2y ago

Sync is back on the Play Store, but it's not a third-party Reddit app anymore

www.androidpolice.com Sync is back on the Play Store, but it's not a third-party Reddit app anymore

Sync is not dead — it's just federated now

Reddit @lemmy.world

www.androidpolice.com /sync-back-not-a-reddit-app-anymore/

204 28

310 comments

I've never been as excited for an app to be released as this one!
Been a sync user since day 1 and I'm looking forward to continuing to support it.
- I used RIF, but I remember a lot of people loved sync for reddit, so I plan to jump on the bandwagon.
  
  A fellow RiFugee
  
  RiF went to tildes, if you hadn't heard.

It's like having Reddit back, this is amazing. 🙏
For as long as I can remember Reddit and Sync have been one and the same. I never used Reddit website or app, only ever used Sync to browse Reddit hosted content. I used it a lot. I've missed it a lot.
Between the Lemmy platform and Sync client, to all intents and purposes what Reddit was has been fully restored/migrated.
I know it's early days, but I did not expect to see anything like this so soon and it gives me hope that Lemmy can grow and thrive into the network of people that always made Reddit what it was. Everything that's needed is there - early, a little rough around the edges, but there. And being improved constantly.
Hallelujah!
- Yea this app going dark for a month made me realize how much I actually enjoy the experience of this app rather than reddit itself. Being forced to use the official app has pushed me away from Reddit more than ever
- Lemmying from Sync right now and it brings a tear to my eye. I don't think anything other than Sync would have made Lemmy feel "right" to me. And now it does.
  
  He just added an £18.99 one off charge to remove ads as well. Instabuy for me. Just brilliant.
  
  I couldn't said it better myself. After 12 years on reddit, here I am! Joined as soon as sync launched and after some Eli5 of Lemmy, I'm ready for it.
  All tips for interesting instances or give me some tips about what I should check out, or catch up on, it would be appreciated .
  
  I don't consider myself to be "Lemmying" or "Redditing".... I'm "Syncing"
- Helllll yeah!!

I just got access to Sync for Lemmy! Very nice. I hope the developer of rif would also make a lemmy client.
- Seems like the rif dev made an app for tildes instead
  
  Yeah I know. kinda disappointed about that.
  
  What's Tildes? Another Reddit clone?
  
  It's one of the downsides of the reddit reckoning: there are so many different fediverse communities/sites now that existing subreddit communities have been split across different sites.
- Same, just got the notification!
  I'm waiting for Boost since that's what I was used to, but this looks great too :)
  
  I'm also a former Boost user, bit this a really nice app. I may switch to Boost when it comes out, but I will admit I've grown attached to gesture controls.
- I'm still more a fan of relay which is staying for reddit but this is pretty nice.

spotted by the /r/Android Reddit community (out of all places)
lold

just got sync installed a few minutes ago, feels so good to have a proper UI for endless scrolling now :)
- Same! Found this using Jerboa app, it's OK but so far this feels a bit more... I don't know, user friendly or something
  
  Sync has had over 10 years to refine the user experience.
- Duuuude same here. Feels good.

And here I am, waiting for a "Lemmy is Fun" app.
- Ive found connect is a pretty great alternative if you haven't already checked it out.
  
  Connect dev here, glad you're liking it!
  
  Former RIF user for over a decade here. Now using connect and is not too bad of a transition.
  
  hell yeah another connect brother
  
  While we're all talking about Connect (and this could probably be a support post in the community but whatever), is anybody else having an issue that the app isn't showing all comments? I can get it to show different ones by changing the sort but it doesn't seem like there is a way to view all comments in a post. I don't think it's the result of a block or defederation.
  
  Same same
- He's only making a Tildes app 😞
  
  Isn't Tildes still invite only and basically denying everyone their application?
  
  Because my brain is 60-70% walnut, I thought you made a joke about abbreviating Tildes is Fun to TIT.
  Tildes is Terrific?
- Relay for me. But it looks like Sync finally added swipe gestures so I'll just use that, since my favorite app isn't getting a Lemmy port. Connect and Voyager are too clunky for daily use. Can't wait until Sync launches.
  (Edit: I just hope it shows downvote counts, comment previews, and has a tablet mode... Oh and doesn't refresh the page every time I post something.)
  
