What are some of the 'best' Lemmy apps for Android?

Chris Remington@beehaw.org to Free and Open Source Software@beehaw.org – 64 points –

(single quotes around best for subjectivity) I'm trying to get all of my Android using friends and family into the Fediverse.

I'm an iOS user, so I have no idea about Android apps.

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I use Connect on my phone. I've tried others, even Sync when it came out but I guess I was already used to Connect.

Not open source

I like Thunder and Infinity

I have been using Thunder for a few weeks and it works very well. It has the best compact interface for me, close to the RedReader experience.

Sync for lemmy now. Boost for lemmy when it comes out. Jerboa is nice too.

This is the FOSS community and neither Sync nor Boost are open source.

But Lemmy is, so it's still a relevant answer, no?

If I asked "What word processors can Libre Office Writer collaborate with?", would Microsoft Word be an off-topic answer?

Infinity!

I’m an Infinity user too, though its name might change soon as the developer is discussing this in this post

Great app, very level headed developer and the way he asks for community users input makes you feel included.

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Voyager recently got added to F-Droid but can also be used as PWA from a web browser but personally I'm currently waiting until Infinity for Lemmy actually will get it's first stable release

Infinity is not too bad right now, I am replying from it right now. My only real issue with it is that I can't see whether people have responded to my posts/comments.

I can see replies to my comments and posts in infinity. The main issue is now that private messages aren't implemented. Depending on the speed of developement, it will soon land

As in, you are notified of replies?

I can see them in inbox, and in case of notifications, they only appear when the client is in foreground.

Strange, I have had notifications show up when I'm not in the app

I am presently using infinity from izzyondroid repository (is that the right name?) and it's good. However, some features are missing, such as blocking communities (at least I couldn't find the feature).

when I wanted a lemmy app, searching f-droid only pulled up Jerboa, and I remain happy with it.

Infinity for Lemmy! I've been using Infinity for Reddit way before the API situation, and I am very used to the interface.

Tried other clients like Thunder and Connect, but the interfaces are either too chunky or the colors are off. Infinity for Lemmy is essentially a complete copy of the original and I love it.

I was using Jerboa for most things but using the progressive web app as well. Sync is my preferred method for browsing and commenting at this point, but I'm still using the PWA for mod responsibilities and submissions (though I think LJ expects to have submissions working soon and 🤞 mod tools aren't far behind). It's fair to say that Sync is my preference due to comfort but the amount of customization is what makes it so comfy in the first place.

Liftoff, voyager. Really loving the look of Infinity but it's very stage and missing some features. Maybe down the road infinity might become my app of choice if it adds more features that I like.

I'm using both Liftoff and Jerboa. I can't decide which is better, so I'm interested in others people love.

I prefer Liftoff, mainly because I am plagued by a well-known bug in jerboa that makes writing comments a big pain. However, since infinity got semi usable (it still has a bunch of references to reddit in its ui and the messages/replies page is broken) I have only used liftoff to check for replies. I am just used to infinity from years of reddit usage lol

I started Reddit almost 2 years ago, and used Infinity. I avoided all social media since MyPage but finally gave in for Reddit. It was Toxic, then it went to hell in a handbasket like Twitter.

I have the same problem. I have Liftoff set for one if my Profiles, and Jerboa for the other one.

I had a look on F-Droid and it seems that Jerboa and Lemmur are your best options.

My understanding is that Lemmur is effectively abandoned and won't work

Someone forked it, so it should rise from the ashes like a phoenix

it already has, the fork is named Liftoff and many people seem to like it.

Oh, sorry. I've done a bit more looking, though, and Thunder looks quite good as well.

I prefer Infinity the most, but while I'm waiting for it to get more daily-use ready (I mean, it basically is for regular use, but am at least waiting for beta release), I'm using Liftoff and have been very happy with it.

I've only tried Liftoff, but I'm liking it so far.

Infinity is the best Reddit client I've ever tried, and I will say the same for the Lemmy fork. I have deleted everything else but Sync and Infinity.

