7 ms·

Do these support Android apps? How would I develop a native app for one of these?

Shared404 6y ago
> Do these support Android apps? They do not, at least not yet. They may support anbox at some point, but that's not a given. > How would I develop a native app for one of these? The same as you would for any Linux distro. I would check out Plasma Mobile, as they have toolkit's and a workflow already in place is my understanding.
- mikece 6y ago
  > They do not, at least not yet. And hopefully never. Almost all Android apps rely on the closed-source GMS for essential functionality (eg: push notifications). There will need to be an open alternative to GMS if the goal is to support Android apps but a better idea would be to abandon Android as template basis going forward.
  - vinay427 6y ago
    There are a number of apps I use and depend on that work fine without Google services. Signal comes to mind, for instance. I agree that a better template would be great, but I can't imagine we'll get there anytime soon, and I would love to use my PinePhone as a daily driver in the near future. I won't do this without a few key apps that don't have direct alternatives considering some people with whom I would like to communicate only use these options. I think getting people onto devices that support open and flexible alternatives is the first step to actually converting users to these alternatives. I won't switch to a platform that doesn't let me communicate with people I know, and I wouldn't expect others to do so either. However, I could get people to switch from a less convenient option (e.g. Signal on Anbox) to a more convenient option (e.g. Matrix for messaging) in time.
    - oropolo 6y ago
      > I agree that a better template would be great... Is there a serious effort on this front? At the very least a mobile version of Electron[1] applications would be a great interim step: you just need a browser for the UI and performance-critical bits can be written in C/C++ for accuracy and speed. Ultimately a modular UI paradigm can replace the dependence on a browser but that is likely years down the road. [1] Cordova used to be the model; Ionic's Capacitor project is far more advanced but targeting iOS and Android specifically.
      - megous 6y ago
        You can run electron on PinePhone in fullscreen, it works as you'd expect.
    - pineyboi 6y ago
      There's some work being done to make Signal work more natively on Linux (though not from Moxie directly) This is a daemon that provides an API for signal https://git.callpipe.com/finn/signald https://git.callpipe.com/finn/signald This is a libpurple plugin for it (Pidgin messenger, or even irssi, Weechat etc) https://github.com/hoehermann/libpurple-signald https://github.com/hoehermann/libpurple-signald Chatty, the SMS messenger that works in Phosh also supports libpurple plugins, so presumably Signal could work alongside SMS (The SMS feature itself is a libpurple plugin IIRC) https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/chatty https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/chatty I've used libpurple-signald with irssi and it works alright. It's not feature complete yet by a long shot, but much nicer to interact with than the Electron bloat.
      - finnn 6y ago
        https://gitlab.com/thefinn93/signald/-/issues/52#note_406669306 https://gitlab.com/thefinn93/signald/-/issues/52#note_406669... has some details about the issues running Chatty with libpurple-signald
        pineyboi 6y ago
        Thanks for all your work!
  - blendergeek 6y ago
    > Almost all Android apps rely on the closed-source GMS for essential functionality (eg: push notifications). There is a very fine repository of fully-free Android apps hosted at https://f-droid.org https://f-droid.org. Further, I would argue that "almost all" Android apps that are free software can easily be tweaked to not rely on Google Play Services. Non-free Android apps will not be made any better by becoming nonfree GNU/Linux apps.
  - eblanshey 6y ago
    Is that not what mods like MicroG provide?
blendergeek 6y ago
> How would I develop a native app for one of these? I would recommend using GTK and LibHandy. Purism has written some tutorials on their blog about writing apps for mobile GNU/Linux systems [1]. [1] https://puri.sm/posts/tag/advanced-readers/ https://puri.sm/posts/tag/advanced-readers/
squeezingswirls 6y ago
To develop native apps for UBports (Ubuntu Touch) you can use https://clickable-ut.dev/en/latest/ https://clickable-ut.dev/en/latest/ About Android apps, there's the Anbox project but it needs a lot of work yet.
avery42 6y ago
Anbox already works quite well on Arch Linux ARM. https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pine64-Arch/ https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pine64-Arch/
linmob 6y ago
There is initial support for Android apps via Anbox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGpfleG8TMg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGpfleG8TMg Also an Android ROM called GloDroid exists: https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/a368a023-ce44-44f0-a42d-f8880dc65529 https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/a368a023-ce44-44f0-a42d-... Native app development depends on the OS, it differs whether you would develop for Ubuntu Touch, the GNOME on Mobile effort by Purism or for Plasma Mobile.

