Happy new year?

Hi Guys,

I thought I'd come up with a list of thoughts and ideas in regards to Bluetooth, its implementation, and how it could be improved.

Getting Started:

Fast Pair:
To my understanding this is a propretary standard in Android and iOS, so it may not be something that could easily be added, in any way, however, it would be really nice, if when you clicked a sync button on a device close by, you could get a notification with a quick pair or cancel button.

System Settings:

Smaller Lists:
System Settings shows a long list of devices that you've previously connected to, new devices, and connected devices, this list can get very long, I suggest that the devices are either collapsible, so that you can hide devices you've connected to before, if you're syncing to a new device, or they're moved to tabs, so that if you're syncing a new device, it will be in the pair tab.

Search Lists
Adding a search button so users could search "Fair" for there fairphone earbuds or "Mouse" for there mouse would make it a bit easier for devices that need to be connected to manually.

Rename devices:
Some Bluetooth names are confusing, or are duplicated if you have two of the same bluetooth devices, we should be able to change the viewable names of the BlueTooth devices in the System Settings.

Indicators:

List devices that are currently connected or nearby
In the Bluetooth indicator, you can turn off or on Bluetooth, but if you quickly want to disconnect for a call, or to switch from your speakers to your earphones, you have to go into system settings, it would be nice if there was a list of devices you're connected to, or that are near by, so that you can quickly toggle between them without turning off bluetooth to disconnect, or mooch about the system settings for a couple extra moments.

Battery Life
Knowing how much battery life you have in device is really useful, and it would be nice if it could be reported back in the indicator menu, just a quick swipe down and see how much power your speaker has before next charge is needed.

Advanced Application Features

Many EarPhones and Speakers have some advanced features, or features that may be a little harder to integrate, but I think its worth talking about to see how they may be implemented into the OS itself, or into separate apps, as has happened with watches.

Party Mode Audio/stereo pairing
This is a tough one because many speakers use different standards, but many speakers some have the ability to create Party Mode groups, then when you connect to the group, you are connected and synced to several speakers at once, this feature is usually used at parties, but could also be used for playing the same music in your front room and kitchen, if you're moving between rooms.

Stereo paring is a bit different, this is where you connect to two speakers, and one act as the left speaker and the other acts as the right speaker.

Party Mode Audio examples:
Sony Stereo Pair/Sony Party Connect
AmpMe (Requires 1 phone per speaker)
JBL Connect+
alteclansing House Party Paring

Group Devices General
Group Audio can be done in a few different ways, and to my understanding, involves the speaker, talking to other speakers itself, Group devices is different, in this scenario, it's grouping commonly used together bluetooth devices, if you always use a specific bluetooth mouse with a bluetooth keyboard, it would be good if you could have those two in group, so that when you connect to one, either the other is automatically connected as well, or its easy and convenient to connect, with only 2 bluetooth devices, it probably wouldn't be to convenient, but some people use a lot of devices together, and it could be a case that they come home after work, and just want 4 or 5 devices to connect.

Audio Modes
I can't tell you to much about these but here's a small example of some

EQ balancing
Fine-tune audio playback.

Multi-Device
Some devices will tell you what other devices are connected, these can sometimes give you extra controls like the ability to remove them.

End

Please let me know if you guys have any further suggestions, and if any of these are being worked on, or have a bug report that we could reference, please let me know, and I will add them to the main post.

Obviously this is just a list of ideas, and wants, it maybe that these never get implemented, or someone might see one of the suggestions and hack something nice together in a couple of days, but I thought it would be good to put some suggestions, see what people think, and maybe someone might be inspired to work on an issue/suggestion or two.

@kristatos said in Why won't browsers on ubuntu touch 20.04 play videos from vimeo?:

If I remember right, it's a know bug for 20.04 OTA-1 devices that video playback isn't working correct (even for youtube)

Im using the FP4 with 20.04 devel and yewtu.be doesnt work, which leads me to beleive that codex are still a problem on current ubuntu touch 20.04 images.

