Latest news with #iFixit
The Verge
2 hours ago
- The Verge
Can you spot an authentication chip in the Nintendo Switch 2's dock?
The Switch 2 is here: everything you need to know about Nintendo's new console See all Stories Posted Jul 2, 2025 at 9:59 PM UTC Can you spot an authentication chip in the Nintendo Switch 2's dock? While reporting out how the Nintendo Switch 2 breaks compatibility with third-party docks, I didn't get enough from my USB sniffer to tell if there's truly a special new encryption/authentication chip aboard the official one. But our friends at iFixit were kind enough to send over these incredibly clean, high-res photos of the dock's circuitry. I don't know what I'm looking for, but perhaps you might?
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Right to repair bill in Texas has been signed into law after winning by a landslide victory, with not a single vote against it
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Over the course of the weekend just gone, a new bill was signed by the Governor of Texas. Hardly newsworthy, of course, but the legislation passed into law was that of the right to repair electronics—something that only six other states have done. And perhaps even more importantly, the decision was entirely unanimous, with not a single vote against the bill being cast. Naturally, the good news was reported by repair gurus iFixit, and the bill essentially means that individual Texans and repair shops will have access to the manuals, parts, software, and tools required to repair any digital electronic goods that are sold in the state, worth more than $50, from September 2026. There are exemptions, such as anything involving medicine or motorized vehicles, and game consoles are also excluded. Some circuit boards won't be included, nor will anything that involves a 'trade secret', but a gaming laptop or handheld PC should certainly be covered by the law. Texas joins the likes of Oregon and California in a pretty small group of states that have enacted a right to repair law: just seven in total. However, what makes this particular decision really stand out is just how well the voting went on the bill. The Texas House passed the bill 126-0 two months ago, with the Senate voting 31-0 in early June. As with all such proceedings, some members were absent from the voting, but in both cases, even if everyone was present and cast a vote, the bill would still have easily passed. It's the same level of support that was seen in the European Parliament last year, which rubberstamped similar rules with an enormous 584-3 majority. The general consensus appears to be that consumers and legislators both want the right to repair. That might seem like a ridiculously obvious thing to say, but the fact that so few US States have made any progress on the matter shows that passing repair laws isn't as straightforward as one might think. Fingers might be pointed at manufacturers of electronic products as being the primary resistance to change and for two reasons: (1) it's cheaper to design and produce a device that's not designed to be repairable (e.g. glue is used to bond components rather than screws) and (2) having people replace a broken device, that could easily be fixed, with a brand-new model is good for revenue. However, right to repair bills typically don't place requirements on the cost of repair tools, replacement parts, and so on. Manufacturers can offset the expense of designing something to be easily fixed by pricing replacement parts and tools accordingly. The car industry has been doing this for decades, though your average sedan is vastly more expensive than a humble gaming PC—you'd certainly never go out and buy a new Ford just because a fan belt has snapped. But even if every state adopts a right to repair law, it will take many years to break the cycle of throwing out electronic devices, rather than having them repaired, simply because that's been the norm for so long. With the global amount of e-waste showing no signs of declining, widespread right to repair laws can't come soon enough.