  Fellow Relay refugee. I welcome the swipe drawer even though it misses some actions. My biggest grudge is probably scaling. The font sizes are way too small and adjusting them in settings doesn't seem to adjust them everywhere (e.g. this reply screen I'm looking at right now).
  Overall I'm positive. I'll probably duel-wield Sync and Jerboa and see which one brings the most pleasure.
- Waiting for Boost for Lemmy here.

Reddit is making the same mistake that 3DFX made against Nvidia and ATI back in the day with third party developers. Restricting 3rd party development was suicidal on reddit's part.
Ultimately, people want choices, and I think if the average user see only one reddit app vs a literal wall of different Lemmy apps, they will be inclined to try at least one Lemmy app instead.
- I disagree that the majority of people want choices, at least when it comes to social media. The vast majority of social media users want to be where the user base is at. For Lemmy to be the more attractive option, it either needs to have do similar numbers to it’s competitor or offer something very unique and useful that the others don’t.
  And I say this as someone who has been much happier on Lemmy than I have been the last few years on Reddit.
  
  I'm perfectly okay of those types of social media users go somewhere else. They like what they like, I like what I like.

Downloaded just now, looks great! But I don't really enjoy the subscription model. Why not make one lifetime purchase of let's say $20 or something? Monthly or yearly payments are a no for me. But paying even a little bit more for a lifetime would be working.
- Exactly what I came here to say. I had purchased Sync Ultra (or whatever it was called) in the reddit app and was really happy with the experience. First thing I went to do upon installing the new one was go to purchase again and was really disappointed to see a monthly subscription and no one-time purchases option. Then I was even more disappointed to see ads in the feed. I mean, I get why the developer went this route, but it really sucks. I don't want another running subscription to think about. I have enough of those as it is.
  
  I might be mistaken, but I don't think Sync Ultra is the same thing as the ad-free sync premium. Sync Ultra is a subscription because it adds functionality that requires cloud resources, not just removes ads.
  
  Alternatively, Sync had so many updates that paying for Ultra once so many years ago felt like I stole it. It's like $17 a year? I could do that easily to support the dev.
- Same here, would buy the lifetime purchase straight away but holding off on the subscription, given the ad-free experience is the only thing I care about.
- A one-time Lifetime payment option would be phenomenal.
- Looks like he's got plans to have a one time paid option
  
  It's available now for $20
- I'm not a fan of subscriptions either but come on, it's 17 dollars a year.
  
  I'd pay 20 a year if it were split 50/50 with the instance I select as my default... I mean the instances need to pay for bandwidth and hosting somehow. I get it, devs need to eat too, but pay it forward.
- I think it's definitely reasonable to expect that the app will continue to improve and there is no lifetime charge that would cover that.
  The time is now to encourage and support development of the things you like and that also includes your favorite Lemmy instance itself.
- Also please ditch the Google Play billing. It's the reason I had to switch to Relay for Reddit, because I simply won't have the spyware, that is Google Play Services, on my phone.
- I get that lifetime subscriptions are much more palatable to users but I don't think it works if you consider that users will want lifetime support as well. So for maybe 20$ you'll get theoretically years of even decennias of support, ignoring inflation, new bugs and security concerns, etc. It just doesn't make sense and I wouldn't expect it from a dev.
  
  I don't really expect support. I guess bugs get fixed along the way no matter if the user pays monthly, or once. I get the appeal of a subscription for devs, but for users it is not so nice.
- This.

It feels like old reddit sync experience. I am glad the app is back.
- Right? Its funny that I thought I missed Reddit when in fact all I was missing was Sync.

Just downloaded. I have not been this happy for months.

My first comment, feels good to be using a Sync app again. My Reddit usage has dropped considerably so I've had extra time to waste...

This app looks and feels super solid. I didn't use sync for Reddit, but this feels and looks smooth as hell. Secondly going to use this and keep looking to see how all the apps are progressing.

Happy more notable support is joining but I think it will be hard for me to leave Voyager (tAfka Wefwef) at this point.
- Absolutely, the way the Voyager team has pushed out updates and made this app comparable to Apollo in a month has been incredible.
  Even if Christian from Apollo did decide to make an app on Lemmy I still probably wouldn’t leave Voyager.
  
  Voyager is like an open source Apollo. It's incredible
- In case anyone doesn't know yet, there is a iOS testflight app available. For me the haptics that is not present in the webapp made it so much more enjoyable to use.
- How do you install voyager? Is it on the Play Store?
  
