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

[domubpkm]

Hello

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

QtWebEngine Upgrade

Hello Marius.
The work of all the developers contributing to Noble is titanic! Thanks for everything!

There are many bugs that annoy people and may deter them from continuing with UT.

But despite all these drawbacks, in my opinion (although it is not immediately blocking for me because I do otherwise), updating QtWebEngine and Morph-browser must be an absolute priority, because without an up-to-date browser, we don't do much! And I know there's a lot of work going on on it. My encouragement.

[Mario.CH]

Hi @mariogrip,

Thank you very much for all the work done by everyone involved to date.

Your suggestion in “Priority Levels” is sufficient for me, i.e. all telephone functions and Bluetooth are very important to me.
So:

• VoLTE

• SMS/MMS replacement RCS Rich Communication Services

• The device port maintenance information is also very important, not just a note such as → Last commit on 10/4/2025, but also why or for what.

• The backup function should be included in the UT installer, or at least a tutorial or other instructions.

That's what I would like to see.

Greetings Mario
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[Ida_]

This is an awesome initiative! I really love the idea, and how you see the potential in every community member to help with this project.

The one thing that gets me again and again is the keyboard crashing while I'm in an ongoing chat/SMS-exchange. That one really gets my pulse going.

[CiberSheep]

Hellohellohello.
I know, my case here is very specific: I can't quit UT and obviously I have no idea what other OS do, and I may or may not care at all. I use Unity on the desktop since 2012 and on the phone/tablet since 2015.
I'm in a place that wish for me would be do not break the OS language and philosophy.
Have been said so, the specifics could be:

Priority 2

• Morph.
  • I think that's all been said there. It's old and falling behind.
  • App menu is looooong (12 actions) and redundant (Desktop mode again?) -> use ToolBar for additional actions
  • Downloads are not integrated in the indicator since Oxide (1)

Priority 3

• OSK

  • Predictive text is getting in the way
  • Weird behavior when typing and deleting text
  • Paste is not working in between apps

• Date indicator

  • Tapping on a date doesn't show all entries in the calendars

Priority 4

• Round corner and camera thing (I can't find my proposals XD)
• App counters (I have on idea how those are called, badges? ie the number of missed calls on the Phone app). Use notifications indicator. One place for all notifications, I shouldn't have to go app per app to remove those.
• Core apps scatter UI (using random icons, different app designs, etc)
• Notes app. I know, it's kind of abandoned. But it could use some love
• Audio is always feed to earspiece and speaker (1)

Priority 5

• faster GPS
• audio playback speed (1)
• Some core apps force a specific view port, and they shouldn't (eh? Clock app, I'm looking at you)
• Dash filters for apps

Thanks for reading my podcast (does that joke translate good here?)

[uxes]

@mariogrip

For the following reasons, I migrated from Ubuntu Touch (Redmi Note 9 Pro, miatoll) to an iPhone about a month ago

The following list summarizes the most critical issues that prevented me from using Ubuntu Touch (UT) as a reliable daily driver and led to my decision to migrate. These points are sorted according to the priorities defined by the Smooth Edges project.

Bug List and Feedback for the Smooth Edges Project

Priority 1: Core System Stuff (Critical Bugs, Unusability)

• Random Lomiri crashes.
• Battery drainage – Is there a missing application sleep implementation (App States)? We need better implementation of different application states (running in background, running in foreground, suspended) for effective power management.
• Non-functional/Unfriendly OpenVPN: Prevents access to the corporate network. Setting up via the terminal is overly complicated, user-unfriendly, and ultimately unsuccessful.

Priority 2: Basic Phone Features (Core Functionality)

• Car Connectivity/Bluetooth (BT) Reliability:
  • Issues connecting the phone to the car (BT audio playback problems, car refuses to turn up music).
  • Contacts sync failure – When someone calls, only the number is displayed, not the name.
  • BT music issues (Unreliable music control): Play/Pause/Previous song sometimes doesn't work from the car/headphones.
  • BT music autoplay – Music continues playing after BT is disconnected.
• Answering phone calls while driving – A major issue due to unreliable connectivity/UI.
• Non-functional notifications for IMAP (outside of Gmail).
• Green email icon persistence: While the "Clear" button exists to dismiss all notifications, the green envelope icon (indicating new email) remains active even after simply viewing the notification list. It would be preferable if the icon reverted to a non-active state (lost its green color) after the user has checked the notifications.

