Is there any closed source android app that you wish had a good open source alternative?

I’m currently looking to develop an open source app that can help somebody. I’m currently out of ideas, so I’d like to heard if from you guys.

Sorry if it seems to lazy to ask for ideas like that, I just thought that I could do it since the result will be a free app.

Amaterasu, (edited )

Uber? What do you use for rides?

Emerald,

I can’t find an equivalent replacement for Musicolet. There are plenty of open source music players out there for Android that just don’t have the little features that Musicolet does. Such as multiple queues, lyric editing, metadata editing, format conversions, stop after the track finishes, easily reorder songs and clear queues, etc.

Pherenike,
@Pherenike@lemmy.ml avatar

+1

zolax,

+1

bazmatazable,

SMS Backup & Restore? Unless there is an alternative that I’m missing? Play store link

JSens1998,
bazmatazable,

I saw this but its missing a key feature: daily backups. SMS Backup & Restore can make a backup every day then I can sync the file out to Nextcloud or similar. It also supports Dropbox if that’s your thing.

JSens1998,

Yeah, that’s fair. It’s the only open-source SMS Backup app I could find.

bazmatazable,

I am so sorry! I took another look at SMS Import / Export and to my surprise it does support scheduled backups! I had seen it before and had overlooked that feature so disqualified it. I’m going to test it now but if you don’t hear back its probably because I made the switch without issue.

cocolopez,
@cocolopez@lemmy.world avatar

A lightweight office suit

Emerald,
iturnedintoanewt,
@iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee avatar

Does this use Google libraries?

Emerald,

I don’t think so

cocolopez,
@cocolopez@lemmy.world avatar

Can this be considered lightweight? not complaining, just curious

Emerald,

I’d argue no office suite is lightweight by design. If lightweight is important you should use markdown or LaTeX

MalReynolds,
@MalReynolds@slrpnk.net avatar

Nice question, you’ve got a lot of answers, most being major projects outside the scope of an individual, still, interesting pain points.

May I suggest you edit your OP with a list of viable options for individual devs or small teams to try ?

drb,

Grid Square Locator

AceFuzzLord,

I don’t use it much since I’ve already got it active on the apps I wanted it for, but on Samsung’s Galaxy Store there is an app I’ve never found an alternative to anywhere from my limited searching: Sound Assistant.

On desktop/laptop, turning off individual app/program sounds is super easy, but this is literally the only app I’ve ever seen that allows you to turn off the sound for individual apps on android. Don’t know if other versions of android from other brands or android 14 has that feature natively, but it’s a feature I wish was native to all versions of android regardless of which large brand has made their own alterations to android.

A minor problem, though, as I assume most people probably don’t give a rats ass about this.

Emerald,

There are a few Magisk modules for this. This isn’t something that is possible without root or owning a Samsung phone

trevor,

An equivalent to iOS Shortcuts for Android and Linux.

balder1993,

Don’t any linux DE have something like a shortcuts app?

trevor,

Maybe, but the thing that makes iOS Shortcuts so great is that it basically offers an extensive GUI to interact with all of the system’s APIs.

SomeGuy69,

Discord. I hate that premium costs so much and all the ads they put in place to sell useless junk features.

Google maps. So open street maps but with reviews like maps has. A few days ago people suggested apps, but they lack reviews. I disagree that they are useless.

desktop_user,

even if alternatives existed it would still be a hassle to convert friends to it unless it is better in every way.

SomeGuy69,

Yeah this is the biggest issue.

AceFuzzLord,

I would just love it if I had the bus routes for my city readily available in open street maps, like how goog|e maps does it. I think goog|e maps might be my answer to the question if I can’t find anything else.

MalReynolds,
@MalReynolds@slrpnk.net avatar

Discord needs to die in a fire, so much knowledge lost… But their momentum is something awful.

GolfNovemberUniform,
@GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml avatar

Speaking of reviews, aren’t there special review websites in most of the countries?

SomeGuy69,

It’s about a quick glance on a location and reading some reviews quickly. There is a workaround with open street maps integrating google reviews but it’s again relying on google at this point.

GolfNovemberUniform,
@GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml avatar

Well if openstreetmaps implemented the same thing it would be useless because there are not many people using it

SomeGuy69,

It would grow. Just to have the ability would be nice. A lot of people also would start to write reviews to be the first etc. We got to start somewhere, same as with the Fediverse. We could even combine it.

GolfNovemberUniform,
@GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml avatar

Yea having the ability would be nice. I’m not sure it’s possible to implement without sacrificing privacy though

Asudox,
@Asudox@lemmy.world avatar

Discord has an alternative called Revolt that is open source. It has all the premium features in discord for free, but is still in early stages I’d say.

toastal,

I use Mumble + XMPP with an IRC gateway to cover everything voice & chat related …but there are plenty of options to replace Discord, you just need to let folks know you don’t want an ad-filled proprietary experience & that you wish to be contacted in a manner where your privacy is a priority.

Google’s reviews have a lot of junk in them except the ones stating business closed/moved (OSM you can literally delete or move the POI, but less users). The integrated crowd-sourced images of establishments however is missing which makes it hard to understand POI in comparison—a picture is worth a thousand words.

loudWaterEnjoyer,
@loudWaterEnjoyer@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Matrix?