@arubislander I think OTG is a bit more complex than that, I've tried using hubs before that work fine with some devices.

Look at USB-C audio for example, that doesn't work on ubuntu touch, but the volume up and down buttons work.

There's oddities with these configurations, sadly.

@MrT10001 said in Absolutely Impressed:

Waydroid is a luxury in my view, a nice to have, but why when you can buy a cheap smartphone off eBay and have all your apps for banking etc that won't work with UT or Waydroid

I want to use Ubuntu Touch, and Waydroid for me is a crutch, until we get more native apps.
I'd rather not need to use Waydroid, but if you give me the choice between using Waydroid, or buy another cheap phone, for my personal app usage, to be able to use signal, or whatever, obviously, the cheaper, more private, more convenient option is what I'm going to choose.

Your comments seem to go back on themselves.

@MrT10001 said in Absolutely Impressed:

I am personally not bothered about data scraping and so on

If that's the case, why bother saying

@MrT10001 said in Absolutely Impressed:

UT is to get away from Google, Apple, Huawei, Samsung, Xiaomi and the like that all want your data for tracking and ads

Why do you keep saying you need android because there isn't ubuntu touch versions of the apps, but ask people why they would even bother with waydroid?
You seem to imply that you should only use Ubuntu Touch as a daily driver if you want privacy, but if you want privacy, then there are much more secure android roms, with full disc encryption, ability's to stop data transfer if you lose VPN connections, a way to make all your apps use the TOR network.

You say thanks and say that you appreciate the work, and you keep saying "in my personal opinion" and all that, which is fine, but then it appears that that if an idea or use-case doesn't fit into your perspective, then you question it, and push the solutions to the side, and I personally feel like that pushes away from people who want to make the project better for there cases, its especially dismissing if it's worded like fud, many banking, traveling agency's etc, have a website, which will work fine on Ubuntu Touch, you can easily use signal, whatsapp, instagram, facebook messenger, etc on Ubuntu Touch, using waydroid or there website, and they work fine, you can say "They don't work as well on Ubuntu Touch because waydroid xyz issues" but it's really dismissive to say "Oh you can't message people on instagram" when the browser app is right there, and you can install the APK easily, ok you wont have notifications, but saying "I struggle to use instagram on ubuntu touch because I dont get notifications properly" is a very different and none dismissive alternative to "I cant message people on instagram using ubuntu touch"

You seem to dismiss any arguments which state that you can do something, with "maybe you can't" and "but why would you?" but then you're telling us how you place your value, by coming up with an issue, it being solved for you, and when it's solved, just dismissing it with a "why would you even want to?", and then continuing to say that you can't do the thing that we just solved, because it's done in a none-ideal way.

If Waydroid isn't for you thats fine, and if your solution of keeping android as your daily is your solution, that's fine, I don't see people constantly asking you why you would that, when you could do something else, and thats because people weigh preferences differently and have different needs and wants, but just because its not your preference, doesn't mean other people think the same way as you, or have your preferences, yes ubuntu touch can have its inconveniences, but people use it despite that for a reason, and it's not just to get away from Apple and Google.

If you are generally asking why you would use waydroid on your preferred OS you want to use daily, over wasting money, time, convenience and a bit of your privacy to use a OS you don't like, by buying a cheap android phone, then I and others have given you a few reasons, so please stop asking the same question.

@MrT10001 said in Absolutely Impressed:

if you want Ubuntu Touch on your device, why look at running basically an Android Virtual Machine on it to run apps that scrape your data and may work and may not?

@MrT10001 said in Absolutely Impressed:

Android phone for daily use

If you beg to escape Google so much, the fact your daily driver is an android phone, bewilders me.
Especially since you don't see the use in a container running android, and dismiss it.

