[HN Gopher] Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?
        
       Author : DamonHD
       Score  : 35 points
       Date   : 2023-12-07 11:04 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.ifixit.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.ifixit.com)
        
       | baz00 wrote:
       | IP55. Nope. I'd kill that in 30 seconds. My phone case looks like
       | a fish bowl on some days.
        
         | stevehawk wrote:
         | i think it's safe to say that you're not the average phone
         | user.
        
           | sowbug wrote:
           | I've heard that in Japan, it's common to use phones while
           | showering. My N=1 observation is that this would be unusual
           | in the US.
        
         | carstenhag wrote:
         | What are you doing with it? Never had a waterproof phone, never
         | needed one. I guess very few people benefit from it on a day to
         | day basis. Most value is just there in case of accidents
        
           | baz00 wrote:
           | I live in the UK. It rains here. A lot. And I need to take
           | calls.
        
             | sgift wrote:
             | I think you are good with IP55 in that case:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_code
             | 
             | > Water projected by a nozzle (6.3 mm (0.25 in)) against
             | enclosure from any direction shall have no harmful effects.
             | 
             | > Test duration: 1 minute per square meter for at least 3
             | minutes
             | 
             | > Water volume: 12.5 litres per minute Pressure: 30 kPa
             | (4.4 psi) at distance of 3 meters (9.8 ft)
        
           | nicoburns wrote:
           | > I guess very few people benefit from it on a day to day
           | basis. Most value is just there in case of accidents
           | 
           | That's true, but some people have more accidents than others!
           | If you're the sort of person who drops their phone in water
           | every couple of months then a waterproof phone ends up being
           | a huge cost saving.
        
           | biomcgary wrote:
           | My wife's phone died in a bucket of goat milk. All those
           | calcium ions are great conductors.
        
         | TrueGeek wrote:
         | I'm surprised you're getting downvoted. The iPhone has been
         | IP67 since iPhone 7 (so 7 years now). I figured more people
         | appreciated this. I assume most Androids are the same. It's
         | nice to be able to go kayaking and not worry about having to
         | have a waterproof case. Mine once spent 10 hours in a back
         | cycling jersey pocket where it rained the entire time and it
         | was perfectly fine.
        
           | baz00 wrote:
           | Yes exactly that. My iPhone 13 Pro has been up mountains,
           | across glaciers and through deserts (no shit it actually has)
           | and it looks and works like the day I bought it.
           | 
           | But the time it really got hammered was when it was pissing
           | it down in the middle of nowhere in the UK when I was waiting
           | for a train that would never come and I had to try and
           | organise a taxi in an unfamiliar place. That would have
           | killed the Fairphone 5 dead. It was soaked. Everything was
           | soaked.
           | 
           | Edit: I also have a Pixel 7a which is the same.
        
           | sgift wrote:
           | There's obviously a trade-off between able to open the case
           | without having to glue it back together - which is kind of
           | needed for good repairability - and having IP67. It don't
           | think it's even possible tbh. If you have screws, you'll have
           | gaps and since IP67 has to be completely dust proof (not only
           | dust protected as IP5) and water proof for 30 minutes in 1m
           | water it's kind of a silly ask for anything repairable.
        
             | adolph wrote:
             | > without having to glue it back together
             | 
             | It's not like using a squirt-bottle. Just buy the seal with
             | the repair part, example below.
             | 
             | https://www.ifixit.com/products/iphone-x-display-assembly-
             | ad...
        
           | babypuncher wrote:
           | I appreciate it. I like knowing my phone can survive a quick
           | rinse in the sink when it gets dirty.
        
           | prmoustache wrote:
           | Having an IP67 phone is of little help if your phone end up
           | at the bottom of a river/lake.
           | 
           | Ask me how I know.
        
         | KoftaBob wrote:
         | Are you a fisherman or something?
        
       | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
       | > On the other hand, the Fairphone 5 is hardly a ball of fire
       | when it comes to processor power. Though it comes with the
       | fastest industrial chip (not a Snapdragon) made by Qualcomm, that
       | puts it squarely in the mid-range rather than rubbing shoulders
       | with more exotic devices.
       | 
       | I think performance might be what limits its actual useful life.
       | I have had to replace phones more for being slow (since software
       | is always eating up more and more performance) than for actual
       | physical failures.
        