> Do these support Android apps? They do not, at least not yet. They may support anbox at some point, but that's not a given. > How would I develop a native app for one of these? The same as you would for any Linux distro. I would check out Plasma Mobile, as they have toolkit's and a workflow already in place is my understanding.

mikece 6y ago
> They do not, at least not yet. And hopefully never. Almost all Android apps rely on the closed-source GMS for essential functionality (eg: push notifications). There will need to be an open alternative to GMS if the goal is to support Android apps but a better idea would be to abandon Android as template basis going forward.
- vinay427 6y ago
  There are a number of apps I use and depend on that work fine without Google services. Signal comes to mind, for instance. I agree that a better template would be great, but I can't imagine we'll get there anytime soon, and I would love to use my PinePhone as a daily driver in the near future. I won't do this without a few key apps that don't have direct alternatives considering some people with whom I would like to communicate only use these options. I think getting people onto devices that support open and flexible alternatives is the first step to actually converting users to these alternatives. I won't switch to a platform that doesn't let me communicate with people I know, and I wouldn't expect others to do so either. However, I could get people to switch from a less convenient option (e.g. Signal on Anbox) to a more convenient option (e.g. Matrix for messaging) in time.
  - oropolo 6y ago
    > I agree that a better template would be great... Is there a serious effort on this front? At the very least a mobile version of Electron[1] applications would be a great interim step: you just need a browser for the UI and performance-critical bits can be written in C/C++ for accuracy and speed. Ultimately a modular UI paradigm can replace the dependence on a browser but that is likely years down the road. [1] Cordova used to be the model; Ionic's Capacitor project is far more advanced but targeting iOS and Android specifically.
    - megous 6y ago
      You can run electron on PinePhone in fullscreen, it works as you'd expect.
  - pineyboi 6y ago
    There's some work being done to make Signal work more natively on Linux (though not from Moxie directly) This is a daemon that provides an API for signal https://git.callpipe.com/finn/signald https://git.callpipe.com/finn/signald This is a libpurple plugin for it (Pidgin messenger, or even irssi, Weechat etc) https://github.com/hoehermann/libpurple-signald https://github.com/hoehermann/libpurple-signald Chatty, the SMS messenger that works in Phosh also supports libpurple plugins, so presumably Signal could work alongside SMS (The SMS feature itself is a libpurple plugin IIRC) https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/chatty https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/chatty I've used libpurple-signald with irssi and it works alright. It's not feature complete yet by a long shot, but much nicer to interact with than the Electron bloat.
    - finnn 6y ago
      https://gitlab.com/thefinn93/signald/-/issues/52#note_406669306 https://gitlab.com/thefinn93/signald/-/issues/52#note_406669... has some details about the issues running Chatty with libpurple-signald
      - pineyboi 6y ago
        Thanks for all your work!
- blendergeek 6y ago
  > Almost all Android apps rely on the closed-source GMS for essential functionality (eg: push notifications). There is a very fine repository of fully-free Android apps hosted at https://f-droid.org https://f-droid.org. Further, I would argue that "almost all" Android apps that are free software can easily be tweaked to not rely on Google Play Services. Non-free Android apps will not be made any better by becoming nonfree GNU/Linux apps.
- eblanshey 6y ago
  Is that not what mods like MicroG provide?

blendergeek 6y ago

> How would I develop a native app for one of these? I would recommend using GTK and LibHandy. Purism has written some tutorials on their blog about writing apps for mobile GNU/Linux systems [1]. [1] https://puri.sm/posts/tag/advanced-readers/ https://puri.sm/posts/tag/advanced-readers/

squeezingswirls 6y ago

To develop native apps for UBports (Ubuntu Touch) you can use https://clickable-ut.dev/en/latest/ https://clickable-ut.dev/en/latest/ About Android apps, there's the Anbox project but it needs a lot of work yet.

avery42 6y ago

Anbox already works quite well on Arch Linux ARM. https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pine64-Arch/ https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pine64-Arch/

linmob 6y ago

There is initial support for Android apps via Anbox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGpfleG8TMg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGpfleG8TMg Also an Android ROM called GloDroid exists: https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/a368a023-ce44-44f0-a42d-f8880dc65529 https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/a368a023-ce44-44f0-a42d-... Native app development depends on the OS, it differs whether you would develop for Ubuntu Touch, the GNOME on Mobile effort by Purism or for Plasma Mobile.