I was using Jerboa up until now and am now using Sync because I used it for Reddit.
....and that's it. I don't understand why this gets so much talk. There are so many options. Just use something. We all want Lemmy to grow so I don't see the problem.
I started off using jerboa. Just installed sync to see what the fuss is about. At the core it's pretty much the same. One thing sync does better, at least on my phone, is smoother loading/rendering of content. There were times id actually use Lemmy web instead.
With that said, my favorite reddit app Boost, is working on a Lemmy client too. So I'm looking forward to that as well.
I put this in a other thread, but am genuinely interested in getting feedback.
I'm currently on Jerboa and downloaded/installed sync yesterday. As a former RIF user, I don't have a horse in this race. I am more familiar with Jerboa, but find the overall feel of both (admittedly, without a lot of use), to be pretty comparable.
That said, I kind of like some of the ideas in Jerboa more? For example, tap to minimize comments and their children on Jerboa is quite a bit faster. I'm kind of sad that both make selecting some of the text in a comment hard and miss the dedicated RIF collapse/expand comment tree button. Jerboa also matches the font size of everything else in my UI better than Sync. For example, the font size of this reply and my keyboard are the same in Jerboa. In Sync the in-app font size is quite a bit smaller.
At the end of the day, I think that both apps are going to be largely comparable for a fairly casual user like me. I bet both offer more functionality than I'm using, but so far I don't feel like I'm missing anything.
You can customize both those options in Sync. I had the same initial issues, but you can switch comment collapse to single tap as well as increase font size.
I am exactly your use-case. Was using RIF, then I've been using Jerboa up until Sync was released. I never used Sync for Reddit.
My opinion on the two differs from yours, however. Sync seems SO much better than Jerboa to me. Yep, the font was small but I was able to embiggen it. Everything else seems faster and more intuitive. Jerboa was so buggy for me.
Another killer features Sync has that (AFAIK) no other Lemmy android apps currently have:
long pressing a community in the community list drawers will open that community in a new activity windows, essentially the android equivalent to open in a new "window". Use your phone's app switcher to switch between these "window". There is even an option to allow you to open posts in a new window as well. Very handy if you want to write a comment while looking for some information in another thread, or if you're on a tablet and want to pin multiple sync windows on the screen.
Sync will open links to a lemmy post natively instead of in an embedded web browser. Basically solve one of the most complained issue about linking in Lemmy.
I've tried a few apps (Liftoff, Wifwif or whatever it was called, and now Sync). I've not stuck with any of them, despite the fact I used RiF and later Boost both for years.
They just feel too early stage. Eg, Wifwif was super sluggish and I accidentally cancelled multiple long comments I typed up by trying to scroll, which is a big oof. With Sync, I noticed the comment hierarchy was messed up and when I went to post about that, I couldn't do it from within the app because posting isn't supported yet (feels like a big thing to be missing).
So for now, I'm still just using the website. And not with the PWA, because support for multiple tabs is really great and avoids weirdness with scrolling when going back.
Side note: why do literally no apps support tabs????? Number zero feature request I've ever had, for every single app. I even noticed that Sync has a long press to open posts in background, but it's only for posts and it is rather convoluted cause it's more like opening a second instance of the app. The back button goes to my Android home screen (not back to Sync) and it is hard to navigate to what you just opened.
Mobile Chrome's tab groups feature is absolutely amazing. I hate using "normal" tabs anymore, cause the tab groups having the tabs accessible at the bottom of the screen is unbeatable.
Most of us were like that, but the sudden excitement we all had for the app release caused a counter-surge of people annoyed at our excitement and sometimes exaggerated statememts, which caused a lot of us to dig in our heels against the backlash in defence.
Add to that a user base used to no ads and no fees, with a user base who is okay with either, you've got the perfect ingredients for the mud soup we've found ourselves in.
I've been using Liftoff but Sync feels a lot more polished except what it does with the comments sometimes - showing child comments with no parent. Liftoff would show the parent comment so I don't know what's up with that.
We should probably start emailing all the Lemmy devs, client devs, etc. and shaming them for using GitHub since it's not open source and open source options for source control are available. /s
I'm a sync ultra user. My sense of superiority is only eclipsed by my ignorance of what FOSS stood for. But seriously use what you like. I just want lemmy to grow.
