Fairphone—the sustainable, modular smartphone firm—is nonetheless transport updates to the 5-year-old Fairphone 2. The firm will not win any awards for pace, however the telephone—which launched in 2015 with Android 5—is now being updated to Android 9.0. The most fascinating a part of this information is a video from Fairphone detailing the replace course of the firm went via, which gives extra transparency than we usually get from a smartphone producer. To hear Fairphone inform the story of Android updates, the biggest barrier to longer-term support is—shock!—Qualcomm.
Fairphone needs customers to maintain their telephones for longer, creating much less e-waste and carbon emissions through modular alternative elements which can be simply upgradeable and repairable. An enormous problem for designing a long-lasting telephone like this is software program support. Even if Fairphone wished to support a telephone eternally, Android software program updates don’t work that method, and main OS updates usually depend on a relay race of firms that every one want to hand-off a construct of Android earlier than it reaches your telephone.
We’ve gone over this earlier than, however let’s do a fast recap of how Android makes it to your smartphone. First, Google releases builds of AOSP (the Android Open Source Project) to everybody. This does not run on a telephone but, although. First, your SoC (System on a Chip) producer (normally Qualcomm) has to pay money for it and customise Android for a selected SoC, including drivers and different {hardware} support. Then, that construct goes to your telephone producer (Fairphone, on this case) which provides support for the remainder of the {hardware}—issues like cameras, the show, and every other equipment—together with built-in apps and any customized Android pores and skin work that the firm needs to do.
Fairphone
As a 5-year-old telephone, the Fairphone 2 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC, which is a significant drawback in the event you’re attempting to do long-term support. Fairphone software program engineer Karsten Tausche defined in the video, “Qualcomm stopped supporting the chipset already, after Android 6, and that made the replace to Android 7 far more tough than, for instance, the replace to Android 6.” Fairphone says it labored round the lack of Qualcomm support thanks to LineageOS, the Android group’s biggest customized ROM undertaking. Just like how your SoC and {hardware} producer would formally get AOSP builds prepared for a tool, Lineage additionally builds device-specific, ready-to-boot variations of Android from the supply and releases them to everybody as an aftermarket ROM. Qualcomm is the solely firm with full entry to Qualcomm’s proprietary code blobs and {hardware} documentation, so an unofficial, hacked-together construct normally will not attain the stage of polish you get from an official launch with each {hardware} firm’s support. Lineage usually lives in the realm of aftermarket telephone tinkerers, in order that’s fantastic.
Fairphone is a Google app licensee, although, and this is an official launch, so there is a larger bar for high quality. Lineage has to move Google’s approval course of, aka the “Compatibility Test Suite,” a battery of exams that ensures producers have constructed Android appropriately. The software program will not have any main compatibility issues with apps, and it’ll adhere to all of Google’s mandated insurance policies for Android. Fairphone nearly appears vital of Google’s compatibility course of, too, saying it “is getting increasingly more complicated” with every new Android launch, and the Android 9 options “480,000” exams. Fairphone wasn’t certain it might ship an official construct of Android 9 till it got here up with options for all of Google’s check necessities.
As for the firm’s present telephones, the Fairphone Three and three+, the firm says it is planning an Android 11 replace in the second half of this yr. Fairphone says Qualcomm is planning to kill support for the Snapdragon 632 chip that underpins these telephones in July 2021. Fairphone needs to ship “no less than yet another main Android replace” after Android 11, however that may imply doing one other replace with out Qualcomm’s support.
As at all times with Android, issues will get higher in the future. The Fairphone 3, as an Android 10 launch telephone, helps Project Treble, a significant re-architecting of Android that separates the OS from the {hardware} support. Treble was constructed to precisely resolve the drawback the older Fairphone 2 is having—the separation means an organization might theoretically replace Android while not having support from its chipset vendor.
Today, Qualcomm guarantees three years of chipset support for main updates, which was pitched as an enormous enchancment over the two years it used to give. That is nonetheless nowhere close to so long as Apple, which gives round 5 years of support for an iPhone. Qualcomm previously explained to Ars that “The size of time a chipset is supported… is decided in collaboration with our prospects,” however this is a buyer asking for extra support—and it is not occurring.
Tausche closed the video saying that, despite the fact that the work was tough, Fairphone wished to set an instance. Tausche mentioned, “We are proud to present the trade that, even with our small crew, it is potential to support your telephones longer.”
