Will we ever have a kbin app for Android or IOS ?

Jcb2016@kbin.social to Moving to: m/AskMbin!@kbin.social – 38 points –

Seems like lemmy is getting all the love and kbin only got the add to home screen on ios and android. any updates that i'm not aware of?

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Apps talk to services via an API. Lemmy has an API, the one for kbin is still being figured out and isn’t enabled.

This is the only reason why kbin doesn’t have apps for it yet.

I think there was a kbin API and Ernest pulled it because he wanted to improve it. I think time will show that was a smart move. App developers need the API to be stable & unchanging; kbin can likely see how the Lemmy API is used by Apps, learn and improve from this.

We do know a new improved API is in the pipeline, and I agree with z2k, Apps will follow soon after.

Lemmy is also a lot older than kbin - kbin is only a month or two old, iirc, and it’s still technically in beta. I’m sure once an API of out for it, we’ll start seeing a lot of apps popping up. It just takes time - we’ve only just in the last few months seen a boom in quality Mastodon apps.

I’d say that in about six months, we’ll be spoiled for choice.

mastodon apps

ice cubes user reporting in! only issue i’ve noticed is that video playback is a little weird

The developer of Sync for Reddit is working on a Lemmy app and mentioned kbin support as a possibility.

How are apps being made for kbin if the API isn’t available? Real question.

I just pin the website on my home screen using the Brace Browser. It's basically the same thing

I like PWAs better. They seem 1000 times less likely to have a security problem

PWAs always feel way clunkier than a proper native iOS app.

I fully believe the reason Apollo was the best Reddit app, period, is because it was 100% native and fully embraced all the design patterns used throughout the rest of iOS. No amount of flashy CSS or fancy javascript frameworks can fully re-create that level of cohesion.

The PWA for kbin.social doesn’t have a back button. Security is great but proper navigation is better.

Having the option of native clients, whether on desktop or mobile, is good. Having a mobile app that fully respects its platform's design language or a desktop client that uses less resources than a web browser and will run without issue on something like a Pi can go a long way to making a web platform enjoyable to use.

Hell, you could tweet from a BBS at one point (maybe you still can?) and until July 1st you can browse Reddit in a Linux terminal using basically zero resources. Lemmy has this neat project for a web interface that will run on a toaster, for example. Maybe kbin will get something similar once its API is mature.