Yeah, I have used sync for years. Decided to switch to Lemmy once sync announced an app in production. I used Jerboa and Connect in the meantime, but now that Sync is here, it's like sinking back into a warm bath.
I'm here because of Sync, and if it is good that I am here, it is good that Sync is here.
I installed sync yesterday and am having a really hard time getting it to work as well as Jerboa. i feel like I've been in every setting, but the layout and UX just doesn't seem nearly as good. It just feels like everything is multiple extra actions to do the same thing in Jerboa.
Like, what do you have to do to get a seamless experience in sync?
Years of tweaking my Sync for Reddit app and then just importing the settings in 3 taps. It's not the answer you were looking for, but it's what a lot of us did.
It's about having the freedom to control your own devices. Proprietary software like Sync takes away that freedom, so it's unethical. We should be complaining about it.
You're going to have to explain how purchasing and using software that is completely voluntary takes away any freedom from anyone. It's literally just a ui wrapper with different visuals and functionality that some people find useful enough to pay for. Entire legions of people protested the removal of these apps from Reddit. Nothing is free, the concept of that is broken.
What exactly did you not like? Using it now and it's come a huge way in just a few weeks. Of all the apps I've tried it had the most compact and quick interface.
I feel people had a lot of loading issues when instances were going down left and right which gave Jerboa an unfair reputation through no fault of its own.
As an ex-RIF user, Jerboa was the one I stuck with, I've just switched to the new Voyager native app, partly because there were some minor feature issues, and performance issues in the last week, mostly just the app crashing when running into comments of blocked users and when scrolling longer threads. They also changed the nesting of comments when you select to view them individually from your post screen, didn't like that.
For some reason I could no longer post replies to comments. I could log in, but it kept me stuck on anonymous for some reason. It also had pretty crap sorting ui so I just ended up seeing the same posts for days at a time, and when clicking on links it insisted on opening them in an external browser.
Compared to RiF it wasn't a smooth UX for me. Sync I can tweak and it looks and feels very nice with no issues so far. I'll probably try other options as things mature, but for now this is definitely "good enough" whereas other options weren't for me.
The only thing I'd change about sync UI wise currently is the indentation of the comment actions. When I tap on a comment to upvote I expect it to be aligned with the comment, instead it's always at full width. I keep bookmarking things by mistake.
I never ended up being able to log in. Even after it said they fixed the issue it kept logging me out. And don't get me started on the UI.
Sync ain't perfect. I keep accidentally collapsing comments because I was used to rif which, unlike sync, doesn't collapse comments after a long press. The fact that that is one of my biggest gripes with the app is a huge improvement over jerboa though
Unless you're an independently wealthy jackass, I'm not sure how you can attack non-FOSS software users. I am a software engineer and I get paid to write software. I write some code for fun at home too and if people use any of my projects Im delighted. But if you want bug fixes and reliability and consistent new features and updates to apis and I have to listen to your bullshit complaints about how XYZ is better, you bet your ass I'm gonna charge for that.
It's like a baker making bread who gives out a few loaves for free at first. You don't get to complain if 100s of people show up demanding free bread and he starts charging them. Maybe communism is a system that demands people work for free, but elsewhere you're entitled to whatever wage the market will bear.
The bread analogy dies at the same point that the piracy argument dies. It isnt truly stealing to make a copy of something.... and it doesnt cost a developer more effort the more people that download their app.
Years ago, I came to the conclusion that the right way to support yourself being a software company was to provide service, not software. I also believe selling software licenses to for-profit companies is a good strategy. Bug bounties are fine too.
Point is, I think there are plenty of ways software developers can make a living without being closed-source or nag-ware. Most companies do not want their employees spending time fixing bugs in software, and many are fine paying reasonable licensing fees as long as their software group is satisfied with the service - which mainly happens when said IT group isn't having to spend too much time messing with it.
I'm reminded that in the past every release of a software (at least the major ones) would be a single paid-for release. Obviously the google play model inhibits that kind of sensible monetisation straegy for now (I think).
Think photoshop before, the model that clip studio pro has 'reverted' back to (I support it, but I can't help but remember that time when they bombed twitter with adverts with a deal - that's money that didn't go towards development).