  Not yet, you can build it from the GitHub source but it's a mainly a web app for any platform. We're trying to talk the dev into putting it up on F-Droid as well.
  
  You install it as a webapp from your browser.
  
  Since you're on lemmy.world, you can use m.lemmy.world

I've wanted Reddit to burn for awhile. It devolved into nothing but a circle jerk.
- It took like 12 years for reddit to become full circle jerk? Maybe we get a good 7-10 from lemmy
- Good thing Lemmy instances aren't made from much smaller communities where everyone has more or less the same opinion...
  Unless Lemmy would be considered more of an echo chamber for their respective communities versus a circlejerk?
  
  I'd argue that individual instances aren't all that important. Im on a smaller instances and hardly ever bump into people from my own instance.
  When instances start defederating and closing some instances off, I could see, but even then those users would just make another account elsewhere to participate in the "all" of lemmy
- Dicks out
- Unlike Lemmy where, god forbid, someone has a center or right wing opinion?
  Edit: welp...
  
  It's not just centre or right opinions, anything that's not full on Stalinist genocide is downvoted and reported furiously. Basically the same shit as on Reddit.

So hyped for this. I've completely moved on from Reddit and this will help solidify the decision. All the screenshots of the app up til now look really good.

Y'all I have missed this app. Jerboa is fine but sync just feels so much better.
- It feels good to be home, fam
  
  Finally... inner peace.

If spez wasn't such a petty hurensohn this wouldn't have happened.
- This is a good point. Kudos to Spez!

Wrapping Sync around Lemmy has made interfacing with the fediverse so nice, you don't get this kind of quality from anyone but a passionate developer.

I stopped using reddit entirely. Sync was reddit. Glad to have it back!
- Reddit had become a new Instagram experience with the native app . I'm completely biased to Dutch sub Reddits now which is something I thought I wanted from sync for a long time. I should have stayed naive

Any chance for a paid version but not a subscription? I would dump money into that so fast.
- Click on 'remove ads' instead of sync ultra.

This is where reddit messed up. Third party apps are priceless to certain users. Different flavors of apps and choices will bring in more users etc. These third party apps may have indeed been the digg moment reddit has been toying with for years.

Im Loving this so much
- Never been so excited for an app install lol

Feels like home
- Agreed. I came from redditisfun, but sync for lemmy has been a super solid experience so far.

Using this on a pixel fold and it's glorious.
- Ooh nice! How are you enjoying the pixel fold?
  
  Loving it. Admittedly, it's a luxury item and not worth the price for most people but it's been a better experience than my pixel 6 pro, which google fi gave full me full trade in value for upgrading to the fold.

I didn't use Sync before but it's a really solid beta. I can't wait to be able to post from it. Until then I'm running Jerboa and Sync.
- Using sync for Lemmy feels identical to using sync for reddit... It's fantastic!

Bummed out they're injecting ads into lemmy :/
- Not only ads but tracking and spyware too. I got asked to consent for a shit ton of thrid party cookies seconds after i opened it for the frist time ...
  
  Perhaps Jerboa is best for now, until Boost comes along
  
  Bro the GDPR consent reads like spyware. And the ads?!
  
  It's proprietary software; what did you expect? That shit will always betray you sooner or later, almost by definition.
  I would have liked to think folks on-the-ball enough to ditch Reddit for Lemmy would know better, but nope!
- How do you propose the dev gets paid for his work?
  
  By offering a paid version. Not by using spyware.
  
  Oh I don't know, maybe the same way folks like Dessalines, Nutomic and Ruud do?
  This is Lemmy, after all, not Reddit. It's not as if non-ad-supported business models are thin on the ground around here...

Why is financial info / purchase history collected?
- To check your in-app purchases / subscriptions.
  Sync can only check its own purchase history.
- It looks like there will be a paid version via an in-app purchase, so I imagine that this permission is used for license validation between installs.
  EDIT: From the data safety page:
  Data collected and for what purpose
  Purchase history
  App functionality, Account management
- I went to pre register Sync and saw the list of data it collects. It turned me off. I will just keep using Connect for Lemmy.
- Right now there's an IAP for Sync Ultra that is monthly or annual

Will it have the same Foldable phone optimization as the reddit version?
- The overall UI should be basically unchanged
- I would assume. No other app has to my knowledge so it would be a nice killer feature.
  
