The moment I tried Sync for Lemmy I have this feeling of closure, like I finally can make peace with the fact that I'm leaving Reddit behind for good after using it for 13 years (8 years of those on Sync). The only thing that top this is the first time I saw federation in action where people from various lemmy, kbin and mastodon instances talk to each other in the same thread and deciding to jump ship on the spot.
Yeah, man. I'm with you and I'm incredibly pleased. My old experience I've enjoyed on reddit for years is finally back and is functionally identical, at least for the basics I missed so much.
Not sure how it can be too much money, it's literally free to use. There are ads, but there aren't many and not obtrusive at all. I haven't really noticed them. I'll probably buy the pro version just to throw some money at the developer. Otherwise, I wouldn't mind just using the free version.
Thunder is better than RIF, then Summit is a close second. The best part about Lemmy apps is how close in comparison they are. After an update one is better than the others, but they're each getting updated multiple times a week.
Like Summit for example, the first week it came out you could only browse, no login, no upvoting, no anything. Now it's pretty damn close to being better than RIF.
I am using Sync, and I paid for a year of it. A year from now, I'll evaluate and maybe pick something else. Do I care if it costs a tiny bit of $ for a solid app experience that performs better than the rest, because it has dedicated development resources? Nope. Having read the details on what data is collected, do I have privacy concerns? Nope. Do I think folks have gone a little over the top about certain things? Yes. Bad enough having to leave reddit without making it even more complicated.
Just fyi, the tracking is only for ads and all tracking is gone once you remove the ads through Ultra or the one time payment. I don't expect this to please most, but as someone who has used Sync for Reddit for basically my entire existence on Reddit, I've only paid a couple bucks back then for an app I used every day. So far I feel right at home here and I'm willing to pay after some time and seeing how this goes. The number of options is only growing and Sync is bringing new users to Lemmy either way. I've been through like 6 other Lemmy clients and Sync is still the one for me.
Edit: Several users confirmed tracking wasn't present after removing ads.
I was using Jerboa for the first month. It's good, functional. However, with all due respect to the penguin people, it felt like working on Linux. Just a bit too utilitarian and function focused.
Yesterday I installed Sync and it was like switching to Windows/OSX. So much more polish, much more pleasant experience.
On Reddit I was using BaconReader - and had no idea Sync looked (and felt) this good. Great UX, though still has some ways to go. The comment font size when typing is super tiny!
As a Linux guy, i disagree. I don't know what version of Linux (or how long ago) you tried Linux. Sync is more like Linux, so many options and features to make it exactly what you want.
Maybe it's not just the OS vs OS but more like Gimp vs Photoshop. Both accomplish pretty much the same tasks, but one feels way more polished than the other.
Maybe this will work: Sync feels like a Product, while Jerboa feels like a Project.
There are pros and cons to both approaches. I happen to be looking for a clean, pretty app that integrates with my Android 13 theming etc.
I've tried Connect, Liftoff, Thunder, Voyager, and Infinity. It's just bugs galore. The back button will take you to the wrong activity, comments won't post (due to the app not the instance), some instances or accounts won't load, and a laundry list of UI or functionality bugs. Liftoff gave me the fewest issues of all of them, apart from using Lemmy in the browser.
But Sync really is polished, and the experience is night and day. I'm a big FOSS proponent, but I don't think it's wrong for a developer to want to make money when their income source suddenly disappears and they need to pay bills (and region-specific pricing is coming soon). The level of customizability, spit and polish in the other apps doesn't even come close. I'm sure they'll get there eventually, but I think it's a mistake to drive away passionate developers who want to help Lemmy succeed.
I've given pretty much every app or browser front-end a fair shake at this point, and I'm gladly choosing Sync for now.
The amount of bitching I've seen on Lemmy over paying the developer for their hard work has been insane. I was happy to pay the measly fee for ultra. This isn't in response to you, just the general vibe I've seen here. I thought we had a more tech-minded space where people might understand the need to monetize these things, but that doesn't seem to be the case lol
you have to take into consideration that not all people have your level of pay, your quality of life and so on. That 'measly fee' is two day's pay for some and they can't afford that. Yes, I understand that the dev has to make a living, but I think it's a bit expensive. And I was paying for Sync (for reddit) since the beginning. I even got Pro for my wife, who didn't use it at all, just to help LJ.
It's not about paying the Developer. It's about paying the developer that much. $20 just to remove ads is a lot and a price people are not willing to pay
I think I might have felt differently at a stage of my life where I didn't have nearly as much disposable income as I do now.
