Now that Sync and Infinity are out, which do people prefer? Also, how do they compare to the existing lemmy apps?
I have about 5 different apps installed right now, and while I plan to test them all out, curious what people's conclusions are thus far.
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.
Sync is extremely polished. The rest have had their issues for a while.
Too much money. I feel bad for the instance devs because sync had probably made more money than them
Still want LIF in my life.
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.
You can change the font size under settings/view type
I believe that menu is just for the text on existing posts. There is another one for default baseline text size, but modifying it changes everything.
I'm quite happy with all the sizes, except for editor.
i get the idea of your comment but i don't like the examples
You can adjust it here
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
measly fee for ultra
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.
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.
What's this DNS adblocking thing that everyone has been talking about lately?
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).
Examples are nextdns (cloud hosted) or pihole (self hosted).
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, $20 is nothing compared to the value I've gotten out of it.
i wouldn't have a problem to pay 20$ flat to support the dev ... its a lot of time doing and maintaining an app
for now i dont see a reason to switch from voyager which shocks me bc i never thought a webapp could feel "that native"
the problem i see if i wanted to switch to sync ist, that without a google account i couldnt pay which basically kills it for me personally.
That's an absolutely understandable point of view.
I'm just disappointed in the people who seem to think they deserve everything for free.
Of course you can use free apps, that's fine! It's great to have options.
Personally I enjoy the experience of using sync compared to the other apps on my phone (my own activity within Lemmy has spiked since it's release!) And for that reason I'm happy to support its development.
I prefer Connect.
Agreed, it's the perfect balance of looking nice and functional
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.
People hating on sync's optional cost have me laughing. Mf has to deal with the same inflation as my ass, I hope he's gettin his.
Sync has been a much better experience than jerboa for me, as my two cents.
Sync is the only reason i am on lemmy.
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:
Settings shortcut: Comment options > Display navigation bar
Used connect and liftoff before and on Reddit RiF but for me sync is just the best.
Voyager.
I've just installed the native app, and it's pretty snappy, definitely my favorite Lemmy app.
I fell in love with the webapp first and now I like the android native app!
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.
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.
I used Connect until Sync dropped.
Connect was cool, but had a few clunky spots.
I used Sync for years so it was like putting on a favorite pair of jeans
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.
Using Jerboa, feels a lot like RIF.
I love Jerboa, very minimal which is great for me. If it had a search function it be perfect
Jerboa is open source and has been working perfectly fine for me.
I tried it but it just wouldn't load for me, it kept crashing.
I love me some sync... the app is so high quality, and it's the first release, in reddit it was constantly updated and fresh. ljd is a legend
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?!!?!
Lol I remember the drama
Sync, I know there's some people complaining about the prices. But I rooted my phone and use a system adblocker.
I'm using sync and I don't see any ads. I have not rooted or anything.
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.
Which adblocker do you use?
Infinity, because it's the best FOSS option in my opinion
I'm using Sync, while waiting for Boost.
Same here.
Infinity is AWESOME although I'm not quite sure how to get automatic updates for it yet.
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)
Thank you!! Never used obtanium but just installed it and I love it!
There's Obtainium, but the dev said that he's trying to get it released on F-Droid, so I'm waiting for that.
Edit: It's in the IzzyOnDroid repo now.
I'm using Jerboba until things shake out more.
Same here, been using jerboa since I joined Lemmy.
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.
Infinity because it is free and open-source
Voyager, clone of Apollo which is fantastic
I 100% agree. I was using Connect. I just downloaded Voyager today. It instantly became my favorite.
I agree, Voyager works so well it doesn't even feel like a webapp.
It's probably the best webapp I've ever tried
Im using the IOS app via TestFlight. Its really good.
Connect or Liftoff
Infinity, the king is reclaiming its thrown, and huge thanks to the fevelopper who forked it.
I'm using Infinity :D
I will stick with infinity for 99% but im going to check our voyager when it finally comes as a native app
I think it did today actually.
Infinity by a long way. It's very early though, not really a fair comparison.
I can't find Infinity on the play store. How are people using it?
It's hosted here: https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Infinity-For-Lemmy/releases
It's on Fdroid. Specifically, the izzy repo.
I use obtainium for it and other Lemmy apps.
My favourite client is Curl.
#archbtw
Amateur. Just telnet to the port and decrypt by hand.
Ugh, I hate doing the TLS handshake. They don't even give you enough time to work it out nowadays :/
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.
Try summit. I'm hopping between it and sync now. Thunder sometimes for the variations in feed but the comment issue persists and is an overall no-go
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.
you might want to know that slide is being ported to lemmy
Nice.
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.
I'm using sync. Used sync for years on Reddit and I like the product, vision, and direction the dev delivers.
Gunna wait for Boost to come out, and when it does, whoever wins out of Sync, Infinity, and Boost, I'm getting ad free for (probably Boost)
During reddit days, boost was the last app I used till I jumped here.
Waiting for Apollo to retool themselves and come to Lemmy. That would truly hurt Reddit.
Memmy is Apollo like but only available for IOS for now.
I use Memmy but it just isn’t polished like Apollo was. I still find myself wishing Apollo itself would come to Lemmy
Voyager strives to replicate the design of Apollo and it is just released on Play Store today!
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.
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!
Connect :D
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.
Jerboa is on f-droid, which makes life easier for me
Infinity is in IzzyOnDroid's repo now! ;)
Sync and Voyager.
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've used sync for almost ten years and am all in on it until something better comes along. Thunder is very nice too, but it's not sync.
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.
Voyager is now on the play store! I didn't find it as smooth as Sync though.
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.
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.
Sync > Thunder > Jeroba
Edit: I'm keeping the spelling lol
Jeroba
Sounds like a planet housing some skywalker kid
So does Jerboa tbh.
I used to mostly use connect and then infinity and voyager are out in the same day. Honestly, voyager feels really nice.
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! :)
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.
I use Liftoff
I've been trialling lift-off and it's excellent
I'm using Liftoff, but waiting for Boost.