Fairphone 5 app switcher fix

tl;dr: Turn of Desktop mode in Settings -> Display -> Desktop mode

Putting this here in case the forum gets cleaned or closes or who knows what. Quick one here for you Fairphone 5 users.

A while ago I wrote about my experience with the Fairphone 5 and that it was “Meh” at best due to some pretty annoying software issues.

Here is a link to that previous post.

Updates did not fix the issue since then, but an observant user on the Fairphone forum noticed when his phone started acting up. It has something to do with the “Desktop mode” that can be enabled via Settings -> Display -> Desktop mode.

I had played around with the desktop mode a bit when I got my phone, but it isn’t all that great and kinda buggy (this setting is not hidden behind the Developer Options!). Of course I didn’t turn it back off after deciding that the desktop was not in a usable state and so my problems persisted.

Leaving that setting enabled appears to mess up things in the not-Desktop-mode!

After turning it off all my app switcher issues with third-party launchers went away. My only other gripe with the device also solved itself, I got rid of Google Pay after getting fed up with the flaky NFC behavior it shows on about half the payments I attempt. Bonus: also great for privacy.

Official support was sadly completely useless throughout all of this. It always ended in “Thank you for your feedback” and that was it.

Well it appears my Android experience is saved and I hope they fix the desktop mode or just pull the feature all together because it’s causing a pretty nasty problem for those enabling this setting.

For now it’s all good though.