I’ve read somewhere on this forum that Mudita OS K can expect 3 years of OS support. I don’t know how official or definitive that is, so @urszula if anyone from the team can confirm how many years of OS support users can expect, we’d really appreciate it. In fact, I think it would be a useful sticky outlining the position on OS support would be much appreciated. (Perhaps even on the FAQS of the product page itself.)
Now, assuming 3 years is the actual number, my two cents’ worth is that 3 years doesn’t reassure me enough that Mudita is wholly committed to the product. Industry standard in the smartphone space is 3-7 years. It’s the sort of duration that leaves room for an exit strategy while still being able to claim that no promises were broken. Other users’ experiences of the Pure might well know this better than most.
As of today (May 2025), I think the consensus (after prowling this forum for ages) feel that the OS is unfinished and that’s partially to be expected for a product coming out of the pre-order phase. Early adopters should expect to be patient this first year for the OS to reach maturity. But after this, the onward support commitment of 2 years is giving me real pause for thought.
I’d appreciate your thoughts and the company position on this.
If I had to boil it down, I’d say this market (its userbase) prioritises privacy, non-distraction usage and sustainability. I’d also hazard a guess that most MK users find the idea of planned obsolescence distasteful. But with a commitment that ranks at the lowest end of the industry – 3 years, on that basis, I can expect the OS to be declared EOL after year 3, the first year of which the OS is in effect in beta. We may get further updates, but we can’t expect them. The lifespan feels too short.
The Light Phone make their policy clear and have demonstrated (in their record) that you can expect 5+ years of OS support at minimum.
If Mudita wants users to commit to the MK, it’s only fair that Mudita demonstrate a long term commitment to it as well. 36 months doesn’t do that IMO.
lots of things go into the ability to support an OS long term, one of those is a constant stream of lots of money, or having someone else do the development for you.
lightphone as fas as i can tell is doing the same thing that Mudita is doing, they’re on an old AOSP (for lightphone 2 apparently its AOSP 8.1, Kompakt is on AOSP 12) and they bug fix mainly their own apps, UI, and interface bugs. but leave the actual core OS basically untouched. if you look at the release notes theres no major core os updates for a few years now which makes sense since no one is making any (its EOL)
Mudita from what they’ve said so far it sounds (to me) like they’re planning to stay on AOSP 12 and backport applicable security issues. in some sense this isnt a bad idea the attack surface is smaller because of the available apps and interfaces. on the other hand, people sideloading apps widens the attack surface and Mudita have been clear sideloading isnt supported by them. whehter we see security fixes backported (which is a lot of work) or not we will have to see. no one else appears to do it.
in terms of planned obsolescence, without a way for users to take control of the phone when its end of life (after 3 years), then the kompakt has been delivered with planned obsolescence built in. The solution is obvious, to open source the OS and/or provide ability to unlock the phone and install custom OS’ now or near the end of its officially supported life. otherwise its no different than apple in terms of planned obsolescence, except apple provides 2.5x the length of support.
how much well see from that 3 years of support well just have to wait and see, but i expect this phone will be a big turning point for mudita in terms of showing it can deliver long term and as a result retain loyal customers on what will hopefully be a much more refined kompakt 2. people like the mission and so are willing to compromise for a first gen product, but if it fails to deliver, people might just to to bigme to get the same type of phone on better hardware, with better support for about the same price, just without a clear mission (which only goes so far sometimes)
The SoC of the Kompakt is a Mediatek Helio A22. It is 7 years old and was already an entry level CPU back then.
Maybe Mediatek does not provide drivers for more recent Android versions. That would not be surprising.
I believe we will never see a core system update, only refinements of the Mudita apps.
No one is going to stick with the same phone for 10 years, the stats say other wise, there may be some, but not enough for any phone company to justify that long of support
Maybe because the support is too short?
Given the environmental cost of manufacturing a new phone, not to mention the design of a new product, I believe a lot of people would stick with the same phone without obsolescence. Probably not most people, but more than today for sure.
10 years is a bit too much, but 5 to 7 years is not uncommon. Fairphone does it, and it’s not a big company. Crosscall does 5 years, and it is not big either. Light Phone does it also. But all those companies sell phones with easily replaceable batteries (not true for the LP2).
All these companies choose SoCs that are supported for a long time by their manufacturers. Often from Broadcom. I even think that some Fairphones and some Crosscalls have the same SoCs for that reason (long support from manufacturer).
We will offer spare parts, such as batteries and displays, for at least four years, and our repair services will be available for a minimum of four years as well, in compliance with local consumer protection laws in all markets where the phone is available.
The phone also comes with a two-year warranty and includes software and security updates for a minimum of three years. We’re committed to supporting our customers beyond the initial purchase and will do our best to assist with any issues that may arise.
If you have any other questions or concerns, we’re here to help.
I’m really disappointed that it seems like the Kompakt will be stuck on an insecure AOSP version. While I understand that sideloading isn’t officially supported, that doesn’t justify a technical decision like this.
If Mudita is unwilling to upgrade the AOSP OS to 13 or 14, to continue to get security updates, then they are putting their users at risk.
I do not think any of the reviews I have watched even have mentioned that the Komkapt is on an end of life OS. I fear that most users believe that sideloading is safe to use. Mudita has provided very little information about this issue.
At the very least, Mudita should strongly discourage their users from side loading sensitive applications like banking.
I need to bring this question again, what are the potential entry points for malware with the phone right now? Would be great to know for risk assessment.
I always thought bank apps are discouraged because of potential code modifications on 3rd party websites.
Honestly the same as almost any other Android phone, or at least this is the assumption we should be working off of given most of AOSP’s components are still accessible by software on the device, just hidden from the user with the default launcher, and the Android Security Update being from October 5th, 2022 would mean many CVE’s released since then could affect this device. With the Mudita team being small and having a lot of work on their plate already fixing issues that are more visible, I would need some compelling evidence to convince me there’s someone actually backporting patches that come anywhere remotely close to Google’s own security updates, the last one being as recent as March 1st, 2025, the last one that will ever be pushed for Android 12.
Here’s a post from December 2023 talking about zero-click RCE (Remote Code Execution) vulnerabilities that require no user interaction, which we have no way to know if we’re vulnerable to so it is best to assume we are until proven otherwise.
