Fairphone 4 will skip Android 14 update and jump to Android 15

It has been almost four years since the Fairphone 4 was released, and while the phone is no longer officially sold thanks to having a successor, Fairphone is still providing software support. The phone is currently stuck on Android 13 as Fairphone has not been able to push out the Android 14 update yet, and according to an official statement, that update will never come. 

The Fairphone 4 launched with Android 11 and is billed to receive 6 years of updates, but its last Android OS upgrade was to Android 13 in 2023. Fairphone promised that an Android 14 update would arrive at the beginning of 2025, but that hasn't happened. The company says its dealing with limited capacity and aims to solve that by expanding its support team and bringing outside help.

Now, Fairphone says that the Android 14 update won't be released. According to a post on its community forum, it has decided to shift its focus to Android 15 for the Fairphone 4. The decision was made after a thorough evaluation of the requirements it would take for it to release a stable Android 14 update.

There's no info yet on when the Android 15 update will arrive for the Fairphone 5, but the company says it will improve its communication with its community members, so we can expect more details to follow soon. The newer Fairphone 5 (curr. available on Amazon.de for €499) is also yet to get the Android 15 update, so it remains to be seen which device will receive it first or if the update will arrive at the same time.

The Fairphone 4 will continue to receive software support until 2026, although Fairphone says it might extend it to 2028. At the moment, it provides bi-monthly security updates for the Fairphone 4, and plans to do so till it reaches its end of life.