Lemmy Finally feels usable! Thank you LJDawson
And 50% of the posts on lemmy in the last 12 hours are about Sync.
Hope we get some more diverse content soon lol
The hilarious thing is you can’t post from Sync yet, only comment, so for every post about Sync someone had to use their browser or another app to post it.
As soon as sync lets me post I’ll be posting things but until then imma just comment empty promises
I have so many questions…
🤣😂
We will. Lemmy seems to easily get flooded with singular stories. Eg whenever Elon comes up with yet another dumbass decision.
Yeah im honestly starting to question if its all organic, as its trivially easy to artificially inflate posts, and we even had a post the other week warning exactly of app developers could manipulate votes to get more people to use their platform and make purchases.
I would say its mostly organic since a good amount of discussion is negative feedback about ads and the paid tiers.
I’d believe it’s organic tbh, I was waiting for Sync or Boost to drop before I fully took the plunge. There are probably many others like me for whom those apps and others defined the Reddit mobile experience and the other apps for Lemmy (or the ones I used at least) weren’t as feature rich so it’s an easy choice to make.
There are clearly a lot of bots posting links but that’s not that different from reddit either. The real friends were the comments anyway.
I’ve been using sync for reddit for years, and I used Vanced to keep sync for reddit working even today. I was interested in trying lemmy ever since it was announced that the popular third party apps were going away on Reddit. I might have started using Lemmy earlier if it wasn’t for being able to still use Sync for Reddit and knowing that Sync for Lemmy was coming out very soon. Now that sync for Lemmy is here, so am I.
There’s a golden ratio somewhere, it feels like Reddit has become overflown with posts and empty discussions, even on relatively niche subs. I could get behind a more sane approach to my web browsing habits but of course it will take some time.
Or screenshots from Twitter/Reddit
Reddit is 50% screenshots of other social media too, so I don’t think that’s necessarily a Lemmy problem
today was the first time I forgot if I was browsing reddit or lemmy. its so good to be back on sync
It feels good to be back to normal. Balance is restored.
I’ve still got revanced sync installed and I’m forgetting which one I have open occasionally, lmao
Same here. Loving that the new icon is black and the old one is white. Makes it easier to see I went to the “dark side” 😂
Same, regardless of the “BuT iTs nOt FoSs” cries. You are free to use whatever app you want.
I definitely prefer FOSS, but hey if it gets you on the fedi, go for it.
One thing that worries me about Foss is the eventual lack of updates and potentially become abandonware. Many people mentioned that the Foss apps protects are a side project for most developers. They could easily lose interest or have other things happen in their life that take up more of their time.
These arguments are valid for closed source as well I agree, but this being the devs main focus makes me feel better about updates in the long term.
I mean the opposite can be said as well. Since open source apps are, well, open source, if the developer abandons them, someone else can pick up where they left off, but that’s not the case with the closed source apps.
Although the developer being paid to make the app can often make it higher quality.
Very good point as well.
It ain’t FOSS but it’s totally BOSS.
#NoFussNoFOSS
Sync is great. Lemmy is still lacking content. Shows I watch, bands, etc… those communities have no activity (if they even exist).
Be the change you want to see.
I gave up on making community content once I lost all my data when Vlemmy died. I know I’m a part of the problem, but it burned me out
There needs to be 100 times the people for any change to manifest. No matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to convince tens of thousands of people to switch.
Yes you will. It will just happen gradually over a couple years. No one is expecting this to happen overnight.
I am. LET’S GO! 🤣
We’re all here already, right?
I actually followed a guy on reddit who shared his phone number with me. I just searched for him on Lemmy and he’s not here. texted him to get over here! lol
I’m working on it!
Altho true someone has to be the first of those 100 people. Slowly but surely people will come
But those people have already made the choice and it isn’t Lemmy.
And that’s fine, if they don’t come they don’t come. I like Lemmy so imma stay
If they don’t come then they will be making communities elsewhere. Which means less relevance for Lemmy.
IDK if we are that far off. Reddit was a lot of fun way before reaching it’s peak user base.