Priority 3: Daily Use (Everyday Frustrations)

• Browser (Web):
  • Too old browser (Outdated QtWebEngine).
  • Firefox (alternative) has no clipboard.
  • Native browser doesn't support disabling autoplay.
  • Smoothness of web is bad.
• Multimedia and Files:
  • Unreliable Nextcloud photos sync.
  • Slow gallery loading (See: https://gitlab.com/ubports/development/apps/lomiri-gallery-app/-/issues/121).
  • Poor UX for video playback in the Camera app preview: When viewing a video immediately after recording it, clicking 'play' opens a separate Video application. This Video app remains running and open after the video finishes playback, forcing the user to manually close it before they can return to browse other media in the Camera app's preview.
• Navigation: Non-functional/unreliable navigation application – necessity to use Waydroid.
• Calendar reliability and function: There is a lack of trust in calendar synchronization (often failing with Google/Nextcloud), leading to missed meetings. Furthermore, links and call information from synced events are often not clickable/openable, preventing quick joins to meetings.
• Problem understanding call history – Unclear Call History Presentation: It is difficult to track the complete sequence of communication with a contact (e.g., multiple missed calls, outgoing calls, and answered calls) within the interface, making the chronology hard to parse.

Priority 4: Polish (UI, UX Improvements)

• Keyboard – The .tld button (e.g., .cz, .com) should be removed entirely. It is a major source of frustration and significant time loss. It is frequently misclicked instead of the spacebar, resulting in erroneous DNS errors when trying to use the address bar for quick searches (e.g., typing "query.czsearch.cz" instead of "query search ").
• History/Contacts: Clicking on contact from history won't just call, it delays me by only pre-filling the number in the dialer (See: gitlab.com/ubports/development/ubuntu-touch/-/issues/2295).
• Small buttons – Too small buttons (back), making them hard to tap accurately (See: gitlab.com/ubports/development/apps/teleports/-/issues/288) - not Teleports-only issue.
• Notification UI: The "Clean" button should float absolutely at the bottom, not relatively below all notifications.
• Feeling of security: Lack of security trust (unlocked bootloader, corporate data/banking inside Waydroid).
• Head-Up Display (Header) Clutter: Too many unnecessary icons in the header make it hard to see the time. We request:
  • Unconditional Removal: Remove the Rotation Lock, Bluetooth, and GPS icons entirely from the header bar.
  • Merge Dual SIM: Consolidate the two separate dual SIM icons into a single, space-saving icon.
  • Conditional Email Icon: The static envelope icon should only appear when there is an actual notification.

Priority 5: Nice to Have (Advanced Features/Edge Cases)

• Productivity applications: Missing native support for MS Teams / Slack / Google Meet.
• Non-functional Spotify (experience is currently painful via Waydroid). Proposed solution: Investigate the possibility of easily integrating popular mainstream desktop Linux applications into OpenStore (like the official Spotify desktop client) using existing distribution formats (e.g., Snap, Flatpak, AppImage) as a simplified, performant alternative to Waydroid for key missing apps.
• Missing cloud application for notes (e.g., Nextcloud integration).
• Shared clipboard – Missing the shared clipboard feature found in iOS/Android+KDE Connect.
• Extremely unreliable QR code reader.

[kugiigi]

This is definitely something that UT needs - polish. This is awesome and hopefully this becomes a successful initiative

On top of my head, these are the things that I think matters for most people.

• Display cutout and rounded corners handling. Most phones now have them and it just makes UT look unfinished and unpolished and of course annoying for the users
• AGPS. Without it, navigation is really hard to rely on. It may work quick especially if you use it often but it's still highly unreliable.
• Cloud syncing for contacts, notes, etc. Ideally, an easy to use backup/restore solution as well.
• Video playback. I think one of the weakest part of UT since the beginning is video playback. It never worked well. It has minor issues like video flipping at the end of playback then some major issues like actually crashing the app, for example on Teleports. There are also devices where it totally stop working until you restart media hub or rebooting the device. The experience is just bad in general in my opinion
• Small back button in apps and hard to reach in one hand use. Especially if you come from Android, I think you can really be annoyed by this and more especially if you are someone who frequently use your phone with one hand. This has been discussed dozens of times but it's a tricky thing to solve. I think adding a universal back action like Android is out of the question but what else can we do? I have some solutions on my apps and in Ambot Installer calles MariKit. It adds horizontal swipe at the bottom edge which can used to trigger back action or other header actions. It's very useful in my opinion but I'm still unsure if this is the best solution and approach.