         | jandrese wrote:
         | CPU speed isn't usually the thing that kills a phone, it's
         | running out of memory. If they oversize (or allow upgrades of)
         | the memory it could easily last that long.
        
           | carstenhag wrote:
           | I think only my first Android (Samsung s3) had this
           | bottleneck. The others were slow due to CPU or by being
           | severely limited by the battery.
        
       | binkHN wrote:
       | > Fairphone promises five Android version upgrades and at least
       | eight years of security updates, with an aim for a total lifespan
       | of a decade.
       | 
       | Impressive
        
         | maegul wrote:
         | So I'm completely out of the loop on the whole de-googling your
         | Android phone thing.
         | 
         | How workable is it today and how well would it work on a phone
         | like this?
        
           | prmoustache wrote:
           | The fairphone 5 is available new preinstalled with /e/os from
           | the murena store:
           | 
           | https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-
           | fairpho...
        
           | fgeiger wrote:
           | You can quite easily install the Google-freie /e/OS:
           | https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP5
           | 
           | Murena also sells it preinstalled:
           | https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-
           | fairpho...
        
           | redder23 wrote:
           | VERY ironically just do NOT buy a fucking Google phone to un-
           | google it. I really really like the Grahpene OS project but
           | its a damn shame that is does only support Pixels and not
           | Fairphones or phones that are at least privacy supporting
           | from the manufacturers end.
           | 
           | I think "hardware security" of Google phones sounds nice on
           | paper but you never know if these is some NSA chip or some
           | other exploit build in that the Graphene OS devs never know
           | about. I do not trust Google AT ALL and would love for them
           | to support different Phones, because /e/ is does not sound
           | very secure in comparison, they build on Lineage OS and they
           | actually lowered security to widen compatibility AFAIK and I
           | guess /e/ OS is just copying + de-googling.
        
           | potatopatch wrote:
           | The de-google issue is Google's proprietary play/Gapps setup
           | which expects to have higher privileges and sells itself as
           | nicer APIs and cloud services to app developers. Many apps
           | can just fallback since not all regions and devices use
           | official Google Android, etc. The other alternatives to not
           | installing any support for them are, installing them like
           | normal but on your non google distribution, an emulator of
           | the services like microg, or wrapping them to put them in the
           | standard app cage like grapheneOS does.
        
       | orangepurple wrote:
       | Not for sale in the USA. I looked at their small whitelist of
       | countries they ship to in the final step of checkout.
        
       | sowbug wrote:
       | Motivated by this article, and already thinking about handing
       | down my current phone to a family member as a Christmas gift, I
       | visited the Fairphone store (https://shop.fairphone.com/ though
       | likely available only on Amazon in the US) and read one review
       | (https://www.theverge.com/23895548/fairphone-5-review-
       | price-f...). Here's why I'm holding off.
       | 
       | 1. No wireless charging. Switching to this phone would require a
       | big change in my household's ecosystem (sorry to use a big word
       | for a small thing, but I can't think of a better one). We have
       | $10 wireless charging discs all over the place, and it's nice to
       | be able to charge whenever we set our phones down. I don't want
       | to take a step backward.
       | 
       | 2. The Verge's review suggests the camera is OK but not great.
       | I've been taking Pixel photos for years, and my phone is always
       | the one people ask to use for group shots at social events. I
       | don't want to fuss with taking a picture ten times just to get
       | the lighting right, and the Pixel almost always meets the bar on
       | the first shot. It sucks that a consumption device like a phone
       | has this one critical input feature, and that there is still so
       | much of a computational photography gap between certain brands
       | and the rest, but that's how it is, and it prevents me from
       | seriously considering any of them. (This isn't unique to Pixel; I
       | hear Apple does well in this area, too.)
       | 
       | 3. Just a nit: why is the case 40 euros? I expect to pay a
       | premium for the phone because of the specific compromises in the
       | design and the resulting low volumes. But this is just another
       | run-of-the-mill TPU case that I expect I'd have to routinely
       | replace every couple years. I don't use screen protectors, but I
       | have an even more allergic reaction to the 33-euro price of the
       | one for sale. I know there are aftermarket options, but I'm
       | already taking a risk of poor part/accessory availability in the
       | future because it's a niche product, so I don't know whether
       | they'll still be available when I need them years from now.
       | 
       | By the way, I do own a Framework laptop (11th-gen CPU), and I
       | like it a lot. I plan to swap out the motherboard next year.
       | Unlike the Fairphone, the Framework didn't impose cost and
       | performance compromises right out of the gate. I support
       | sustainability, but there's only so far I'm willing to go.
        