Additionally, the highest Lemmy days are seeing something like 25%-50% as many posts as Reddit does on average.
Not at all! Just like with price, the difference between zero and one is hugely more consequential than any extra dollar added. Think of it: if you see a community with no posts in the last hour, or day, it does feel a bit deserted. Or a post without comments. By adding a post, or the first comment, you can be the difference for the next guy’s impression, and encourage them to do the same, and then the ball gets rolling, and that’s how you get momentum.
Same as Reddit in the beginning, Digg was so strong back in the day.
Niche communities start when the user ase grows quite a lot. Give it time.
My ass is pretty fat already. It doesn’t need any more growing.
It will take years before you see more niche communities like that.
Sync is doing fine but I honestly don’t understand the hype.
There is a dozen apps out there since the reddit migration with some having nearly the same features but without ads, without subscriptions and regular updates ever since.
Off the top of my head: Voyager, Summit, Connect, Thunder, Liftoff.
I keep hearing people mention all of these apps, and I’ve tried most of them (I’m on Android, and besides Sync, I currently have Liftoff, Connect and Thunder installed; I had Jerboa and the Voyager PWA, but removed the former due to bugs and the latter due to slow startup).
Honestly, none of them feel as polished as Sync. They do offer pretty much the same functionality, sometimes even better, but the UI and UX of Sync is just smoother.
Maybe it’s just that I’m used to Sync after using it for reddit for many years, but in any case I thought I’d put this out there in case others were feeling puzzled as I was from all the mentions of other apps suggesting they can replace Sync without any quality loss. Sure, maybe not functionality-wise, but to me the user experience is just as important.
Edit: for reference, here’s an album of screenshots comparing the same views in Sync, Liftoff, Connect and Thunder (yeah, I’m a fan of the compact list view): https://imgur.com/a/MvawTYm — there are pros and cons to all of these, but IMO the sync experience is the one with the best design and UX polish. Happy to hear your thoughts, though!
This x1000
I tried basically every app going on Android and they are all either buggy as fuck, unintuitive or janky in some other way. The user experience was just horrible.
I really do not understand all the people claiming Sync has an equivalent. It just does not right now in terms of a polished user experience.
Honestly it’s just Linux vs Windows kinda situation to me. No matter how many nerds tell me Linux can do everything the same and is more customisable and better, it’s just a worse user experience. Windows is far more intuitive and polished and there is a reason it has the market share it does.
Yeah, but I’m using Sync exactly because I’m using Linux lol. Much more convenient and polished, and there’s no such thing as intuitive UI, there’s only UI you got used to.
That’s not true. Intuitive UI design is absolutely a thing, and something people spend a lot of time, effort and money researching and implementing…
Never seen an intuitive UI. Been on Linux since 2004, was working on company-provided Macbook and struggled with UI, was very happy to abandon it. I have Windows as a gaming OS, dual boot configuration with my Arch Linux, and let me tell you I game on Windows like twice a month, absurdity of this OS makes me not want to game.
For me the most intuitive UI is the one I built on Linux, with I3wm and a lot of custom scripts. This surely will not be intuitive for you.
Universally intuitive UI is a myth.
edit: UI designers, using right tools, definitely can and do make better UI, UI better suited for target audience, better working right out of the box. Keyword is “target audience”. One can’t say Windows UI is more intuitive, it’s UI a lot of people got used to. “Intuitive” has very different meaning AFAIK.
Intuitive means it makes sense instinctively. Touchscreens with pinch to zoom are a good example of intuitive UI design. Children can pick up an iPad and learn to use it quickly with no instruction. That’s intuitive design and of course it exists.
Is your custom script heavy system more efficient for your workflow? I’m sure, but picking it up out of the box it’s going to be horrible for a new user, they will be slow on it, it’ll be unenjoyable and annoying. That’s my point really, every Lemmy app I tried was unenjoyable and annoying. Sync on the other hand I have never used before, but out of the box? It works, I’m happy browsing with zero issues or errors or struggles within minutes. That’s intuitive design.
