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Tangent > Hopefully you aren’t relying on any abandoned software. Every major Android update, I get scared. I use an alarm clock (Gentle Alarm) that has far m

Tangent > Hopefully you aren’t relying on any abandoned software. Every major Android update, I get scared. I use an alarm clock (Gentle Alarm) that has far more features than all others, but it’s been long abandoned (as in: removed from the play store, all websites dead. This was a paid app). Android 10 or 11 already broke it, but someone on reddit (where all 4 or so users of the app met :D) found a manifest change and allowing "drawing over other apps" to fix it. Now it works on 12, but after I already spent hours asking on HN and Reddit for a maintained replacement and testing those, I hope this continues, because with how lacking all others are I’d rather learn Android development and program my own replacement than using something else. edit: Hah! The thread [0] with the fixed APK is still getting comments from people who found it every few months :D [0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/i01xh3/gentle_alarm_fixed_for_android_10/ https://old.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/i01xh3/gentle_...

xani_ 4y ago
I use starfield as screensaver since pretty much first android phones, just keep old APK from few years and it still works
thetinguy 4y ago
I have seen release notes about automated fixes Apple themselves for apps in the App Store that haven’t been updated recently.
ncmncm 4y ago
Probably you should decompile it, instead of starting from scratch. This is made easier because apps are distributed in bytecode form, and compiled to machine code on installation. The bytecode is retained in the .apk file, IIUC.
wazoox 4y ago
What's so special about that app? So that we know
- Semaphor 4y ago
  > When setting the alarm, by default I want to have the option to set it in hours/minutes from now. So instead of setting the alarm for 04:30, I want to tell it to set it in 6h30m from now. > I need it to allow me to set a time of X minutes during which it gets louder until it reaches the pre-set volume. > pre-alarm: It’s an alarm that goes off X minutes before your main alarm, at a very low volume, with its own settings of volume, time to reach full volume, media to play, etc. From my Reddit thread [0] back then. It was the upgrade to 10 that did it. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/jvbsuz/looking_for_alarm_app_set_alarm_in_xhym_volume/ https://www.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/jvbsuz/looking...
  - tambourine_man 4y ago
    This looks awesome. It's the perfect example of way too many features for a built in app, which is supposed to be used by the general public, but a wonderful fit for a very specific niche that should be addressed by third party. I feel you and that's why we need more open source software.
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      Several of those features have subfeatures, and then there are more that I don’t use. It’s exactly my kind of app, one that does everything, and everything well ;) My favorite Windows apps are the same (MediaMonkey, EmEditor, and DirectoryOpus), paid apps with tons of features, more than I need, but also all that I need.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    Isn't setting an alarm a distance from now vs a set time called a "timer"?
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      Technically, I guess? But it behaves exactly like an alarm (it is actually just the input, if it’s 13:00, and I set the alarm-timer for 6h, the app will set an alarm for 19:00, not a 6h countdown).
Wowfunhappy 4y ago
This is a problem with how we treat backwards compatibility on mobile operating systems. Imagine if this was an app for Windows. Would you still be scared of updating? This is why no one ever pays more than a couple bucks for a mobile app. That would be a terrible investment, as the app could break at any time! Similarly, this is why mobile will never be a good platform for traditional single-player video games.
- phoboslab 4y ago
  Very true. Apple has removed several of my games (all working perfectly fine) because, well, they felt like it: > Since this app hasn’t been updated within the last three years [...] it has been removed from the App Store
  - musicale 4y ago
    I hate this. I don't think it's the right approach to improving search and discoverability in the app store. (My personal suggestion for instantly improving it 100% would be removing ads that eat up the first half-screen of search results on an iPhone.) I also greatly dislike how iOS takes the backwards approach of offloading backward compatibility as a yearly support burden multiplied across every developer - rather than maintaining it in the OS. Platforms are supposed to absorb developer pain for multiplicative benefit - not the other way around.
    - kitsunesoba 4y ago
      As a developer I’m not sure that I agree. Some degree of backwards compatibility is good, but it quickly becomes an unwieldy burden that acts as a ball and chain on the development of the OS and platform toolkit. Among modern operating systems, iOS is probably the worst in terms of backwards compatibility but it’s also one of the most pleasant to develop for — UIKit/Cocoa is unrivaled in terms of both breadth and depth. One can easily build a top class iOS app with few or no third party dependencies, which is not the case on most other platforms. I don’t think that’s a coincidence… if the iOS dev team were encumbered with maintaining backwards compatibility for upwards of a decade it would be much more difficult to build such a complete and polished toolkit.

