Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad
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@Sentinel said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad:
Lack of easy access to Waydroid files (and Waydroid not having easy access to any UT files) is kind of a big issue. I've created a SystemD service to auto-mount the Waydroid folder on UT side, but most people won't be able to do that.
Could you share that system unit in another topic maybe?
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@Sentinel said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad:
this thread is about reasons why people can't switch to or keep using UT
Not the person who downvoted you - I never do that - but I'm not sure you understood fully the topic. If you reread it, you'll notice that it states something like 'we all know that UT has rough edges'. And the title specified 'bugs that drive you mad'. It was an incitation to priorize, not throw the kitchen sink at everything that crosses your mind about what could be better. In my reply I have strived to think about the problem giving the better ratio effort/result.
There is a whole web site dedicated to Windows annoyances, believe me when I say that it's far from empty and this is an OS that was a runaway success.
Listing everything is not useful and can be demoralizing for a small team, and using demeaning terms can be seen as bad even if adding a perfunctory 'sorry', and adding another for the length of your post. While your post contains interesting points, being long shows that you did not read the topic carefully. Sorry
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@Keneda said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad:
If people can migrate from android to apple and the other way without worrying about their data, that's because those companies understood people will not migrate if their data can't migrate with them
Are you saying that there is integrated into Android and IOS a way to get at your history from the other operating system and get back all your SMS threads and telephony calls ?
I am not caring about this particularly, for the record I just give it a look and found the telephony history into a sqlite3 database under ~/.local/share/history-service and (I think since it's more murky) the sms data is under ~/.local/share/nuntium. So backing the home directory should be enough to back up all this data (rsync could be used even if a cloud backup could be seen as a great idea by many), however I don't think that investing time to port/get this data from every OS under the sun would be a great idea given all the Really Important Things (TM) that need to be done.
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It's sifnificative that the main use of UT is Waydroid. So, we want to use a Linux distro to run .exe files. Maybe, you do not want to use a Linux distro, maybe you want to use Windows but you don't like it.
Another planet, another time, another universe!
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@CiberSheep Waydroid runs .apk files, not .exe files. So: Android apps.
That said, it's as true now as ever that the happiest UT users are those who aren't interested in running Android applications.
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@gpatel-fr
@gpatel-fr said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad:Are you saying that there is integrated into Android and IOS a way to get at your history from the other operating system and get back all your SMS threads and telephony calls ?
Yes, kind of.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/118670
https://support.google.com/android/answer/13626960?hl=en&sjid=12124687779136252823-EUAnd regarding save and restore only (not transferring), Ubuntu Touch targets all user types, not only powerusers, so rsync or things like that is not relevant for the "normal" user.
I know work has been done for integrating a save and restore tool to the UBports installer, did see some image even I remember. -
@CiberSheep the dream of Waydroid-less UT died with every bank under the sun choosing to implement PSD2 with custom apps
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@Keneda said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad:
Yes, kind of.
Thanks, interesting. It's worthy of note that - as could be expected - these corporations only provide a way to migrate to their own platform, not from their things to competing services. If you want to go away of me, take care of yourself, they say. Note sure it would be realist to expect otherwise of anyone.
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I’d like to add my vote regarding the camera—it’s the main limitation for me. From what I understand, this isn’t something that can be fixed simply by creating a new camera app, as the issue seems to run through multiple levels of the system. As far as I recall, the core limitation is already present in Halium: shots take too long, not all features are exposed, higher resolutions can easily overexpose, and overall the photos look far worse compared to what Android delivers.
Of course, this is likely a per-device issue, making a universal fix difficult. Still, there are numerous GCam tweaks available for different devices, and I wonder if a similar approach could be explored for Ubuntu Touch. Even the native AOSP camera tends to work more reliably, despite its own limitations.
Running Waydroid alongside UT isn’t a viable solution either, as it consumes a lot of battery and the two environments don’t integrate well.
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But the way I would like to mention few things that are currently priority 5 to me, but that could very fast become priority 2 if alternatives are no longer are available:
- VoLTE ( should work on my vollaPhone 22 with next release I will test next week )
- e-SIM
- RCS
Also there are 2 things that could make Ubuntu Touch unusable if we don't pay attention:
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Identity checking: that currently in France very few people is doing through the smartphone, but the gouvernement is currently developing a solution for Google/Apple only. I've contacted them about that. I known in some countries it is already far worse, like bankid sweeden.