         | Buxato wrote:
         | 1. Always sad for me to know how much popular are wireless
         | chargers, wasting 47% more energy aprox for charging the same
         | as a wired charger. https://debugger.medium.com/wireless-
         | charging-is-a-disaster-... (too much catastrophic conclusions
         | in this article but that percentage is real, you could check it
         | in another tests, articles, whatever ..)
         | 
         | 2. Totally agree with that, if camera is fundamental for you
         | maybe not the right choice.
         | 
         | 3. They also take compromises to have an ethical production,
         | try to guarantee there is no exploitation as much as they
         | could, from the extraction of mineral, manufacturing ... (they
         | didn't do it for all, but they are advancing as far as they
         | could, also with all existing certifications for that, so it's
         | normal that is expensive. So our choice to value that things,
         | if we could afford it, or not.
        
           | binkHN wrote:
           | > Always sad for me to know how much popular are wireless
           | chargers, wasting 47% more energy aprox for charging the same
           | as a wired charger.
           | 
           | The energy waste is a shame, but the convenience factor is
           | mighty high, not to mention the wear and tear on your USB-C
           | port is non-existent. Maybe one point for less USB cable
           | waste and tossing perfectly good phones just because their
           | USB ports are damaged?
        
           | mtmail wrote:
           | This 2016 article puts the cost of charging an ipad at $1.55
           | per year (iphone lower but I assume batteries got bigger or
           | time). 47% wastage with wireless chrome is not much in terms
           | of energy costs. https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-much-does-
           | it-cost-to-charg...
        
           | gruez wrote:
           | >1. Always sad for me to know how much popular are wireless
           | chargers, wasting 47% more energy aprox for charging the same
           | as a wired charger. https://debugger.medium.com/wireless-
           | charging-is-a-disaster-... (too much catastrophic conclusions
           | in this article but that percentage is real, you could check
           | it in another tests, articles, whatever ..)
           | 
           | The percentage value looks bad but how much is that in
           | absolute terms? Using the figures from the article, wireless
           | charging uses 6.75 Wh more per full charge. Assuming you
           | charge that much every day, that's 2.46 kWh per year, or 42
           | cents at average US electricity prices[1]. I think that's a
           | price worth paying for the convenience.
           | 
           | [1] https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergypri
           | ces...
        
           | asolidtime1 wrote:
           | >> 1. Always sad for me to know how much popular are wireless
           | chargers, wasting 47% more energy aprox for charging the same
           | as a wired charger.
           | 
           | Sure, but compared to everything else we use, smartphones use
           | almost no energy. The one I'm typing this on has a battery
           | capacity of 12 wh; if you have a resistive electric water
           | heater, standing in a hot shower during the winter for an
           | extra _second_ would offset half of that.
        
             | sowbug wrote:
             | Ouch! I already feel bad about shaving in the shower! That
             | is an evocative way to put it.
        
           | sowbug wrote:
           | Your point on wireless-charging waste is valid, but I'm not
           | sure a hypothetical initiative to reduce national electricity
           | consumption should prioritize addressing it. The waste is
           | similar to using a 7-watt LED bulb one hour extra per day
           | (16Wh phone battery requires an extra 47% or 7.52 watts to
           | charge wirelessly from 0% to 100% each night).
           | 
           | The concern about wireless inefficiency is very well-placed,
           | however, in the case of electric cars. EVs will become an
           | enormous consumer of electricity in the near future, so small
           | changes now can have a big cumulative effect. "Charge your
           | car as conveniently as your phone" would be an effective
           | marketing tagline, so to that extent I agree that phones set
           | a bad example for needless energy consumption in the name of
           | convenience.
           | 
           | (edit: oops, bunch of other commenters made the same point
           | while I was writing mine)
        
           | numpad0 wrote:
           | Qi receivers on phones don't wear out as fast as physical
           | connectors do. There are no hard reasons why wireless is
           | better in durability but practically they tend to be more
           | reliable.
        
