launch Android 11 (2020) and Android 12 (final month) — for A Method of how far behind the Fairphone 2 improves are trailing The latest OS launch.
“The agency found Tons from the Android 9 improve and although nonetheless complicated, Android 10 was extra predictable than Android 9,” Fairphone notes in a press launch which additionally quotes its head of Computer software prolongedevity & IT, Agnes Crepet, who writes: “Our distinctive strategy to Computer software has allowed us To assist our clients maintain their models For As prolonged as potential. We’re joyful To have The power To current our Fairphone 2 group with But one extra Computer software improve, reaching our objective To current A minimal Of 5 yrs of assist from launch for our telephones and with the Android 10 improve, we’re going past that to seven yrs of assist. We’re continuously elevating the bar for ourselves and the enterprise, displaying that doing skinnygs extra sustainably in Computer software Is potential.”
Seven yrs’ assist places Fairphone into Apple iPhone Computer software assist timespans. But Really The typical Android-based mostly handset can anticipate truthful fewer yrs of Computer software love — typically Android smarttelephones solely get round three yrs’ assist. So it’s A critical achievement.
And whereas Fairphone might solely now be catching As a lot as Apple on the Computer software prolongedevity entrance It is already yrs forward of Cupertino In a single other respect: Hardware sustainability by way of repairability by way of modular enchancment and offering direct-to-shopper spare parts.
Earlier this month Apple introduced that, starting subsequent yr, It’d kick off a ‘Self Service Restore’ program — delivery spare parts and repair devices to iPhone and Mac clients to Permit them to carry out primary repairs at home.
It’s By no implys full modularity from the agency that has — traditionally — liked a hermetically sealed, stupidly skinny, typically actually glued shut area However It is a small step in a extra sustainable course. And One which Fairphone has prolonged pioneered.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/24/fairphone-2-android-10-beta/