The Free Software movement has nothing to do with price. It's about freedom. We deserve to have the freedom to control our own devices. Proprietary software takes that away, so it's unethical.
It's shame, if only the ideology wasn't born in an anglophone country maybe this common misconception would have never been a thing in the first place.
I can't tell if your joking. I also didn't really care that much about open source software before coming here, but now I find myself searching out for open source replacements for the stuff I'm already using.
Hey, you're me! I'm a big fan of Sync (free version) thus far, and I've been able to tailor it as such that it's damn near LiF for me. I love all the options and customization it offers. Big ups to Liftoff too, still use that from time to time
I don't think I've ever been part of an online community that was this much into Linux. I mean I get it, great open source operating system to stick it to the corpos, but it feels like only a certain slice of Reddit came over and it isn't fully representative of the main Reddit population.
Then again we were mostly united about the 3rd party app thing, which a lot of Redditors didn't really care about (otherwise more would be here).
Listen I love the Foss apps, but sync is so fucking good. I use multiple apps for different reasons, I did the same with reddit. I just really missed sync.
As long as FOSS and paid versions of something can exist at the same time and the paid thing is actively trying to push out the FOSS stuff, I have no issue with a paid option.
The amount of shilling Sync receives makes me worry that something is up with it. It's not normal that I even believe some bots and sock puppets are involved. I'm not touching it with a long stick until someone does some proper security analysis on it. I'm not dumb to fall for peer pressure. Good luck, guys!
I’m not touching it with a long stick until someone does some proper security analysis on it
How would that happen? It's proprietary software, we don't have access to the source code. And that's the whole point. We can't verify what it does and we can't modify it.
The alternative is Free/Libre Software. That's what Lemmy is, Jerboa and many others. Their authors publish the source code and let their users study it, modify it and distribute it. Because they are not trying to hide anything from us. That's the ethical way to make software.
It's just good. I used it for years, and even bought the Pro version of the reddit app. The main feature for me is the performance. I don't have a high end phone and Sync are the only one with a consistent scrolling performance (no dropped frames).
After Sync released I tried even more other Lemmy clients because of all the other recommendations in the Sync discussion threads, and there are definitely a lot of great Lemmy apps.
But as an old Sync (for Reddit) user myself I also get the feeling of familiarity using the Sync Lemmy app, with the customizability to even adjust what each "step" of the swiping gestures does, while using other Lemmy apps I mostly feel like I'm locked to "getting used to the app". So I understand why some people are so happy to use Sync again.
That being said I do agree that it feels expensive to pay even for ad-less, and people may not like that the free version has ads. I will probably pay just for ad-less (not Ultra) once I have figured out if I like any of the other Lemmy apps better (or not.)
The web UI still have two features no other apps (afaik) currently have: autocomplete when mentioning someone's username (useful for e.g. summoning bots), and selecting comment language (useful for replying to posts that somehow marked as English-only, and the server's language auto-detection somehow think your comment is not written in English and rejects it)
My only complaint with jerboa is that it keeps forgetting my login details.
I use a password manager. I don't know what my lemmy password is. I just know it's really long, so logging in requires owning up a second app, searching for lemmy, copying my password, going back to jerboa, and then going through the login flow.
KeePass2Android has a software keyboard with integration with the pass DB and it detects what app you're typing into (and websites too with browsers using the right API), and you can put the app name in the password entry to have it autofill
I tried jerboa, I didn't like it. Seems to basic and didn't really function for me(was likely due to actual server issues rather than app issues though). I'm now on connect and pretty content though.
At the end of the day I think peoples' systems should be made with open-source components, like firmware and OS, and then they can choose whether to put closed-source apps on it or not.
That being said, I personally moved away from proprietary social media (except youtube) mostly because they're proprietary, plus ad tracking, so I don't like the idea of throwing it all away just to put another closed-source app on my phone. But that's just me
Stop infecting other communities with this trash argument. Sync dev can do what he wants, sync dev should donate some money to Lemmy dev. If you don't think he should then you shouldn't donate to sync dev.
It’s a squad of trolls, there’s other users throwing around the same terminology despite most users probably not even giving a fuck about politics.
You can ignore them tbh they’re the stage prior to the fuckin homeless dude screaming in the street about some psychotic ass conspiracy theory. Wave to the animals in their cages