             | technothrasher wrote:
             | This is exactly when I've used wireless charging the most,
             | after my physical connector has broken. It let's me extend
             | the life of the phone.
        
           | maegul wrote:
           | > 1. Always sad for me to know how much popular are wireless
           | chargers, wasting 47% more energy aprox for charging the same
           | as a wired charger.
           | 
           | Lots of sibling replies pointing out that the absolute energy
           | loss is negligible and reasonable price for the convenience.
           | 
           | That's fine.
           | 
           | But there's a bigger point. This convenience is being used as
           | a justification for sticking with big brand phones. Which
           | maybe tips the balance on the reasonableness, and, more
           | broadly, raises the general issue of how much buying for
           | convenience is a slippery slope. Maybe just charge with a
           | cable?
        
           | bb88 wrote:
           | > Always sad for me to know how much popular are wireless
           | chargers, wasting 47% more energy aprox for charging the same
           | as a wired charger.
           | 
           | TBH some wired chargers are only 60 percent efficient in
           | converting AC to DC. Then you'll also have energy losses
           | inside the phone converting 5vdc to 3.7vdc for the lithium
           | battery.
           | 
           | But, what? this is ~7 watts per charge completely full
           | charge?
           | 
           | One could do the following and offset those 7 watts with a
           | lot more to spare:
           | 
           | Add another layer of insulation.
           | 
           | Add a heat pump.
           | 
           | Add solar panels to your roof.
           | 
           | Stop mining Bitcoin.
        
         | prmoustache wrote:
         | 1. People in my household put their phone to charge only once a
         | day, when they go to bed. How hard is it to plug a phone once a
         | day?
        
       | iandanforth wrote:
       | I'd buy one if it had a headphone jack!
        
         | mikece wrote:
         | How many _current_ phones have a headphone jack? When I
         | upgraded from my Pixel 4a to the 6a (both running Graphene OS)
         | I never noticed that the headphone jack was  "missing" because
         | I use a Bose bluetooth headset. And when I want to route the
         | audio through my car speakers? Oh... I have a USB-C pigtail
         | splitter which allows for power to be passed through another
         | UBS-C port and connection to the car audio system through a
         | 3.5mm TRS connector.
         | 
         | Seriously: who _needs_ a headphone jack anymore?
        
           | jablala wrote:
           | Congrats you have a different use case to GP.
        
           | cameroncairns wrote:
           | Anecdata, but I suspect my current issues with charging my
           | iphone are due to wear on the charging port from using the
           | lightning -> headphone adapter. When looking for a new phone
           | I noticed that many sony phones still provide headphone jacks
           | on their higher end models (xperia 5v, 10v) but generally it
           | seems relegated to cheaper android phones.
           | 
           | I hate the waste generated from having battery powered
           | headphones, and generally dislike the batterification of so
           | many products these days. Wires can be messy but they are
           | usually replaceable and I don't have to worry about properly
           | disposing of them as much as I would for an item with a LiON
           | battery.
           | 
           | IIRC the xperia phones are just as water/dustproof as the
           | pixels/iphones so not really sure why we had to give up the
           | port other than for maybe a mm of thinness and a reason to
           | sell a new series of audio devices to consumers.
        
             | bluGill wrote:
             | I used Xperia phones for years. However I gave up as if it
             | doesn't come from t-mobile it didn't support all the towers
             | (tmobile uses some weird frequencies in the US) and I'd end
             | up in dead zones all over. Great phones, but too much
             | friction to keep using them.
        
