Summary
In a move that’s usually not a good sign, Fairphone, the Dutch smartphone manufacturer known for its ethical and repairable devices, has published an “open letter” to its community. Posted on their official forum, the letter covers the company’s recent customer support struggles and a surprising shift in their Android update timeline for the Fairphone 4.
Fairphone admits that the core of its issues has been customer support. People have faced frustratingly long wait times, a problem the company attributes to “limited capacity.” This isn’t surprising for a small tech company, but for Fairphone, a company that’s big on building a better, more sustainable relationship with consumers, it’s not great. Fairphone is promising an expansion of the support team, the addition of outside help to speed things up, and “improving our internal processes.”
Perhaps the bigger news is the company’s plans for Android 14 on the Fairphone 4—it’s skipping it. Fairphone had hoped to ship Android 14 at the start of this year, which would have already been late, so it has decided to leap over it entirely and instead focus its efforts on Android 15. Fairphone says it wants to provide a “longer-lasting and more future-proof experience." Bypassing an interim update for a more stable and feature-rich version will be great for Fairphone owners, but it does mean waiting even longer for a significant OS update. Fairphone says it can’t commit to a timeline for Android 15 just yet.
Fairphone’s open letter is an interesting glimpse into the challenges faced by a company trying to do things differently in an extremely competitive industry. Their commitment to transparency, even when the news isn’t glowing, is nice to see. However, the coming months will show whether their planned improvements to customer support and their leap to Android 15 will come to fruition. In the meantime, Fairphone says to expect them to be more present on the forum.
