Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad

bunt7

This post is deleted!

atarilinux

Not sure if it is still ok to add some things to this post, but there are a couple of things I've noticed as I keep working with Ubuntu Touch. Again, this is mostly on the "nice to have side."

Lock Screen Widgets

I play a lot of music on my phone, but everytime I need to change something, I have to unlock the screen. Having a quick way to play/pause, change tracks, etc. would be nice. Other widgets could be weather, etc.

Music Organization (More app specific)

Music is incorrectly organized. Search by artist and two artists have the same album name, the songs are grouped togeter. It looks like it groups on Artist Name, Album, or Song without any "keys."

Hardware Docking stations

Not sure about other phones, but I can't use a hardware dock with mine to turn it into a computer.

Sharing Libraries between Waydroid and Ubuntu Touch

Often times, I need to send a picture or download a picture in one OS and do something with the picture in another OS. Having an easy to find "Shared" folder between OS's and having folders that aren't shared could help with this scenario. I'm fine with transferring by USB if I need to. I can understand if this is not recommended for any security issues.

Safely Remove USB

Sometimes the USB Drive can be safely removed...others times it can't. It gives an Unmount Error. It is kind of inconsistant.

Volume too loud message

I play music via AUX in my car. The volume on the phone is all the way up on the phone, but the volume in the car controls how loud or soft I want to hear the music. The message gives me a Volume Too Loud message with an OK or cancel. Sometimes when I hit OK it seems like I can't toggle the volume on the phone. Due to this, the fidelity is not as good.

Music File Formats

The music player can't read ALAC. Some people transferring these file formats would need to look at other formats to play the music.

arubislander

@atarilinux said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad:

Lock Screen Widgets

I play a lot of music on my phone, but everytime I need to change something, I have to unlock the screen. Having a quick way to play/pause, change tracks, etc. would be nice. Other widgets could be weather, etc.

For the play / pause at least, if you pull down from the indicator panel on the lock screen, under the volume indicator you get media controls.

...
3. Hardware Docking stations

Not sure about other phones, but I can't use a hardware dock with mine to turn it into a computer.

Support for hardware docking is dependent on exactly that, the hardware of the device.

Sharing Libraries between Waydroid and Ubuntu Touch

Often times, I need to send a picture or download a picture in one OS and do something with the picture in another OS. Having an easy to find "Shared" folder between OS's and having folders that aren't shared could help with this scenario. I'm fine with transferring by USB if I need to. I can understand if this is not recommended for any security issues.

Have you noticed the app waydroid files in the Open Store? I don't have any use for it myself, but it seems to do exactly what you need, based on the description.

...
7. Music File Formats

The music player can't read ALAC. Some people transferring these file formats would need to look at other formats to play the music.

~~What formats can or cannot be played on the device is also dependent on the codecs the device comes with.~~

EDIT (2026-02-26): As @gpatel-fr correctly pointed out, this is not the case for audio codecs. And strictly speaking it is not the case for video codecs either. But it is just that for unsupported video codecs you could get apps to render the videos, but that would not be hardware accelerated, and the playback would probably be choppy, or use a lot of CPU.

atarilinux

@arubislander

Thanks for your detailed response! I will try some of the things you mentioned!

gpatel-fr

@arubislander said in Smooth Edges (name pending) - Let's Fix the Bugs That Drive You Mad:

What formats can or cannot be played on the device is also dependent on the codecs the device comes with.

You seem to imply that it is a device specific problem and that it's all a matter of what the Android version could support. I just tested a fix for my phone not being able to play .amr files and it did not imply any Halium trickery, I'm pretty sure that any UT phone has the same problem and that the fix would apply for all.

arubislander

@gpatel-fr Aha, so for audio codecs it is a question of the right flags and necessary libraries. I will amend my answer then.

gpatel-fr

@arubislander said:

it is not the case for video codecs either

indeed. This week-end I tried seriously to add ffmpeg codecs to my FP5 with 24.04-1.2 stable and basically succeeded, see https://gitlab.com/ubports/development/core/lomiri-messaging-app/-/issues/359#note_3122981838
So it is possible to play ALAC files with the existing UT applications (mediaplayer...). The fact that it is slower than when accelerated by the hardware is true of course, but a not too old processor like the FP5 one is powerful enough to handle simple video files without acceleration (did not try 4K though).

kristatos

Yesterday all of our SIP in Germany stated, that they will shutdown MMS at the end of June. So it's important to have an alternative as RCS for people who need this kind of service.

kristatos

Since we're in July, MMS is no longer available in Germany. So for now, we're not able to send Photo/Video/Audio without relying to any of these instant-messenger out there.

pparent

@kristatos said:

Since we're in July, MMS is no longer available in Germany. So for now, we're not able to send Photo/Video/Audio without relying to any of these instant-messenger out there.

I think RCS should be a top priority for UT, as it is currently one of its most important missing feature!

projectmoon

Is it even possible to implement RCS in a completely open source way at the moment? Since it seems to be stuck inside Play Services, and Apple just doesn't care about it? Like, could I go out and buy some random Nokia feature phone for 80 EUR and would it work with RCS?

RCS was supposed to be a replacement for SMS, which means it should Just Work (TM) at the SIM level after the implementation is done in the code for the thing that manages the SIM (ofono, in this case). But it seems like in reality it has been implemented in some weird way where Google somehow controls it entirely on Android, and not all RCS connections play nicely together? The whole thing is a mess.

domubpkm

@projectmoon I question IA about android ROM's : you are right :

The answer :

In summary: the RCS protocol is very difficult to deploy on most alternative Android ROMs independent of the Google Play Store. Here's why:

Main Technical Issues

RCS heavily depends on Google services

The standard RCS stack uses Google's proprietary Jibe backend
It requires Play Services to function properly
The Google Messages application is virtually indispensable, as most carriers only authorize it through this app
2. Blocking integrity checks Recently, Google has implemented Play Integrity API attestations that prevent using Google Messages on modified systems like:

GrapheneOS: explicitly states that "RCS is practically impossible" without Google services

LineageOS without GApps: the default AOSP messaging app does not support RCS because it is not open source

Possible Alternative Solutions

Option 1: Installing microG + Google Messages has low viability due to being blocked by Play Integrity checks.

Option 2: Self-hosted RCS server remains theoretical since there is currently no mainstream open-source implementation available.

Option 3: Using partial GApps offers medium viability but represents a compromise on the privacy you sought when choosing an alternative ROM.

Conclusion

To use RCS reliably, you are practically forced to keep some form of Google services. If your priority is privacy (hence the choice of an alternative ROM), this represents a notable compromise between modern messaging features and de-googling your system.

Fully open solutions exist theoretically but severely lack operational implementations accessible to average users.

Maybe possible but very difficult !