SomeGuy69,

Alternative messenger exist, I should’ve been more precise. At this point an alternative would require at least the same features than discord, to get people away from it. I don’t see that happen.

flying_wotsit,

complete feature parity isn’t a good goal, or the alternatives will always be behind. Partial parity, with some features Discord doesn’t have (e.g. E2EE) is an achievable goal which does successfully encourage migration

kilgore_trout,

Not an alternative, but to make Discord on suck less I recommend Bunny.

guttermonk,
@guttermonk@lemmy.ml avatar

Nova launcher - there isn’t a good one for one FOSS replacement. Every launcher I tried from fdroid has at least one shortcoming (if not more).

wuphysics87,

Agreed. Yet to find a true replacement

vivavideri,

I’m making do with pear launcher. Only thing I’m sad about off the top of my head is you can’t change the padding on widgets to fit whole screen.

lemmyingly,

It currently has a rating of 4.1. It looks like it has some bugs and some cause it to crash.

wuphysics87,

Neo launcher does that

CodingCarpenter,

Yeah, Hyperion is the closest I’ve found. Also what I’m currently using

lemmyingly,

It currently has a rating of 3.7. It looks like it has a lot of bugs.

Emerald,

It’s a little strange, but I’m enjoying Pie Launcher

lemmyingly,

It currently has a rating of 3.6. It looks like it has issues and lacks customisation.

Shimon,
@Shimon@slrpnk.net avatar

I don’t think you found the vorrect one. I guess the one they are reffering to is made by Markus Fisch. It is also available on Fdroid

lemmyingly,

Why do you believe I haven’t found the correct one?

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.markusfi…

Edit: I’m looking at the Play store since F-Droid doesn’t have ratings or feedback. I look for apps on the Play store, find something interesting, and then look for the F-Droid version.

Shimon,
@Shimon@slrpnk.net avatar

It doesn’t have any rating (or maybe it just doesn’t show them to me) and you said that it has a rating of 3.6. There is another app called the same that has rating of 3.7

lemmyingly,

The Play store link I provided doesn’t show a rating to you?

Shimon,
@Shimon@slrpnk.net avatar

no, it might be because there aren’t any reviews in my language. But they could still show the star count, weird

lemmyingly,

How strange. You would think the star rating would always show regardless of regional settings and you would think reviews are also shown but with a translate button next to each review given that’s not the same as what’s set in your regional settings - the same as on Google Maps.

0xb,

I feel like you should just download the apps and test them yourself instead of only going by ratings. These are free apps, and it takes a few minutes to see if something has the feature or feel you want. Once you uninstall a launcher, android goes back to the previous with all its configurations as it was, so you don’t need to risk your previous setup. Just a suggestion of what I do, because I find that for something as particular as a phone launcher, ratings are often incomplete information.

lemmyingly, (edited )

Everyone I’ve tried from the Play store feels too basic compared to Nova or their rating is too low because of bugs.

Edit: in hindsight it looks like I’m a paid shill for Nova. This isn’t the case at all. I’ve been looking at launchers for the past few weeks as I recently realised I’ve had the same set up style for over a decade. I don’t want to be the person stuck in the past doing stuff the slower and archaic ways when there are newer and better ways of doing things. I currently have over 20 launchers installed on my phone and I’ve been slowly trying some.

K1nsey6,

I really like Kvaesitso though I’ll admit I keep going back to Nova

darklamer,
@darklamer@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I would really want to have a really good open source SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) app, with good secure key management and excellent transfer performance. So far, I haven’t found any such app.

istanbullu,

My banking apps. They are the only reason I can’t fully de-google myself.

MalReynolds,
@MalReynolds@slrpnk.net avatar

My philosophy is if I can use a web page for it, I won’t install an app (couple of exceptions, but a good rule). Less convenient, more secure.

As KMFDM have it, “Those who sacrifice liberty for security Deserve neither and will lose both”

GolfNovemberUniform,
@GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml avatar

Unfortunately in some countries web banking apps are not allowed afaik. Very good answer though

istanbullu,

My bank uses the app to auth logins to website bank.

n2burns,

So, if you don’t have an Apple/Android device (and the app installed), you just can’t use web-banking? That’s pretty crazy!

istanbullu,

yes, that is pretty much it. all actions, including logins need to be done with 2-factor authentication, which means Google Play Store.

LiveLM,

God, you know what I really wish I could do?
Run an Android VM on my phone. Imagine being able to do whatever you want with your device and still having a “stock” device for those pesky apps without having to actually have two phones.

It is seemingly possible, but the only app I’ve ever seen do it was “VMOS”: a proprietary app, impossible to trust.

istanbullu,

I’m running Android apps on my laptop using Waydroid. Works really well

lud,

You usually want to use banking apps when you are away from home though.

spicystraw,

Fitbod, a fitness app that monitored my progress and health data and auto generated appropriate workouts taking muscle group fatigue into consideration

abominable_panda,

One of those “smart” alarms that monitor and graph your sleep. E.g movement, sounds, snorings, sleep talking etc.

At a minimum one that wakes you up in the 30 minute window of your lightest sleep phase

HessiaNerd,

I paid for AMdroid because I can set profiles, Geo fence, have math problems to turn off alarms, fade in music, turn on my flashlight… All the bells and whistles. I would love a FOSS version, but many try to be single feature. I like all the things.

Opisek,

“Pixels” mood tracker. I love it but I also love self-hosting all my services.

turbowafflz,
Emerald,

Seems interesting, but it only allows you to track mood once a day. But my mood changes throughout the day, so I don’t see how it’s useful.

turbowafflz,

You can add multiple entries per day but if I remember correctly it’s not great at displaying them in a useful way which is unfortunate

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