Over the past few years, I've adopted the attitude of trying my hardest to pay for the things that I would be genuinely disappointed if they went away.
I have system-wide ad block, so the $20 or whatever for Sync actually bought me nothing other than the knowledge that if LJ decides to pack up Sync and go and work for a FAANG instead, I don't need to feel guilty.
This attitude would be unrecognisable to my younger self.
It's not just about Sync being the only app with ads or the fee to remove them (whether one thinks it's steep or not is apparently up for debate -- I find $20 steep for a mobile app, full stop).
It's also about the fact that Lemmy is a FOSS system that requires independent instances to run. These instances incur costs. I hope that the people paying $20 to remove these ads are also donating to their home instances. If that isn't happening, we need better messaging to users: paying to remove ads on an app does not support Lemmy itself or any individual instances, though the app and its popularity puts strain on those instances.
I get the idea of paying a dev for their work if you like it -- though mandating it vs. relying on donations is a difference between Sync and pretty much everything else. However, it seems strange that the people pushing to support this single dev who happened to chose an ad model aren't equally pushing for people to support their instances. Sync is useless if everyone just pays to remove the ads but doesn't donate to help with the costs of running this platform, and I wonder how many people who came to Lemmy on the heels of the Sync release actually know that.
I found all of the prior Lemmy apps to either be missing something, clunky, or buggy. The one I liked most was Voyager/Wefwef, but even then it was missing stuff.
Now Sync is in beta and has bugs, but thanks to past development from Reddit it's already so much more polished than all the others, my Lemmy usage has gone up considerably, I've barely touched Reddit today. It does have ads, but they aren't visible when using DNS Adblocking.
Basically, whenever you make a request to access something from the internet (say, an ad image), it goes to a dedicated server that tells you "Where actually do I find www.website.com" (the answer is, you find it at address 128.129.130.1, this is the IP address). This is the DNS server.
If you tell your phone to use an ad-blocking DNS server - Instead of "normal" ones like e.g. those provided by Google - , whenever it receives such a request to find the address for you, and the address leads to a server that serves ads, it tells you, "Sorry, nothing found here" and the add is not displayed.
Phones, at least Android, have a setting where you can change the DNA server to an ad-blocking one (a different IP of that server).
Sync has always been a superior UI/UX to anything else.
And I'm happy to pay $20 for the developers work. Ads would barely pay him anything anyway.
I feel like all you lemmings are getting way too hung up on the whole ads = spyware thing. It's not the app that's the issue, it's the ad platforms - and those platforms are how he makes money. Don't like it? Pay $20 for a lifetime without ads.
Sync is good because it's a full time job for the Dev. That means the guy needs money to survive. I'm more than happy to help towards that, so I can have a better experience.
I used sync for Reddit for a loooong time, $20 is nothing compared to the value I've gotten out of it.
Sync is far superior to the other apps so far, even with some features missing in the beta. I was using Liftoff, which is good, but not even close to the polish of sync.
Been using sync for years now and it's just a great app.
It runs so smooth, very clean looking, easy to read, highly customizable, tablet mode, dev is always updating and adding in requested features from the users.
Small features that make the app stand out like sharing a setting from the settings menu that will take you straight to it:
Sync user here. It's the reason that I found reddit usable. The effort that has gone into creating and refining the app is evident. I like it better than the the other apps, because it feels like home to me. I also enjoy the concept of u/spez unintentionally spotlighting lemmy, and literally tossing over the very best that reddit had to offer. Sync is just one of several excellent options already here, or on their way.
The free apps are anywhere from very good to very work in progress. I like Connect the best from what I've used. I expect that they will all improve over time, and have noticed improvements over a short length of time.
I actually enjoy the controversy/buzz over pricing, pricing models, privacy, and so on. This is mostly because I'm petty,and believe that all of this is hastening reddit's demise.
Same here! Two things I like more on Sync as of now: So many useful options how things look and behave (seriously, the amount of options is insane!) and the list view (I hate the card view, always have, alway will!) is smaller and uses the available space slightly better imo.
But I have a good feeling Voyager will improve immensely considering how good it got in the past months.
I'm a Sync guy, it has the best scrolling performance on my shitty low end phone. I've tried other apps but all of them still have stutters during scroll but Sync still manages to keep smooth.
I also did not see any ads, but today, I paid for ads removal nevertheless, just to support the development. I hope, Sync for Lemmy will go a long way similar to Sync for Reddit.