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Banking an Payment apps. Again for now I don't care because I can pay with my credit card (and prefer to do so anyway), and banks offer alternatives to authentication with app if you really ask to (with SMS or Yubikey ).
Again now those two points are not a problem for me right now, but it could change fast, so we should all make sure to be as loud as possible, and not quietly accept to use their Google play store app (even if it's more or less possible for now with compatibility layer, it would be quite easy for google to cut that away in the future), to make sure alternatives remain available, and we are not locked away. Especially because European law officially gives us the right to ask for interoperable alternatives. Because Ubuntu Touch can be as good as we want, if we get excluded from official/compulsory services for using it, it will prevent us all from using it as a daily driver.
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Sorry if I upset someone, but in my opinion use of Waydroid should be anecdotic, not a goal. The development team is small, and I think they should concentrate is making UT the best they can.
Additionally I think a user that doesn't install UT because of the lack of Waydroid, as a user that hopes to run .exe files in a Linux repo, is a user that will not swap to UT when Waydroid works better because they will lack some other random Android thing. This has happened before, this will happen again.So let's repeat again all together: UT is not Android.
Extra ball, you don't have to use other OS's app for bank if you complain to the bank. Advantages to be old I guess.
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@zubozrout said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad:
the camera—it’s the main limitation for me. From what I understand, this isn’t something that can be fixed simply by creating a new camera app, as the issue seems to run through multiple levels of the system. As far as I recall, the core limitation is already present in Halium: shots take too long, not all features are exposed, higher resolutions can easily overexpose, and overall the photos look far worse compared to what Android delivers.
Not sure exactly what is the problem as there too many you cite; maybe the main problem is that you have high expectations and are an elite user about photo. That's a bit like judging of a computer system by a music expert, these guys can detect one tenth of second of delay, a fourth of a tone, minute details that beotians like me can't even perceive whatever effort they do. And I'm not so atypical from what I gather of the judgement of these music experts on the efforts of spontaneous singers in public events (they are utterly awful - however I never noticed it before being said so).
So what's wrong with photo app of UT for someone like me? the focus for near objects. When taking a photo and the subject is half a meter (let's say one foot for our US friends) away, the focus is terrible, like, the keys on a keyboard can hardly be deciphered, and waiting does not provide much relief. In contrast, a Waydroid photo on the same device in exactly the same setup looks correct.
This does not look like an unfixable problem, since switching to film, the focus at the same distance is correct. I just tried it and it seems that after taking a short film, the focus is then correct for taking a photo. While this is hardly a workaround, it make me think that for the photo app being usable for ignoramuses like myself (and I'd say 99% of users), it is probably not necessary to rebuild the whole system including Halium.
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I'm going to throw in a "nice to have" feature. I wouldn't say it is a bug.
Having a filter to only show my native Ubuntu Touch Apps, Desktop Apps, and Waydroid apps would be very helpful. Putting them all together can cause some user accidents. Oops...I just accidentally opened a desktop app, but I don't have a proper screen near by to see what I am doing. Oops...I just accidentally opened Waydroid and I can expect some loading times and more battery usage, etc. I can see how that can be potentially frustrating.
Sometimes I want my phone to only be an Ubuntu Phone phone with native Ubuntu Touch phone apps. Sometimes I want to run Waydroid when I know I have enough battery, and other times, I want it to be a "Pocket PC" when I have a proper screen, keyboard, and mouse.
Being able to select what I want to show would be helpful, and if I want to show all, I could do that too.
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@atarilinux Maybe adding an icon in a corner for indicating desktop app or waydroid app or snap might be a first step to reduce such mistakes. But I agree, having a filter might be good in the long run if we have more apps of those types (thinking also of crackle or nix).
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Improvements on the bug I reported above after 24.04-1.1:
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Sometimes the phone will boot with only one of the 2 sim working or even none of them,
Seems completely solved -
"The interface is sometimes kind of sluggish, or will freeze for a fraction of a second" : Has improved significantly with 24.04-1.1. Still not always perfectly fluid, but honestly this is very acceptable, the system is quite fast.
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"Gps positioning does not work reliably in webview (in comparison to puremaps)" : There is some improvements with 24.04-1.1, it sometimes works in ideal conditions, but it is still unreliable and will still freeze/crash very easily while it works reliably on Pure-maps.
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'It often looses celular data connection.': I'm progressing in the investigation, seems to be an IP loss problem, I might be able to write a script to automatically do dhclient when needed as a temporary workaround. https://forums.ubports.com/topic/11700/bug-data-mobile-interface-looses-ip
Which means we're getting closer and closer to a system perfectly suited to my needs, thank you so much.