[Vlad Nirky]

Thank you, Marius, for this initiative.

Every user is different, and so is every device.

Use
I have a Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro, and I wouldn't change its operating system for anything in the world.
It is completely reliable (so why isn't this always the case for some?), lasts several days without recharging, and meets all my needs.

Browser
Personally, I rarely use my phone's browser, as I spend enough time in front of my PC that I don't need it very often.

Installation
The installation process is likely to put many people off (fear of rendering their phone unusable, complexity, limited choice).
Please, offer stable versions before development versions in the installer.

Hardware
Everything works on my phone. (A huge thank you to the porters.)

It would be nice to have the top bar display correctly despite the rounded corners and front camera.

The photo and video capture app lags far behind what Android offers. (Slow focus, macro function, wide angle, panorama.)

Bluetooth could be improved (although I find it usable with certain prerequisites).

Allowing much faster GPS positioning would be appreciated.

Activating Lomiri via the fingerprint reader would be a plus (no longer having to press and then hold your finger).

Applications
I think that a precise description of what you get by installing UT versus what you lose by changing ecosystems would help reduce disappointment.
Make a thoughtful choice and stick to it.
A few articles on which applications can replace popular Android applications.
How to get VPN or OwnCloud or ... working.

The gaps, for me, are banking software and government apps. (Hence my use of Waydroid.)

An app for backing up data and syncing with your PC. (Damn, they removed rsync.)

Offer correct and appropriate snap applications to close some gaps?

[gpatel-fr]

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

they removed rsync

...and Kenny too

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ crackle install rsync
Installing rsync... done!
Activating... done!
phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ rsync --version
rsync  version 3.4.1  protocol version 32

mostly agree with your points though.

[lduboeuf]

Congrats for this initiative. Here is the list of things that come to my mind:

Considered as a blocker for me:

• Battery drains on LTE ( luckily i can still use 2G here and battery-saver app), otherwise having a phone that last less than a full day is not reliable.

"Basic" needs that still missing:

• AGPS
• Data backup and syncing

Annoying, but can be worked around:

• Random OSK crash
• Cellular network re-connection ( reboot is sometimes needed )
• Some users reports Camera freeze ( reboot needed)
• Not possible to select a default target with url-dispatcher or content hub.
• Calendar sync issues ( when it is working it works but when not, it can be painfull to make it works reliabily again )
• MMS does not work if Wifi is On

Polishing:

• back button size or position
• connect to public wifi or via qrcode
• bluetooth robustness and with carkit
• integrated app cleaning and settings for runing without suspension

Otherwise, so proud of UT :).

[pparent]

Very Nice initiative, thank you for that!

For me the most annoying bugs on my volaphone 22 on Noble are:

Priority 3: Daily Use

• It often looses celular data connection. I have to go to settings and switch from 3g mode to Lte/4g again to have access to internet again. This can make me miss notifications on top of that. Note that I use dual sim.

• Sometimes the phone will boot with only one of the 2 sim working or even none of them, and I need to reboot again. (On top of that if it boots with only the second sim, it will change all the defualt parameters to SIM2 in cellular config, and keep this even when the phone reboot with Sim1 so that I need to change it again each time).

• Gps position does not work reliably in webview, seemingly because of a problem of orientation/compass (see https://forums.ubports.com/topic/11572/gps-location-does-not-work-anymore-in-webview-noble?_=1764026186209 ) It's important for me to be able to ask google maps for public transportations itinerary.

Priority 4: Polish

• It's too slow to take a picture or video inside the camera app (too much delay), and sometimes it fails to record and won't let me record until I reboot.

• The interface is sometimes kind of sluggish, or will freeze for a fraction of a second (or even few seconds sometimes), it's not very fluid or snappy. And it seems to vary, during some periods it seems more fluid and other very slugish, I'm not sure what explains it. (Someone told me it will improve with next Halium upgrade for the phone, we'll see).

Other than this everything really works as a charm. I'm really starting to feel that I don't lack anything in the phone. It's way better for my everyday life than 6 years ago when I started to use UT as a daily-driver (with a Nexus 5). I should mention that battery life is extremely good for me. One charge can last 48h +.

Ps: I did not mention QtWebengine upgrade because it's an already ongoing work, but it is clearly a priority for me as well.