I've got an ad blocker built into my router, so in sync I only see the empty blocks where an ad would be. I'm still trying all the different apps, hopefully one if the open source ones become better. What I like a lot about sync is the gesture based up/down voting. Not sure if anyone else has that yet.
it wasn't "constantly" updated. I feel like LJD got it pretty stable then took a deserved break. After a month or 2 with no needed updates people went absolutely histrionic over it: IS THIS APP ABANDONED?!!?!
You can install and update it using obtainium.
I haven't used it before using it for infinity for lemmy and it works perfectly. Obtainium itself can be installed over android, although I'm not sure it's in the standard repo (I got it from the IzzyOnDroid repo)
Sync. It was the exclusive way I browsed Reddit. Having foldable support day 1 was a big push. I have no issues with supporting the developer for an app I've been using for well more than a half decade now.
I use Sync because it's just what I'm used to. I've been using it for more than 3 years, but I've also used Jerboa, Thunder, Liftoff, Lemotiff, Connect and Voyager.
Here's what I think about those:
Jerboa is good, maybe a bit laggy and things take a bit to load, but overall good. Nothing that stands out.
Thunder is very good, but I've been unable to reply DMs and comments from my notifications, I'd have to go to the browser or use another app to reply. I'm almost sure it'll get fixed in the future.
Connect is very, very good, but, and it's a huge BUT for me, every time I'm commenting and I want to change part of my comment, I click on the part I want to add or erase more text but instead of doing that it selects the text from where I was to where I clicked, and it happens with every comment and DM, to fix it I have to copy the whole thing, go back to the post, paste the comment again and keep on writing. I stopped using it.
Liftoff is very good, but I don't like that when I collapse a comment it says "comment collapsed, tap to expand" (that's it, it's just nit picking, everything else is good), I still sometimes use the app.
Lemotiff I can't log in but the idea/design is good.
Voyager is one of the best but sometimes it jumps to random parts of the timeline, I also prefer having an app not a PAW (or was it PWA? I don't remember the correct term)
Lemmur says my instance doesn't exist so I can't even try it.
Haven't used infinity or Boost yet, just downloaded Sync and it just works perfectly.
Sync is great, but I'm not the biggest fan of introducing ads in a service that doesn't inherently have ads - nothing against the dev getting paid. You also can't currently create a new post (just says "coming soon"). I used Sync on Reddit for years, so I'm otherwise pretty biased toward it.
Connect is a close second, for me. It's still a work in progress, but I feel it's pretty close to Sync. Given time, I think it'll be there. The dev is also very responsive. Features are pretty community driven as well - so if you want something, post in the community.
But I have to say, for its lack of polish, Jerboa still comes out on top for me. It's not as smooth scrolling the feed and it needs an option to handle links in-app, but with it being open source and there being a bunch of contributors adding features, every time I think it's missing something, it's just a matter of waiting for the next update. The one from today added DMing, which was the big thing I saw other apps handling better. Plus, I think (other than Sync), it's the only app that handles multiple accounts the best if you want sorting and defaults per account rather than app-wide.
I also still pop into Thunder, Summit, Liftoff, and Voyager periodically to see how they're coming along. And now, I'm including Infinity (and Boost or any others whenever they're ready).
At the end of the day, people are just going to have to try the different apps for themselves to see what works for them.
Tbh I didn't notice the ads haha I have ads completely removed from my device using a private DNS so none of the apps I use show me ads.
I prefer supporting devs via donations whenever I have the extra money but I'm waiting for the lifetime donation for Sync, I not doing aubscription models and I have 0 tolerance for ads.
Like you, though, I'll be jumping from time to time to other apps because what I've been loving about this Fediverse experience more than anything is how every app has been evolving and updating, it's just amazing.
I'm also waiting for Boost and Infinity to realease, god damn this is why I love competition.
Shit, forgot to write about Summit, it was one of the ones I liked the most but only when I'm viewing content as a "list" as opposed to "cards", IMO that's when Summit shines more than any other app.
I feel like Summit works more for me as a news site rather than a "social media" app, so I like that a lot. I'm still jumping in between apps atm.
Oh, and Voyager JUST released as an official app in the play store, I just saw the post a few minutes ago.
I'm surprised by how much of a big deal apps are for the users. I would have kept Jerboa if it was more stable. I got Connect for no specific reason and don't really see a reason to try anything else... I was still using old reddit and an app called Slide, so I guess I'm some removed user or something. Happy that those apps brings more users tho.
Honestly just using Lemmy in a browser (or Tildes even more so I imagine) I keep wondering why apps are a big deal to begin with. They both work 100% perfectly fine.
It's the same with Mastodon, in fact their official PWA gives a fair few apps a run for their money.
