Wish list : which apps do you need?

[A Former User]

@DaveNotHere Somewhere in November should be released the Popcorn Computer with LoRa capabilities. It will run Linux, but is not clear which distro. As for UT, many people want many things..., maybe too many considering the numbers of developers involved in this project.

[poVoq]

Stiched panorama images from within the camera app would be cool.

I guess one could do it manually, but the common "turn the camera" UI from Android is very convenient.

[3T_Ed]

Jitsi video conference app

With an increasing number of video calls and not willing to use Zoom or Skype for the obvious reasons. I don't want to do video conferences at all, however recent developments seem to force me into video conferences. Jitsi packages for Ubuntu are available. Besides the fact that not everyone is skilled enough to make this work, as I understand using packages with Libertine also can break OTA/stability. A 'secure' Jitsi open source app for video conferencing would be great and might even attract more people to open source mobile distros like UT.

[AppLee]

@3T_Ed
The video chat request is one long lasting problem that requires a huge amount of work.

You have to understand that just because something exists as an open source app, it doesn't mean that it can be easily ported to Ubuntu Touch.

You can name Jitsi, Telegram, Snapthing, Faceboo, Zoo, Whatsarrg or any other solution, the problem is the same (well you add troubles with closed source softwares of course).

The major challenge is how an app accesses the camera, the network, the mic and the speakers.
Right now, there is no proper way to make it happen.

The problem is not in the frontend nor in the hardware, it's how to route the various data, encode it before streaming to the network.

But it will come some day because it's on everybody's mind...

[3T_Ed]

@AppLee
Thanks, I understand completely. As the thread says it's part of a wishlist and this particular one is on mine. Well, not really as I try to avoid video's, as said I feel I have no other choice to use those kind if communications whilst trying to maintain myself in the real world ;). It was definitely not meant as a push factor towards devs.

[domubpkm]

As an indispensable (game ) new port on the OpenStore, there is now Tux Racer. Very happy about that !

[AppLee]

@3T_Ed
Yes the thread is about app wishes so I understand the post.
I just wanted to clarify things so people won't come with "this is a basic feature everyone needs in 2020"...
What is basic from a end user point of view can be in fact really tricky. Especially with a completely different OS such as Ubuntu Touch.
Our OS is very special and it comes with a cost... you just can't have it all

I understand people's frustration regarding some topics and I share it sometimes.
But as a software engineer, I have some understanding of the challenges such features represent and I try to explain it so people won't jump to conclusion.

[rik]

@mnjrupp @arubislander @Nathan123 I was thinking of a "Better Bible App" also. It would be great if it could use Crosswire / sword modules like AndBible does. Then access to commentaries, etc. would be possible.

So maybe the question is if something like Xiphos / Bibletime for traditional Linux is easier to port over to Ubuntu Touch or if it would need to be a "build from scratch qt quick" app?

[rik]

@Keneda I think the main challenge is that it is a webapp and only a single version. So it needs to be used online, no hilighting, no notes, no multiple versions, no commentaries, etc. Maybe the request should be more clear: an offline full-featured native bible app.

[Irenicus]

I think the best thing to do is get Android compatibility layer working.

[WLBI]

@Irenicus said in Wish list : which apps do you need?:

I think the best thing to do is get Android compatibility layer working.

I think so too...
All problems with non existing apps are solved at once, as soon it's possible to use Android apps.

[Bramble]

It was good to see an update of the Calendar app this morning: I've often thought that the flipside to a calendar app - using the same resources - is a ToDo list... Perhaps the maintainer might consider adding that functionality. (They could perhaps take inspiration from nitrotsks)

[AppLee]

@WLBI and @Irenicus
That's an easy mistake for people without technical knowledge to think that we can "adapt" android apps to UT.

While the API used in android is known it's not that easy to adapt to UT.
First of all "confinement" how can you confine an android app those are very different way of designing an OS and are not compatible.
It's like taking a bike and wanting to turn it into an airplane (or the other way around).

Current limitations regarding video chat (for example) apply to anbox as well as regular apps. A native app is easier to make than porting an existing android app.
So no, from a developer point of view, an "fully featured" anbox or any "android compatibility layer" is harder to achieve and won't fix problems like, background GPS tracking, video chat or device specific issues.

The only way this compatibility can work is by corrupting UT into becoming some flavor of android ; and that's not what we want (as UBports community).

Edit: And I didn't mention the heavy inefficient use of Java in most android apps

[WLBI]

@AppLee said in Wish list : which apps do you need?:

A native app is easier to make than porting an existing android app.

So means to say, it's more easy to code the whole app, than make it working with Anbox?
But let's say, if only 10 or 20% of the Android apps are working with Anbox, it's already a huge gain in apps.

[AppLee]

@WLBI
Of course anbox can help and bring some simple apps from android to UT.
But it's not a magical solution.

And I think it already works fine for this kind of apps. The problem remain with needy apps.
The ones using any sensors or accessing personal data like contacts and calendar...
Autonomous apps with access to the network will be OK I guess.
(I don't use anbox myself so I'm not really sure)

So basically, easy to do apps are easy to do natively and they are the only one that anbox can bring. More sophisticated apps are tricky and it's easier to do it natively.
Anbox bring numbers when I'm looking for quality, so not my thing.