  Good news for you: [yes].(https://lemmy.world/comment/1003891)
- Wait, do foldable phones require their own optimizations? On one hand, cool, but on the other hand, not sure I want one as much now.
  
  Yes and no. For some apps, the developers have it set to scale to larger screens or have a certain layout when it detects that the DPI surpasses a certain threshold. This is really how they just get all of these apps to scale for traditional smartphones in general since there are many different screens sizes out there. What I'm referencing is that Sync is one of the few apps that goes from a traditional phone app when folded shut, to a dedicated tablet layout when the phone opens. Other apps such as Outlook, Gmail, Relay for Reddit, YouTube, Google Calendar, and some more apps do this as well.
  Right now, Samsung's Foldables have the ability to force apps to expand to the aspect ratio of the inner display for any application. The Pixel Fold, however, doesn't include this feature so there are some apps that genuinely just stay in a traditional aspect ratio of a smartphone and doesn't expand to take advantage of the screen real estate on the bigger display (if the developers didn't build it in). The good thing about this is that for the Pixel Fold, because of the aspect ratio of the inside screen, you can have two regular sized apps splitting the screen side by side and it looks really good.
  Google is doing this though to force app developers to start making tablet optimized apps and is even incentivizing developers by pushing their apps to the featured page of the Google Play Store once their app fully supports tablet displays. Apps that don't make the change however, will have a message displayed for us foldable or Android tablet users that will say something like, "This app may not be fully compatible with your display," when we go to install it.
  A lot of information but yeah that's the current foldable situation. I've been using foldables since the first Galaxy Z Fold and am now on the Pixel Fold. Absolutely love folding devices and will never return to a traditional slab phone.
  
  The Material Design 3 guidelines expresses how content should flow with foldable with slight differences compared to a tablet, for example:
  https://m3.material.io/foundations/layout/canonical-layouts/list-detail
  But you can mostly get away with a standard, two-pane layout as you would a tablet, though the center padding may be off.
  You probably want the center 24dp spacer to be where the crease is, but it gets a bit complicated if you want to use a Nav Rail since it'll offset your layout by 80dp. Here is a web based demo of what the configurations can look like.

the hype!

Oh my God this is great. I've hated the other Lemmy apps. It feels so much more natural.

I put in in pre-install mode in my Google Play, as soon as it's available, it will be installed automatically, how cool :)

Loving it so far

Where do we purchase the pro version (I know there is ultra through the subscription, but it was noted earlier that a one time payment option would also be available for ads).
- Dev mentioned a pro full price version is coming in the future, the ultra subscription was to keep online sync features that requires a server apparently
  Edit: I just bought it :)
  
  Ahh gotcha. I just said fuck it and got the annual. Hopefully Google can continue to find it through opinion rewards haha
- In Beta 25, in the account switcher in the top left is a "Remove Ads" button. It's $19.99 one time. No word yet on the price for a lifetime Ultra subscription.

Now we just gotta grow this community and put reddit out of Business
- Reddit will put themselves out of business, they don't need help.
  Sp3z is no Lukas Matsson. Probably more of a Kendall.

God it's so good to be back

It was great to pay a one time fee for Ultra when I had Sync for Reddit. But it was probably one of the most supported pieces of software I've ever purchased. I'm happy to continue supporting the developer by paying an annual subscription. He's not Spez and he's not stealing from me by providing and continuing to update a wonderful app.

Sync for Lemmy dev didn't disappoint. Bravo and well done.

Yay. Glad to be back! I refused to download the official reddit app.

Testing with Sync.
- Verifying your test case with Sync.
  
  Yep.
  
  Thanks!
  
  Observing your short exchange on sync

Liking it so far!

Anyone know if it will support kbin on release?
- I don't believe so, mainly because I don't think the Kbin API is released publicly yet. The only Kbin app I'm aware of at this time is the upcoming !artemisapp@kbin.social.
  
  I think it's nearing release. Artemis, the only real kbin app, used to use a scraper but the dev recently said she's rewriting it using the API now.
- Eventually, but not when it initially releases

Oh shit fam, another catalyst to hopefully help critical mass along.
Congrats to the dev, now they're not dependent on the whims like the enshitifier that is spez (fuck that guy).

I logged into reddit for that post. Man, I do not miss reddit at all.

Testing testing, 1-2-3 ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
- Hello, World!

So I was using Connect for Lemmy which doesn't have ads injected, so to see this on Sync I'm disappointed.
- I'm using connect until AdMob gets addressed