Just using their websites can be a pain when links to content and other users or communities or whatever ends up taking you to a new domain because of the federation. Apps allow everything to stay together, so you can keep interacting as your intended user account.
Mastadon was much better for that like. I haven't touched lemmys web interface on a while. Not a fan of its look or UX personally, so I don't know if they fixed that.
Yeah, I'm using Voyager as well, but if Christian Selig would decide to retool Apollo, and bring it out for Lemmy, it would instantly introduce MILLIONS to Lemmy. That product was huge.
I guess that was Reddit's problem, the 3rd party clients attracted eyeballs on their own. Reddit no longer owned these eyeballs.
Sync is more polished, but Infinity has a much better layout on the Galaxy Fold. I'm using Infinity for now, but hoping it improves quickly.
Neither is as good as Reddit Is Fun for foldables, unfortunately. That had a perfect interface IMO. Much better than Apollo too.
One thing that really bothers me on Infinity is that I see no way to show the parent of a comment that I am looking at. It only times you the option to show all other comments, but not the parent specifically.
I'm using Infinity at the moment, since it is what I have used with Reddit until the API changes. I've always loved Infinity's swipe actions, and I haven't encountered any serious bugs so far. I'm gonna try and help contribute back to the app when I can.
It keeps complaining that it can't sync multireddits (whatever tf that's supposed to be) and I used Jerboa to edit my post because Infinity crashed but over all it's been a great experience so far!
Finally, I got around to downloading Sync, and I'm impressed. I'm still going to use Infinity as my main access to Lemmy, but all my other programs were uninstalled, and Sync is now backing up Infinity.
BTW, not saying do it but to those complaining about ads, adguard.dns.com or quad9 dns are both free.
I'm using connect, it's simple and just works. It was rough when I first came over but had been fine for a while now. I'm assuming they worked out some of the bugs they had at the beginning.
Thunder is very nice but it's very slow to populate comments and posts to the point that it just skips through the comments. I'm trying to decide if I care about the whole sync data collection nonsense or if I want to use a FOSS app instead. I was also using Voyager and it was pretty good.
Edit: thunder doesn't seem to be updating my subscriptions automatically for my secondary account so that's a bummer. I was starting to slowly lean towards thunder as my primary app since it seems to be the smoothest UI experience outside of Sync. Voyager also has a really smooth UI, but it's not a dedicated app. Liftoff is my default at the moment. It just works.
I'm new to Lemmy and using sync because it works for me. I was a relay for reddit user, but I quit reddit and this is a reasonable facsimile for me. I'm happy enough with this interface but time will tell.
Same situation here, used Relay for years. Still getting used to Sync, but it's very customizable so I can configure it to be somewhat like Relay.
But still waiting for Relay for Lemmy.
Infinity! It was my go-to client for Reddit, and now it's my go-to client for Lemmy. Most basic things work. There are still some bugs lurking in the app, but it's still in Alpha so that's kinda expected.
The UI is really smooth and customizable, but I guess anyone who's ever used Infinity already knows this.
For the time being I'm sticking with Voyager. Sync is a lil too pricey and Infinity doesn't quite feel finished it's Lemmy migration (was my fav reddit app)
It's a fork since the original dev still tries to work out a deal with Reddit or something and still in a very early stage but I won't switch away again, loved it for Reddit and love it now! :)
I have Sync and Jerboa, and I must say, Sync is polished and smooth and makes it more simple to use. I haven't tried the Infinity for Lemmy but I might test that one out, too.
Just installed what popped up first in F-Droid search (Jerboa) and not feeling like I need something else - everything just works and UI/UX feels natural.
I am using multiple apps right now. Sync feels really smooth. Summit also comes close in terms of fluidity I feel.
I like Thunder and Liftoff as well. Waiting for more improvements on Thunder.
I have been rotating through most lemmy clients on android, and the truth is I haven't been satisfied with any of them, although Jerboa was best of them even though the search was a bit lacking. I used Infinity on reddit and was kinda bummed it wasn't coming here. I found out about this fork 3 versions ago and am not looking back.
Really loving Sync. I would be happy if I had to use it forever, but I will swap to Boost if that ever comes out because I'm just more familiar with it.
I did like many aspects of the official Reddit app until they enshittified it, so I'm reusing some concepts it had. It's still in alpha phase, and even then, there's some things I liked that I'm not sure I'll implement. I particularly liked the second tab in the bottom navigation bar when it had your list of subscribed subreddits and an alphabetical scrollbar. That was super awesome. I'll definitely try to add something like that in the future, probably after I get feature parity with the official UI.
