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

federino@programming.dev to Open Source@lemmy.ml – 207 points –

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.

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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).

Agreed. Yet to find a true replacement

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.markusfisch.android.pielauncher

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.

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

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

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

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.

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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.

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

Doesn't look like Hyperion is open source :(

Until there's a FOSS version of Nova, I guess I'll keep using Nova and have my firewall block its outgoing traffic.

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

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