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@gpatel-fr said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad:
I'm not sure you understood fully the topic. If you reread it, you'll notice that it states something like 'we all know that UT has rough edges'. And the title specified 'bugs that drive you mad'. It was an incitation to priorize, not throw the kitchen sink at everything that crosses your mind about what could be better.
I felt my post looked quite similar to many others early in the thread, and I don't understand the point you are trying to make, but sorry if I somehow misunderstood the purpose of this thread. I found out about this thread because I watched Ubuntu Touch Q&A 179 ( https://youtu.be/jIcfYORt6P4?t=1322 ), where Marius described it as "Making U.T. more attractive for the masses", while his opening post says "the stuff that actually stops UT from being a usable daily driver". And I felt that's pretty much what my points were (you may think them minor, but as a potential new user I found most of them major annoyances if not actual blockers).
Well, I won't argue further. I was trying to contribute to this thread, and having done that to the best of my ability, I'll move on. Once Waydroid gets better on U.T. (and some of my bugs apparently don't exist for others), then it's quite likely to become my main phone.
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said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad:
It's sifnificative that the main use of UT is Waydroid. So, we want to use a Linux distro to run .exe files. Maybe, you do not want to use a Linux distro, maybe you want to use Windows but you don't like it.
I obviously pressed some of your buttons. I'm not going to get drawn into a debate, or answer your straw-man false accusations, but I will say that I see Waydroid as helping ease the transition from an Android phone, and some Android apps as an unavoidable necessity until U.T. gains alternative native apps.
If U.T. doesn't want any Android apps, then why does it have a port of Waydroid? Why does Wine or Steam exist on Linux? No need to answer my rhetorical questions (I won't reply as it's off topic!), I am just trying to nudge you towards a less black & white perspective. Not everyone is the same as you!
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@Sentinel said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad:
I felt my post looked quite similar to many others early in the thread
Well, yes, absolutely, I was too harsh in singling you out, because for sure some other people were also doing the same.
The point I was trying to make is that a big part of being a leader is to priorize, and it's particularly important with a small project like UT, and thinking that priorization is easy is a very big mistake, leaders are not omniscient people who know miraculously how to best priorize. Putting a few dozen prople together to enumerate all what is bugging them is not so useful if no reasoning is done on why the points made are important from the point of view of wider adoption.
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Excellent project, many thanks to Marius and all others involved!
Priority 2:
-RCS: lacking RCS isn't a bug exactly. But where I live it's a missing part of core phone functionality at this point, especially when UT's MMS lacks Group Messages and (for me, across devices) has always missed some messages outright. This is the single biggest reason I haven't gotten anyone to switch to UT here in Canada. MMS/RCS is an expected baseline way to communicate in Canada and USA, and increasingly RCS is ubiquitous. It's a much bigger problem now that iOS and Android talk to each other smoothly, as people expect you've seen their message, and you don't know anything was sent.
But that's probably a big task, and I know this isn't a big issue in lots of the world.Priority 3:
-Autocorrect: I may be in the minority, but I've always used autocorrect in UT. I've heard it dismissed in Q&As as not worth using, but it's really not that bad, and I think a lot of new users expect decent autocorrect. I wouldn't expect it to get to the level of android/iOS with context-dependent editing, but fixing a few bugs that I'm long since accustomed to would make the existing UT autocorrect pretty decent. Happy to chat in greater detail about specifics.-Screen flicker during calls: on Oneplus 1, Oneplus 5, and Oneplus N10, 16.04 and 20.04, when on a phone call the screen will sort of flicker off and on, making it difficult to use anything else while on a call, and sometimes also hard to shut the screen off. I have not yet tried 24.04.
-GPS crashes/freezes navigation apps: this occurs in Morph, uNav, and Puremaps in different ways for different users. Most of us have some workaround, but it'd be a very nice bug (or set of bugs) to have fixed.
Priority 4:
-Notches and Rounded CornersPriority 5:
-AGPS
-Backup/Restore: some native OS way to handle this, including backing up data from apps that store your work outside the normal home folder, like Recorder.Thanks a million to the developers who're working on this. I really think this is exactly the sort of effort that could grow the userbase, which leads to more devs, more donations, and as such more progress in a positive feedback loop
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(had to post as picture, as the text was for some reason flagged as spam by Aksimet on this forum)
