Can Fairphone survive the US market

Welcome to the VergeCast, the flagship podcast of sustainable Android smartphones. I'm David Mel, and today we're talking to Fairphone's CEO, Raymond Van Eck. Now Fairphone is a Dutch electronics company. They're most well known for their highly repairable smartphones, like the Fairphone six plus, which just launched in The US. But they've also got things like sustainable and replaceable earbuds and headphones. They've just released this phone in The United States. It's their first phone in The US market. And I wanna talk to Raymond a little bit about how that's going and their plans for the future. But first, here's what's happening on The Verge today. This is ninety seconds on The Verge for Monday, 08/31/2026. Today is Tim Cook's last day as the CEO of Apple. Tomorrow, he'll be passing the baton to John Turnis, and Cook will transition to executive chairman of Apple's board of directors. In a statement to the company, Cook reminisced on his time at Apple and expressed gratitude for the people he worked with. While Cook was focused on growing the company's supply chain to one of the most impressive on the planet, it will be pretty exciting to see what a product focused Apple looks like in the coming years. Bloomberg is also reporting that longtime Apple executive, Phil Schiller, is stepping down from his role as head of App Store and Apple Events, but will be staying with the company to continue working on unspecified initiatives. Next up, Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell have filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California seeking damages for tens of thousands of copyrighted works. The companies are asking for up to a $150,000 per work, plus up to $25,000 for each instance of copyright data being stripped. The damages could amount to several billion dollars if Sony and Warner are awarded the maximum amount. And finally, MapQuest downloads have surged after it refused to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America following an executive order on August 27. Google Maps officially changed the name over the weekend, and interior secretary Doug Burgum says Apple may soon follow suit. In a tweet, MapQuest said, we're not changing the name of Lake Ontario. Name it whatever you want at your leisure. You can read more at theverge.com. That's ninety seconds on The Verge for Monday, 08/31/2026. In the AI era, you have to stop cyber attacks where they start, so security has to be fused into the infrastructure itself. That's why the network that connects everything is also your best defense. Cisco, the critical infrastructure for the AI era. This summer, no excuses. Double down when everyone else disconnects. At Equinox, that's high performance living. Science backed training, real results. Start today at equinox.com. Raymond Van Neck, welcome to The Vergecast. Thanks, David. Happy to be here. So first off, for people that do not know Fairphone, you are the CEO of Fairphone. Yes. Can you …