I'm avoiding pop-ups by editing the current relevant components. So, when you press "submit", the error message will be inside the form instead of as a pop-up. Or when you report a post, the form appears inside the post instead of as a pop-up. It's much more intuitive to use and I think I can make it faster to use.
I prefer Infinity but I did so for Reddit too so it's just my prefered app in general, Sync definitely seems to have less rough edges! I think the main advantage over fresh Lemmy apps are their UX and Animations, those are increadably hard to get right without years of user feedback!
I have been giving all the apps a go as well. I was using RIF for over 5yrs prior to the switch. I grabbed the sync app as soon as it was available and was so impressed that I immediately bought ultra, mostly to support the developers. I know it's steep, but maybe as more users start using lemmy the price will come down a bit.
So far I am very impressed with sync. I love how granular the controls are even to the point of having different settings for different logins. Account switching is super easy between several alts that I have and I am really looking forward to being able to import my community subscription to my back up instances in the near future. More than happy with my purchase and I hope the developers continue their outstanding work.
I just tried it and it's slow as fuck for some reason. I have a Galaxy S20+ and Sync is buttery smooth, as is Liftoff, but Voyager is stuttering and taking some time to open any thread when I tap it.
Weird, I have pretty much all Lemmy native apps installed on my S22 and all of them run buttery smooth. The Voyager native app runs noticeable smoother than the web app for me.
Sync is pretty good but its font options are awful on my phone. If I set the comments font size to "huge", it's still smaller than e.g. the clock in the notification bar. And then it's an unreasonably large jump from "huge" to "header".
It needs a simple font size slider instead of preset mystery values. As it is, it's just uncomfortable to use.
Not sure if Sync for Reddit had the same problem since I used other clients more.
Try going into setting and modifying "Base font size" then based off that modify comment and post font sizes accordingly?
I had the same issue and the base font size allowed for more precise modification
I'm using Voyager ([email protected]) and it's near perfect! Only thing that could make it even better is having it as a standalone app instead of a PWA (which currently you'd really have to install via Chrome as PWAs are just slower with Firefox), and aeharding is working on it!
Sync looks fine, so does Infinity, but I'd like to wait to switch over until there's an option to see both upvotes and downvotes separately, as is the case for certain instances
I just downloaded infinity to give it a shot and I find the UI to be a little rougher around the edges. The most noticeable is the layout of posts on the feed - the icons dont look like they are consistent sizes and the lack of grouping compared to Sync (like having a box around both vote and vote count) makes it look more cluttered. I also think the default theme color (the intense blue color) kinda hurts my eyes because it's too high contrast maybe, so changing that was the first thing I did- I think having a milder default would provide a better out of the box experience.
I have no major gripes about the base functionality, they're both functional enough for me but the aesthetics of sync win for now. Also it seems like both sync and infinity don't collapse the comment you pressed and only the replies, making it seemingly impossible to collapse top level comments which inconveniences how I read threads, by collapsing top level comments as I go down the thread - long top comments stay expanded so I have to scroll past a lot more.
Those are my first impressions based on never using either sync or infinity (be it lemmy or reddit) before like this week.
Edit: Just downloaded Connect too, looks very similar to Sync in level of polish so I think those will probably be my top 2
Been using Memmy on iOS but used to use Sync on my Android device. Now I got that and using it more and more. Love the customization features on Sync and this is the first time I truly didn’t miss Reddit.
I'm trying Sync, Infinity and Thunder. I like Sync and Thunder because I like the polished UI. Infinity looks and feels kinda 'old'. But this is just me. All three deliver the feeling of coming home. They work like before, but with Lemmy features like images in comments. It's like Reddit but on the fediverse.
I'm using both. I paid to have the ads removed on sync and the dev does great work but I think I prefer infinity. I'll probably just throw my donations going forward to this and my instance on the fediverse.
I keep flip-flopping between thunder and liftoff. I like the visual design of liftoff but thunder feels easier to use .... I could probably fiddle about with their settings and make one that last bit better than the other in either direction but I'm not sure wich way to go. (Posted from Liftoff)
For me, I used to love Sync for Reddit for a long time, until he switched to Material You without a real option to go back. Material You is just plain ugly.
Now that I'm on Lemmy, I stumbled across Summit, which looks good and performs good.
It's interesting to me how I've tried like 10 apps including Sync which everyone raves about and for me one of the least mentioned is best: Connect. The UI is cleaner than the others. The navigation transitions are a little janky but not horrible and I'm hoping they'll smooth out eventually.