WIRED
4 days ago
- Business
- WIRED
Fairphone Has a New Plan to Get You to Care
Jun 29, 2025 7:00 AM WIRED loves Fairphone and everything it stands for—but people just aren't buying its devices, and the few who have don't need to upgrade. The Fairphone Gen. 6. Courtesy of Fairphone Fairphone has released a new phone, the Fairphone 6. The series began in 2013, and there's still nothing else quite like it, anywhere. These mobile phones are what almost all other tech is not: ethically admirable. Fairphone strives for more sustainably sourced raw materials, for better pay and better conditions for factory workers. And on your side as the end user, the phones are modular, easily repairable. Fairphone promises its new phone will get eight years of software updates, including an eyebrow-raising seven major Android system upgrades. The Fairphone 6 has 12 modular elements you can replace, from the battery and display to the speakers, camera, and USB port. Indeed, you can still buy replacement cameras and screens for the Fairphone 2, which was released in pre-Trump, pre-Brexit 2015. And Fairphones remain the only smartphones—ever—to be rated 10/10 for repairability by iFixit. Every model since the Fairphone 2 has achieved that score. Sounds great, right? But there's a big problem. It looks like hardly anyone gives a damn. People Don't Care Enough Fairphone is stuck in a rut. We know this because Fairphone is not just a pioneer of smartphones you don't feel dirty just for owning. It's unusually transparent, too. Its own reports tell us Fairphone sales have flatlined at around 100,000 a year. Put 100,000 phones in a room and it will seem like a heck of a lot. But, for context, Apple is estimated to have sold 37 million iPhone 16s in the series' first weekend, before the phones were even out. Does no one really care about sustainable tech? The answer from one analyst we talked to is kinda, yeah . 'There's really no one else who does anything kind of close to what Fairphone does from a sustainability point of view. The issue I have with Fairphone is that it's quite niche,' says Jan Stryjak, Counterpoint's European and Sustainability research lead. 'It's still not the kind of primary driver for people when it comes to buying a phone. The number one is still very much price and brand, particularly in Europe.' Fairphone isn't a household name. And while the Fairphone 6 is actually cheaper than the Fairphone 5 was at launch in 2023, at £499/€599, it has masses of price competition from companies where any ethics angle can seem, at most, little more than a marketing tick box. For less cash, you could buy a more powerful and excellent Pixel 9a, for example. The company made a concerted effort to get out of this rut in 2023, investing big in marketing and expansion. It led to a €20 million loss for that year, followed by the departure of CEO Eva Gouwens, and 2024 sales just a smidgen over 100,000, yet again. And Fairphone's much bigger rivals are going to be forced to apply at least a pinch of Fairphone-style seasoning to their phones going forward, thanks to the EU's Ecodesign Directive. This came into force on June 20. It demands five-year software support and applies stronger rules on repairability. 'I can't see any significant growth over the next few years,' says Stryjak. 'Other companies have caught up a little bit in terms of making things more durable and sustainable and repairable, and with consumers a key driver is still pricing and brand. Fairphone will have its loyal fan base, but I can't see that significantly expanding anytime soon.' 'Nobody Wants to Pull on a Dead Horse' We put to Fairphone the idea it may have to make do pootling along with this same niche audience. 'I will say it's nonsense, right?' Fairphone CEO Raymond van Eck told WIRED. 'I would never have started at a company … if we feel there is no potential. Nobody wants to, as we say in Dutch, pull on a dead horse to see if it's going to walk.' Fairphone is based in Amsterdam, and van Eck was appointed CEO in August 2024. 'In the next five years, we really have the intention to quadruple our addressable market and to take our fair share of that,' says van Eck. The company has also set a goal of 'double digit growth' just for this year. The obvious question: how? Part of Fairphone's strategy is of course seen in the Fairphone 6 itself. It has some neat ideas such as a slider that puts the phone into an Essentials mode. This pares back the interface to help you get away from the distractions of, for example, social media. There's a breezy lifestyle angle here Fairphones have arguably not had before. And fostering that was a part of the rebrand the company kicked off at the beginning of 2025, which included binning the stiff-looking, all-caps company logo of old for something a bit more friendly. The Fairphone Fix Van Eck says it's about 'changing the order' of priorities, of putting the device itself at pole position rather than the ethics it represents. 'In the end, it also is clarifying Fairphone's vision, because the rebrand gave us a more friendly, more approachable identity," he says. "It's a bit less paternalistic.' The message is that Fairphone isn't just a phone for eco warriors. And chief technology officer Chandler Elizabeth Hatton suggests that image, that classic Fairphone message, may have actually proved off-putting for some. 'When we are marketing the device, we don't lead with that. Not in our advertising campaigns, not in our communication, and also not the way that I would like to convey it to you,' says Hatton. 