               | cameroncairns wrote:
               | I wish it was easier to parse/compare the supported cell
               | frequencies list from phone/gsm arena. Especially for
               | devices more targeted at non US markets you can end up
               | missing a lot of useful frequencies. I guess part of the
               | issue is how non standard the US cell networks tend to be
               | (iirc our 5g is also a little weird compared to the rest
               | of the world)
               | 
               | It's one of the things I feel like iPhone does right
               | supporting most frequencies even for US models. The new
               | mandatory eSIM on it makes it a no-go for me though when
               | I travel to Europe and want to buy a SIM card at the
               | airport/corner store.
        
               | MostlyStable wrote:
               | I almost bought one recently because they are literally
               | the only new phone model that has both of: a headphone
               | jack and no camera cutout. Unfortunately, it seemed like
               | support on google fi was hacky and partial at best (and
               | it wasn't 100% clear you could get it to work at all).
               | 
               | I ended up going with the pixel 4, which was the newest
               | phone I could fine that at least didn't have a camera
               | cutout.
               | 
               | I have since discovered that in android developer
               | options, you can choose to give up the screen real estate
               | around teh cutout to effectively hide it. Given this, in
               | the future, I'll look for phones that have a jack,
               | worrying less about the cutout.
               | 
               | If the Fairphone ever comes to the US with full support,
               | I would strongly consider it, even though I _really_ want
               | a headphone jack. I think that for a fully repairable
               | phone, I might be willing to trade.
               | 
               | It appears like my ideal phone is probably never going to
               | exist again, so I'm going to have to compromise on
               | something.
        
           | chrysoprace wrote:
           | Nobody _needs_ a smartphone; a dumbphone would suffice for
           | most people. We buy smartphones because we _want_ them. For
           | my personal use case I have an expensive pair of headphones
           | which I used to use (lasted over a decade so far) with my
           | Nexus 6P and while using an amp /DAC is better; it's just
           | more convenient to plug and play.
        
             | rcarr wrote:
             | Hard disagree. Not having some kind of device (be that a
             | smart phone, tablet or laptop) is going to make life very
             | difficult, particularly if you have to access any kind of
             | government service in the developed world. Might be
             | different in the US but in the UK almost everything is
             | digital or moving to digital. For example if you're
             | claiming benefits because you're unemployed in the UK then
             | you would be expected to both apply online and log in to an
             | online portal and register all your jobseeking activities
             | which your job advisor will then review to determine if
             | you're putting in enough effort. Failure to do this would
             | result in your unemployment benefits being withdrawn. If
             | you don't own your own device, the only other option would
             | be to go down to the local library where you normally have
             | to pay fees if you're using the computer over 30/60 mins
             | depending on the local authority. If you're having to do
             | this on a regular basis then it's far more economical to
             | own your own device. This is just one example of many.
        
               | tmtvl wrote:
               | Of all the things which should be accessible without
               | internet, government services should pretty much be
               | number 1 on the list. Especially unemployment benefits,
               | because how is someone without a job going to afford a
               | device which can access the internet plus the
               | corresponding internet access?
        
             | askonomm wrote:
             | Don't know about you, but without Maps I'd be completely
             | lost. Also, all gov services in my country (Estonia)
             | require Smart ID, which requires a smartphone. So if I want
             | to log into my bank account, sign documents, look at my
             | medical records, do tax declarations, manage my business
             | information, manage car parking, and so on and so on, I
             | will need a smartphone. I suppose I could use the oldschool
             | physical ID card and a ID card reader for my computer, but
             | then I'd not be able to do anything on the go, and I'm
             | certainly not going to carry a computer with me to be able
             | to pay for car parking.
             | 
             | I'd say being able to live without a smartphone is only in
             | third-world countries at this point, and less and less even
             | there. In Argentina, everything from government services to
             | booking a hair salon appointment to viewing restaurant
             | menus is done via Whatsapp and QR codes, for example.
        
               | prmoustache wrote:
               | You could all have those in a tablet at home with android
               | or ios for anything that you do at home.
               | 
               | I very much doubt you can't pay parking without a
               | smartphone.
        
           | bigstrat2003 wrote:
           | I need a headphone jack. My car doesn't have an aux input (I
           | have to use a cassette adapter), let alone Bluetooth. It's 20
           | years old, yes, but it's not that uncommon to have a car that
           | old.
           | 
           | More importantly, even if I didn't need one I would still
           | want one. A headphone jack is a universal connection for
           | audio, Bluetooth is not. And wired headphones are strictly
           | superior to wireless headphones, as they don't need to be
           | charged and can't be lost as easily.
        