I really really wanted to use Jerboa. I love Jerboas and I love FOSS.

But I tried sync today and it's just better.

Really disappointed at the pricing model but I'm just ad blocking it in protest of the insane pricing.

As an app though, I'd happily buy it for a reasonable price given the quality.

Man, I really think you should either saddle up, don't block ads, or use a free, non-ad-supported alternative.

Sync is made by a single dev who uses it as his main source of income. It's not made by a corporation. Taking the fruits of someone's labor, that they have priced to make it worth their time, feels kinda shitty to me.

If you really feel it's so much better than the alternatives that you won't even use them, then pay what the person making it feels they need to keep making it.

I've tried a few and Thunder is my favourite, plus it's F/OSS

All apps require some customization for my preference. Once I'm done with customizing, there's hardly any difference between apps. I'm currently using Connect, because it's very customizable. I like the list view and the option not to preload pictures to save on data.

Voyager is also pretty good, but the webapp seemed to conflict with my browser. Maybe that's fixed in the native app.

I don't understand why anyone likes card view at all. It's pretty much the reason why I was locked to using a third party app for Reddit in the first place when they "updated" the site back in 2018.

I think card view in a native app mainly works well for communities with high image/video content, other communities are okay either way.

When I used to use Reddit on my desktop's browser the styling would typically be list view, because that was something which I was used to.

I've tried pretty much every app available, and liked Thunder the most. second place goes to Jerboa.

I used Infinity for Reddit and I tried Sync and Jerboa for Lemmy. So now I am using Infinity for Lemmy and it's really good. Feels the same as the original Infinity and has almost all the advanced features.

I'm currently using Sync but once some of the others polish up and catch up, I'll probably switch. All of the actively developed apps have a solid foundation, some are just newer than others.

The web browser works fine for me, and then I don't have a other app on my phone. I've tried a bunch of different apps, Jerboa, Liftoff, Wefwef/voyager, and connect, and I keep coming back to just viewing it in browser. Haven't tried Sync because the idea of wilfully putting ads into a thing that doesn't have them is disgusting to me.

I got used to stock because at the time I was searching for an app there was none. I have added PWA shortcut to homescreen and it just works

I'm not sure if its open source, so technically not FOSS, but Connect is by far my favorite UI and UX wise.

Not FOSS at least for now, but still very nice, love the customizations and the video player is a nice feature.

Connect is great on phones, and Infinity is very customizable and works well on tablets. Both have very active developer support.

I've tried every one that I know of, repeatedly, and I still don't think any of the others compare to Voyager. And that's on the web app, haven't even tried the Play Store/F-Droid version yet.

For me, it's also a question of the development speed and responsiveness of the dev community. Voyager gets an update almost every single day, sometimes more than one a day, and the devs are super responsive and nice.

Really liking Arctius, but also still switching use between Jerboa, Thunder and Liftoff as well.

What do you want to do that you cant easily do on mobile browser?

Good resource for all platforms: https://lemdro.id/post/4319

Constantly updated, so make sure to check in there every couple of weeks.

I think most apps are decent in their own way and appeal to different users. Some want a simple client that just does what it needs to do, some prefer complete customization, some prefer having the exact same interface that they had on reddit, some prefer something a little different.

Infinity, Sync, Liftoff, Jerboa, Thunder, just to name a few, are all good for different reasons. Some upcoming ones look really nice (particularly Artemis which will be for Kbin and, shortly later, Lemmy) and several are cross-platform, which is a benefit when suggesting something that everyone can use.

I personally really like the Photon web app UI. And since it's a web app, it's platform agnostic as well which is nice. (Another bonus is that any instance can use it and other web app interfaces as potential alternative interfaces for the entire instance, like lemdro.id using Photon for https://nu.lemdro.id/)

To be honest, I just stick with the web interface at this point. I've become so used to it and I don't feel like using apps that were reddit ones or try to emulate them or reddit in general. Prefer Lemmy feeling a bit, if only a little, different from my previous time on the orange nightmare site, but I get why others prefer them for familiarity.