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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
by 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 agoYou can run electron on PinePhone in fullscreen, it works as you'd expect.
- pineyboi 6y agoThere'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.