             | NewJazz wrote:
             | Couldn't you keep an adapter in your car?
        
             | prmoustache wrote:
             | Their are usb-c to jack adapter, some allowing usb-c
             | passthrough for charging, otherr being full blown otg cable
             | with usb-c, usb-a and TRS (the real name for jack). You
             | would leave it attached on the cable that stay attached to
             | your car and you would be fine.
             | 
             | Also, there are wired usb-c headphones, my partner is using
             | one.
        
           | atoav wrote:
           | I do. And I don't even have to explain why an adapter is
           | unpractical foe my applications.
        
           | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
           | I prefer wired headsets in general though I do have some
           | bluetooth earbuds. I prefer my headset in the winter. And I'd
           | prefer not to buy a new headset.
        
           | toast0 wrote:
           | Looking at the GSM Arena Phone Finder [1], there's currently
           | 494 cataloged phones released in 2023, and 286 of them have
           | headphone jacks. I won't buy a phone without one, as I want
           | to charge and listen to the movie I'm watching on a plane,
           | and I'm not doing wireless headsets because I hate bluetooth
           | and I hate unnecessary audio latency.
           | 
           | [1] https://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3
        
         | izacus wrote:
         | Would you reeeaaally? If you really wanted a phone like this,
         | you'd just get the tiny USB-C to Jack adapter.
         | 
         | How much of a chance that you'd find some other detail that's
         | not ok if it had a jack?
        
           | q0uaur wrote:
           | not the other guy, but... any advice how to find a decent
           | usb-c to audio jack dongle? i've ordered a cheap one and it's
           | absolutely unusable, horrible sound quality and constant
           | noticeable static. not feeling like gambling on another one.
        
             | beAbU wrote:
             | ... don't buy a cheap one?
        
             | LeoPanthera wrote:
             | Apple's USB-C to headphone dongle works on Android, I
             | believe, and is regularly reviewed to have the same audio
             | quality as comparably expensive DACs. It's $9
        
           | toast0 wrote:
           | I've had phones where I needed a USB-C to jack adapter, and
           | I'm not buying another one. I don't often use headphones with
           | my phone, but 95% of the time, I'm on a plane and I'd like to
           | stay charged while I watch my movie. It's also really easy to
           | leave the dongle on the plane, so that's annoying too.
        
         | acheron wrote:
         | What about a floppy drive and parallel port connector?
        
       | dtx1 wrote:
       | I'm really considering Fairphone 5 as an Upgrade to my Pixel 3a
       | with Graphene OS. Hardware seems fine (5g, Wifi 6e, reasonable
       | SoC, MicroSD, etc.) but the absolute terrible state of Fairphone
       | Software and their abhorrent record on dealing with security
       | issues is really putting me off. So I'm waiting for Lineage OS to
       | officially support it, hoping that they get this done better.
        
         | fgeiger wrote:
         | What do you mean with "abhorrent record on dealing with
         | security issues"?
         | 
         | And you would even prefer Lineage OS? Isn't that still more or
         | less mandating userdebug builds and entirely open?
         | 
         | Disclaimer: I work for Fairphone.
        