xani_ 4y ago

I use starfield as screensaver since pretty much first android phones, just keep old APK from few years and it still works

thetinguy 4y ago

I have seen release notes about automated fixes Apple themselves for apps in the App Store that haven’t been updated recently.

ncmncm 4y ago

Probably you should decompile it, instead of starting from scratch. This is made easier because apps are distributed in bytecode form, and compiled to machine code on installation. The bytecode is retained in the .apk file, IIUC.

wazoox 4y ago

What's so special about that app? So that we know

Semaphor 4y ago
> When setting the alarm, by default I want to have the option to set it in hours/minutes from now. So instead of setting the alarm for 04:30, I want to tell it to set it in 6h30m from now. > I need it to allow me to set a time of X minutes during which it gets louder until it reaches the pre-set volume. > pre-alarm: It’s an alarm that goes off X minutes before your main alarm, at a very low volume, with its own settings of volume, time to reach full volume, media to play, etc. From my Reddit thread [0] back then. It was the upgrade to 10 that did it. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/jvbsuz/looking_for_alarm_app_set_alarm_in_xhym_volume/ https://www.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/jvbsuz/looking...
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  This looks awesome. It's the perfect example of way too many features for a built in app, which is supposed to be used by the general public, but a wonderful fit for a very specific niche that should be addressed by third party. I feel you and that's why we need more open source software.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    Several of those features have subfeatures, and then there are more that I don’t use. It’s exactly my kind of app, one that does everything, and everything well ;) My favorite Windows apps are the same (MediaMonkey, EmEditor, and DirectoryOpus), paid apps with tons of features, more than I need, but also all that I need.
- dylan604 4y ago
  Isn't setting an alarm a distance from now vs a set time called a "timer"?
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    Technically, I guess? But it behaves exactly like an alarm (it is actually just the input, if it’s 13:00, and I set the alarm-timer for 6h, the app will set an alarm for 19:00, not a 6h countdown).

Wowfunhappy 4y ago

This is a problem with how we treat backwards compatibility on mobile operating systems. Imagine if this was an app for Windows. Would you still be scared of updating? This is why no one ever pays more than a couple bucks for a mobile app. That would be a terrible investment, as the app could break at any time! Similarly, this is why mobile will never be a good platform for traditional single-player video games.

phoboslab 4y ago
Very true. Apple has removed several of my games (all working perfectly fine) because, well, they felt like it: > Since this app hasn’t been updated within the last three years [...] it has been removed from the App Store
- musicale 4y ago
  I hate this. I don't think it's the right approach to improving search and discoverability in the app store. (My personal suggestion for instantly improving it 100% would be removing ads that eat up the first half-screen of search results on an iPhone.) I also greatly dislike how iOS takes the backwards approach of offloading backward compatibility as a yearly support burden multiplied across every developer - rather than maintaining it in the OS. Platforms are supposed to absorb developer pain for multiplicative benefit - not the other way around.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    As a developer I’m not sure that I agree. Some degree of backwards compatibility is good, but it quickly becomes an unwieldy burden that acts as a ball and chain on the development of the OS and platform toolkit. Among modern operating systems, iOS is probably the worst in terms of backwards compatibility but it’s also one of the most pleasant to develop for — UIKit/Cocoa is unrivaled in terms of both breadth and depth. One can easily build a top class iOS app with few or no third party dependencies, which is not the case on most other platforms. I don’t think that’s a coincidence… if the iOS dev team were encumbered with maintaining backwards compatibility for upwards of a decade it would be much more difficult to build such a complete and polished toolkit.