'It can become preachy in some markets. That message is resonating less right now. There are people that are in panic but also completely exhausted by the climate crisis or questions of ethics.' So … is it time to de-woke Fairphone? That seems too blunt an interpretation, because there's no indication that Fairphone plans to dilute its standards. It's just not going to harp on about them quite as overtly. Turning Down the Volume 'Fairphone was founded 12 years ago, basically to tackle the social and environmental issues embedded in the electronics industry,' says Van Eck. 'What we also saw is that Fairphone was quite situated around telling that story … which meant that the Fairphone was for a lesser addressable market.' This new approach also involves not having too bold a take on things like AI, which owing to its environmental impact could be seen as antithetical to one part of the old Fairphone message. 'I don't think it is pragmatic, if you start more revolutionary thinking saying, 'OK, we're totally against it, and we're going to do nothing with it,'' says Ven Eck. AI is 'part of our industry, right? It's part of the everyday use of customers. So it will be almost naive to say we're not going to do anything with it. It's part of everyday life.' The Fairphone 6 doesn't have its own AI assistant, but does feature Google's Gemini AI. Turning down the volume on the environmental and ethical messaging might be compared to how some vegetarian food brands now consider people cutting down on meat, or meat-eaters looking for a healthy choice, as important a part of their audience. CTO Hatten would rather you tell a friend to think of the Fairphone 6 as 'the last phone that they'll have to buy for a while' rather than dwell on the ethics of the mining operations used to harvest the cobalt for its battery. But there's a big problem here, too. In 1924, the American automobile market began reaching saturation point. To maintain sales, General Motors executive Alfred P. Sloan Jr. suggested annual model-year design changes to cajole car owners into buying replacements each year. This strategy came to be referred to as planned obsolescence. In an ideal world, Fairphone wants their phones to be 'the last phone that you'll have to buy'—and they'll try their darnedest to make sure you've the software and spare parts to make this happen. There's no planned obsolescence here. None at all. Now, that's laudable, but this also means that, once Fairphone has tapped that global market of the relatively tiny number of phone users who really care about our planet above the wonders of Apple's Dynamic Island, very few will need to rebuy or upgrade on their initial ethical purchase. Not for many, many years, anyway. How can you significantly grow a business like that? Will Fairphone's new strategy of diversifying its offering with the 6's breezy lifestyle angle work? Thanks to the company's wonderful transparency we can all find out once Fairphone drops its 2025 Impact Report some time in early 2026.
Fast Company
4 days ago
- Fast Company
Don't believe these tech myths
Technology can seem pretty mysterious at times, so it's all too easy for misconceptions to spread. That helps explain why I keep seeing technological myths propagate. Should you bury a wet phone in rice? Do you need a VPN to use public Wi-Fi networks? Is your phone secretly recording your conversations? The answer to these questions and more is no, but believing otherwise can be detrimental. Here's my attempt to dispel a half dozen popular tech myths, and what you should do instead of believing them. This story first appeared in Advisorator, Jared's weekly tech advice newsletter. S i gn up for free to get more tips every Tuesday. Myth 1: Dry rice can save a wet phone The idea that uncooked rice will draw the moisture from a waterlogged phone is so pervasive that even Apple has tried to dispel it. 'Don't put your iPhone in a bag of rice,' the company's support documentation says. 'Doing so could allow small particles of rice to damage your iPhone.' What to do instead: Your phone may already be water resistant, rendering the rice trick obsolete. But if not, iFixit recommends shaking loose any excess water, turning the phone off, and leaving it out to dry for as long as possible. (Putting your phone in rice forces you to leave it alone, which may explain why the myth persists.) Myth 2: You should regularly force-close all your phone apps Since the advent of recent app menus in iOS and Android, I've seen too many people compulsively swiping up to force-close all their apps, mistakenly believing this will conserve battery life or help the phone run faster. In fact, force-quitting everything can make performance and battery life worse, because your apps will use more power each time they fully reload. Even Apple says to force-close an app only if it's not responding, and the same logic applies to Android phones as well. What to do instead: Use the Battery menu in your phone's settings to identify apps that are draining your battery. You may need to adjust the background settings for that app or find an alternative. Myth 3: Incognito mode prevents websites from tracking you Misconceptions about Incognito mode are so widespread that Google had to settle a class-action lawsuit last year after Chrome users claimed that it provided a false sense of privacy. So here's what your browser's Incognito or Private Browsing mode actually does: Prevents sites from showing up in your browsing history so that others with access to your computer can't see them. Lets you browse sites in a logged-out state, with none of your interactions carried over from previous visits. These modes do not render you invisible online, as websites can still collect data and use identifiers such as your IP address to track you. And if you sign