           | dtx1 wrote:
           | Hey, thanks for answering!
           | 
           | So in regards to security let me first refer to this thread:
           | https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/7208-8y-security-updates-
           | on...
           | 
           | And it might sound unfair to compare the fairphone to a pixel
           | device or a pixel device with grapheneos but the practical
           | reality is that if this is going to be my one phone, than it
           | will be the hub for all my private conversations, my bank
           | forces me to use an app based authentication so basically my
           | entire finances are on that device, e-mails, including those
           | with doctors, etc.
           | 
           | It has to be secure and it has to up to date. And I am aware
           | that my Pixel 3a currently isn't but I'm literally between
           | buying the fairphone or the pixel 8. And I really don't want
           | glued in batteries.
           | 
           | Now, let's see what the current state is for the fairphone 4:
           | https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-
           | us/articles/440585822094...
           | 
           | Release date: 3rd Nov 2023 Security Patch Level: 5th October
           | 2023
           | 
           | According to the Android Security Bulletin there are two more
           | bulletins out right now:
           | https://source.android.com/docs/security/bulletin/2023-11-01
           | 
           | In November and December each there is at least one Critical
           | System CVE, with google noting:
           | 
           | > Note: There are indications that the following may be under
           | limited, targeted exploitation. > CVE-2023-33063 >
           | CVE-2023-33107 > CVE-2023-33106
           | 
           | So...Those aren't patched right now on the fairphone 4, are
           | they? Now I'm not arguing most other companies are doing
           | better, but that doesn't make it a good situation.
           | 
           | > And you would even prefer Lineage OS? Isn't that still more
           | or less mandating userdebug builds and entirely open?
           | 
           | As far as lineage is concerned, i'll be waiting for an
           | official release to even be there before evaluating the
           | security but I am aware of the userdebug issue.
           | 
           | Though let me say that "abhorrent" is propably not the best
           | adjective to describe it here. Unsatisfying would be fairer.
           | As for the rest of the software... I just have to look at the
           | forums dude...
        
             | fgeiger wrote:
             | Okay, that is fair: I am also not happy about us being late
             | with security patches for several weeks. I am not directly
             | involved in that anymore, but I believe, we currently have
             | a policy to release updates quarterly.
             | 
             | Back when I was still working on security updates, this
             | took up so much resources that we struggled to work on
             | anything else (bug fixes, major upgrades, etc.). It is
             | unfortunately a compromise that we currently have to make
             | with our limited resources.
             | 
             | Still, we are planning to release these regular security
             | updates for 10 years and we have a track record of sticking
             | to such plans. In my opinion, that is much better than
             | having monthly updates for a couple of years. (Btw: outside
             | of flagships, many models don't get monthly updates anyway
             | and not even for long.)
        
         | trompetenaccoun wrote:
         | Can you talk about GrapheneOS a bit? I'm seriously considering
         | switching over but don't really know anything about the people
         | maintaining the project. Most seem to use pseudonyms and I saw
         | the founder Daniel Micay recently quit the project over some
         | drama. Which is his right, fair enough. Is anyone trustworthy
         | auditing the code and how do I know a competent team will still
         | be around in a few years maintaining it?
         | 
         | Don't get me wrong, I definitely appreciate what they're doing.
         | It's just we do so much with our smartphones these days, it's
         | hard not to be paranoid about security issues or hacks. I
         | really want to say goodbye to Apple though.
        
       | badrabbit wrote:
       | My vision of the future is that there won't be smartphones just
       | wireless touch screens that link to a small computer that stays
       | in your pocket, charging area or linked to a bigger computer but
       | never interfaced with directly, just a small smartphone like box
       | and you can access apps and data at your home compute box (think
       | mac studio) tailscale style.
       | 
       | I'd like to day dream that a modern day steve jobs somewhere is
       | already working on this.
       | 
       | New tech like smartphone gets plateued by money makers. Why
       | innovate when you can play dirty with planned obsolecense,
       | selling data, recycling/polishing turd and playing marketing
       | games and make profit on the cheap. R&D ain't free.
       | 
       | I dislike smarphones as they are but the idea of computing using
       | a handheld screen as thin as window glass and being able to
       | transfer my view to bigger screens/peripherals flawlessly is
       | appealing. The OS could be Linux, windows, macos, android, ios
       | doesn't matter because it isn't this mobile optimized walled
       | garden bs but a full fledged controllable computer running the
       | same apps but it scales/adjust the UI based on display size.
       | You'd be using a handheld display as you are walking to
       | work/office, tap and move it to a 15" display withy keyboard/cam
       | and go to a meeting or start a movie on a projector by tapping
       | the right spot again.
        
       | rcarr wrote:
       | I wonder how long it will take for tech like foldable screens to
       | make it's way to devices like this. After some scepticism, I've
       | recently transitioned to a foldable and it does feel like the
       | next evolution in phones, even if the tech is currently pretty
       | fragile.
        
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