But I agree it can help many people for example running their banking app that should work fine with only network access once sandboxed within anbox.

[rand0m]

For me id like

• Discord client - The webapp doesnt function that properly
• Maps app similar to Waze - Waze is pretty good for knowing road problems
• More web browsers
• Whatsapp - Would probally be good for video chatting
• VPN App - For privacy.
• Taxi/Bus app - Something like the Uber app would be not bad for UB Touch,
• Streaming webapps

[PhoenixLandPirat]

Some apps I just want to see get more support, more features, or just be a bit faster.

I wish we got Fluffychat updates, Fluffychat still works really well on Ubuntu Touch, but compared to its android edition, it has a lot less features, and it isn't as fast as it could be, sometimes it has issues where it'll refuse to load new chats, and you have to remove all data and re-login to get fluffychat to update, unfortunately, it looks like we wont see any Fluffychat updates until we get flutter in Ubuntu Touch, which may or may not come when we move to Ubuntu 20.04, if it doesn't come than I worry that we wont have any actively developed matrix application, and if it does come when we move to Ubuntu 20.04, I worry about how long that may take.

I also want the call features of Matrix and/or Telegram which isn't something we have at the moment.

The gallery app needs some support to help organize your albums without manually having to in the album tab, because thats very tedious, in android, if you take a photo, thats in your default gallery view but nothing else, on other gallery apps the main view features every photo on your phone, but you can easily go and switch to a view which shows your photo by folder its in.

Perhaps the Gallery app on ubuntu touch can't do this, and if it could, would we want it to? I think we could use things like the way KDE uses tags, if you take a photo, the photo app automatically adds a tag with "camera", then if you select the camera folder it shows you every photo with the camera tag, this means people could tag there photos and despite there only being one photo, it could be in 2 different albums.

Talking about the camera app, there's a lot missing there to, little advanced features, it doesn't offer the ability to save as a raw format, none of that crazy blur around face technology, and little of the "auto-magically" AI making colours nicer, and improving sharpness also!

I do like the idea of new applications, but I think if we only talk about apps we miss, we might miss the basic things that we want from the core apps.

When it comes to new apps however:

• Newpipe: I used to use Newpipe on android, I'd love a app like that on Ubuntu Touch, it lets you stream video, make it so it only streams audio, you can download music and audio, etc, it has lots of nice features, and the ability to play in the background, while saving battery life because your screen doesn't need to be on, and data because you're not streaming the whole video, is a big selling point.

• Native Mastodon app: As it says on the box, native apps are usually just a lot nicer than web apps.

• Mumble: Mumble is a great voice chat application, I often miss chats due to work or traveling, so it'd be nice to be able to join a mumble chat when I'm on the bus home from work, or on the train home, so that I dont miss out on some good productive talks.

• Keypass: I use keypass often on my desktop, and it'd be nice to have a native convergent keypass application, the current web version isn't so easy to use in my po.

• TheTrainLine: I don't need this at all, because the webview is fine, however thats only really when I know my route, or things are going well, the webview doesn't have nicitys such as telling you all the stops you pass, it doesn't tell you expected time of arrival if something goes wrong, and it can also hold all your tickets in a convenient way.

• Kaidan: We had it for a short while on older devices but than it started to require newer versions of QT, and thus we lost it, but it'd be nice to have the xmpp app, get get those updates!

• Blender: I wouldn't use it in phone mode unless just to show off, but Blender is a great tool for 3D animation, 2D animation, Video editing, Audio editing, etc, its something that you can do some good projects with, and so if I'm on the train home, and have a powerful enough phone, it'd be nice to have the option to plug it into a nexdock and edit some video and audio.

• Kate: Another app I probably wouldn't use so much in phone mode, I think the other note apps work better in phone mode, but I wouldn't want to use as much on desktop, however Kate is an app I use often on laptop and desktop, so it'd be nice to have it available when I put the phone in convergent mode!

• Yubico: I use yubico for 2FA so it's kinda difficult to login to some accounts without having something without an app that talks to the yubico key

• Firefox convergent: I use firefox on my desktop, it can sync my bookmarks, my add-ons, passwords, etc, I can even right click and send a tab from my laptop to my desktop, it would be nice to be able to use desktop firefox when I'm using the phone on my desktop, however looking at all the work thats going in to try and make firefox work on the phone, it looks like it'll be desktop only if you want a half decent experience, and then use morph when you're in phone mode.
  I wish firefox had the ability to go from the android look and feel when its small, to the desktop look and feel when its bigger, but it looks like thats not even close to a possible without a huge amount of work that no one wants to do.

• VLC

[Nathan123]

I'm not gonna lie. The main obstacle that I have with open source...is lack of pay music apps. Like amazon music, spotify, etc.

[silvertine]

Please try exporting Linux apps to UT (for using without containers and XMir-interface)

[Keneda]

@silvertine
That's not up to ubports to do this, plus uTouch works not quite exactly like a desktop gnu/l distro, and desktop app is not suited to phone most of time.