If you're using full android you have all the spyware you fear, all the time, if you're using waydroid, by default you get de-googled android, in which you can add google apps, these apps are in the waydroid container, so if you take lots of photos on your phone, the facebook or instagram, or whatever app you're using on waydroid, will not see them, and when you're traveling, and don't want to be tracked by those services, you can close waydroid, which will stop those apps from being able to run in the background, meaning you can have a phone, text, call, browse the web, etc, without the google, or Facebook.

I just don't see the perspective of "Hey if you use waydroid and install a android app like instagram, then you're getting spied on when you have waydroid open, and God forbid that, instead, just carry around another phone with spyware you can't turn off, on constantly"

@Moem said in Can you improve an app? And would you like a Pebble smartwatch?:

@PhoenixLandPirat said in Can you improve an app? And would you like a Pebble smartwatch?:

even just having the app work so I can change from the default theme that it likes to after being disconnected for so long, would be nice

You can't do that yet because the Pebble won't properly connect to the phone yet. It won't stay connected for long enough to use RockWork at all.

Oh that is a speedy disconnect.

@Moem said in Can you improve an app? And would you like a Pebble smartwatch?:

@PhoenixLandPirat said in Can you improve an app? And would you like a Pebble smartwatch?:

I'm happy to help test the Focal version when there's a click of it

That's hard for now because the Pebble doesn't yet stay connected to bluetooth on Focal. But this should be solvable once @TheVancedGamer gets his Pebble and can debug. As you see it's not just a prize for him, it's a prize for all of us.

Maybe so, however, even just having the app work so I can change from the default theme that it likes to after being disconnected for so long, would be nice, can't wait to see it working nicely, with notifications, and song skipping etc!

@kugiigi Some of these are crazy cool, you should consider upstreaming some of them, things like the transparent indicator bar could be added to the settings, and would be useful to a lot of people, there may be questions of implementation, or stability, but some a lot of those features you've worked on, are incredible, and would make the core ubuntu touch system so much nicer.

I'm happy to help test the Focal version when there's a click of it, if you wish!

@laktosefreier it was fixed on the FairPhone a few days ago, thought the same fix applied to all devices.

I had that as well, in time itll all come.

@laktosefreier said in Shake for flashlight:

The flashlight switch from the status bar Battery doesn't work.

Have ou tried it in the last 3 days?

@homer there are no bugs about any of that on github, you should report it so more people who develop or work on the app can know about the bugs, and try to fix it.

@homer said in After 5 month..why I swap back to Android...:

missing working podcast app,

Idk whats wrong with podphoneix, but theres no bug expressing any usability issues.

Please report issues youre having to the github.

@elioneto in android system settings you need to enable it!

@ckrnkfrnchmn the reason you see updates in the terminal using apt-get upgrade and not system settings, is because system settings doesnt use apt, apt isnt officially supported by Ubuntu Touch.

You can use apt but thats on your back if anything breaks, and you may need to reinstall apps installed via apt again after certain updates, Libertine is the only way to officially use apt, but that can still be hit or miss due to relying on 16.04 repos if youre on xenial, and I dont beleive it works yet on Focal.

@redxxiii matrix is fantasic, we have a ubports space so people can easily find related rooms without having to ask people to redirect them to the right place.

Issue is onboarding, and no great matrix app on ubuntu touch.

Fluffychat is okay, and cinny is great in desktop mode but not fantastic in mobile mode, I have dreams that we'll have neochat or something as good someday, but neochat requres newer qt.

The OpenStore only shows apps compiled for 20.04, but if you update from 16.04 to 20.04 youll find some apps still work, and others crash.

You can download and install 16.04 apps by downloading the click package from open-store.

It might be helpful for people to know what to expect and might be useful to help focus efforts on apps which dont work, if we could make a kind of list which tells people which apps work and which are broken, until the apps are recompiled or replaced with newer software.

@ktatar156 we have telegram and matrix for our main communicatioms, matrix is fully open source, it has emcryption, but our rooms and spaces are public so theyre unencrypted.