into a website while using Incognito mode, that activity will be associated with your account. What to do instead: Use a web browser with strong built-in tracking protections, and possibly a VPN if you're extremely concerned about privacy (though VPNs aren't panaceas either). An ad-blocking extension can help, but only if you've set it to run in Incognito mode. Myth 5: Public USB charging ports spread viruses Thanks to repeated FBI warnings over the years, the idea that public USB charging ports can infect your devices with malware has become pervasive, yet the actual threat of 'juice jacking' remains theoretical. To date, no one's provided a single real-world example of charging ports spreading viruses. Besides, both Android and iOS require permission to transfer data when connecting your phone to another device—something you'd hopefully reject when plugging into a nefarious port. What to do about it: Your own adapters and cables may be faster anyway—especially if you've followed my buying guide —but I wouldn't fret about using hotel or coffee shop charging ports in a pinch. Myth 5: You need a VPN for public Wi-Fi This one's just as pervasive as the juice-jacking myth, but at least it used to be true. These days, you'll notice that pretty much every website has an 'https' in its address, indicating that your traffic is encrypted. That makes the encryption from a VPN redundant. In the extremely rare case where a website transmits unencrypted data over Wi-Fi, your browser will use stern warnings to try to stop you from visiting it. What to do instead: According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the best thing to do is make sure your device's software and operating system are up-to-date, so you're not at risk of security vulnerabilities that might transmit unencrypted traffic. Myth 6: Your phone is listening to you You've probably heard an anecdote like this: I recently met up with a friend, and they told me about something they bought that I'd never heard of before. Then a couple of days later, I started seeing Instagram ads for that exact product! My phone has to be recording me. It's not, but the reality is no less concerning: If an app on your phone has access to your location, and that data gets shared with a company like Facebook or Google, it's fairly trivial for those companies to understand which devices are nearby and to target ads based on what those devices have been doing. That's a lot easier than secretly recording audio, especially because your phone indicates when that's happening. These steps won't solve every potential privacy issue, but they'll alleviate the feeling that your phone is always listening.
CNET
25-06-2025
- CNET
Want a More Sustainable Android Phone? The Modular Fairphone 6 Could Be the Answer
Sustainable tech leader Fairphone unveiled its latest modular device on Thursday at an event in Amsterdam, presenting a clear challenge to mainstream phone makers everywhere. The Fairphone 6 is a fully repairable Android phone built to last, which the company says has the lowest carbon footprint of any device its made yet. Fairphone is a phone maker like no other. Rather than being yet another tech company making yet another generic Android phone, Fairphone is a value-focused Dutch social enterprise, which sources materials ethically, pays fair-wage bonuses to its workers across the supply chain in factories where they're protected from harmful chemicals and given a voice to enact change. It also actively encourages people who buy a Fairphone to seek out replacement parts rather than throwaway their devices and upgrade on a regular basis. While this is technically the Fairphone 6, the company wants it to be known as just the Fairphone -- the thinking being that you shouldn't need to upgrade your phone every few years to the next generation of devices. With this device, Fairphone promises seven Android updates with software and repairable parts support lasting until 2033. Fairphone's previous phone, the Fairphone 5 scored 7/10 in our review, but also worth paying attention to is the 10/10 teardown score given to the phone by iFixit. iFixit is a leader in providing the tools and knowledge for people to repair their electronics, and has been at the forefront of pushing right-to-repair legislation. The Fairphone is entirely modular, with replaceable elements that make it both easy to fix and more fun. As well as being able to replace the battery, screen, camera, ports and other elements of the phone, you can click off the rear cover to attach alternatives with accessories, such as a carry cord or a card holder. A lime green switch on the side of the phone allows you to toggle between the standard Android 15 interface, complete with all the Google Gemini AI features you might expect, and a pared-back monochrome "essentials" interface that offers access to core fuctions, including calling, messaging and web browsing. Our biggest criticisms of the Fairphone 5 were the poor battery life and camera performance. According to Fairphone, its new device packs a bigger battery that can last 53 hours, along with an AI-enhanced 50-megapixel camera. We're hoping that these live up to their promise, which will be crucial to truly future proof this phone as the rest of the industry sticks to its annual upgrade cycle. The chip inside is the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 from Qualcomm, which also provides the chips for all of the best Android phones on the market. The performance of this chip will also help determine the longevity of the phone. The Fairphone 6 will be available for £499 ($680) from YourCoop and AO in the UK and will be available through Murena in the US.