So Sync’s UI is good for you, you have used applications that make you kinda got used to Sync. It’s called anecdotal evidence I think, when you make conclusions based in single test case. I’m happy for you. I like Sync UI best of all too, I tried multiple Reddit clients and Sync was most convenient for me.
Funny comparison to make considering that these are Android apps, running on the Linux kernel.
I never said Linux isn’t capable of being the smoothest and most intuitive experience. Just that its not
The comparison serves only to highlight the importance of presentation and consistency. Those other apps might get there some day, but they’re not focused on a polished experience from the outset. Thats sync and it’s legacy. Experience and ease first. Honestly feels closer to an iOS app. And thats a very good thing.
🤦♀️
I really wanted to stick with voyager, but just switching between inbox and posts was just a crap shoot. Sometimes it would switch, sometimes it was acting as a back button… Then you’d lose your scroll position in posts… Just very alpha feeling
That said I hope they keep going! Competition is always good!
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Thanks for this, it’s really helpful. Confirms that the Sync interface just feels right to me.
It may be the 11 years of using it on Reddit, but Sync already works how I expect it to. Just things like hitting the preview takes you to the link instead of the comments, or how tapping the community name on a link takes you to the community. Every other app just doesn’t behave as intuitively or efficiently.
Honestly because IMO no other app compares to it in terms of polish, UX and smoothness; that’s not just out of lemmy apps either that’s phone apps in general.
And tbh that shouldn’t be too surprising, It’s got 10 years of development behind it and the dev works on it full time—no other lemmy app has that currently
The Wikipedia app comes dangerously close believe it or not.
You know what, I’ll definitely agree with that
Some of us have been using Sync for 10+ years, we’re not exactly looking for something new
This is the case for me. I’ve seen more comments and posts than ever in Lemmy because of Sync
For real. Sync works incredibly well. The developer is responsive to the community. I know how to use it. I don’t want to learn a new app.
Sync is already the most visually and ergonomically polished by far. That’s not all that matters, but it’s very important for me and many others.
Every single one of those apps except Summit and Voyager has janky scrolling, which is easy to notice on a 90Hz screen.
Sync has not dropped a single frame since my install on all my devices.
And every one of them has just one tiny annoyance I can’t let go.
E.g.
Connect: only left hand voting. I use my phone almost always in one hand and it’s my right hand.
Liftoff: no auto-hide the bottom (quite big) bar.
Summit: post actions only available when in the post. (Like save or share.)So stuff like this. They are not the end of the world, but y’know: better without them.
And the stutter on most of them. Annoying as hell.
Interestingly I quit using Voyager because the scrolling wasn’t high frame rate, but maybe that was because I was using it on Firefox? Thunder is smooth for me.
Yeah that’s a Firefox issue, you need to enforce 90Hz on Firefox using adb to make it work
For me it’s the force of habit. I’m already used to the UI, I know where everything is, what to expect, I can navigate it very quickly and set it exactly how I want.
All the features I’m used to like comment drafts or the comment navigation bar (jump between top-level comments easily) are right where I’m used to. Doing the Android “back” gesture from the left works like it should, I don’t have to confirm exit with a button, all these small things.
It’s also very polished, for example I encountered two issues with Connect:
-
it didn’t handle internet dropping out (e.g. temporary loss of mobile signal) well - it just kept failing on the retry button even after connectivity was restored, had to restart it
-
the search in the sidebar didn’t show all the matching communities, this seems to have improved recently
-
It’s just how many of us are used to things. Particularly the collapsed comments along with rainbow colors depending on the nested comments. I’m sure one of those has it, but Sync has all my patterns. And it was as simple as importing my sync for reddit config to get all my options as they were. Worthwhile wait, and I don’t mind supporting a Dev. Especially when there is a one time ad-free payment option, which is all I need.
It didn’t even occur to me that the Sync for Reddit settings would import to Sync for Lemmy. That’s awesome! Thank you.
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In terms of smoothness- 90hz screen only voyager and summit has that
Came here to say, memmy is crazy good and the developer is dropping revs faster than people can post bugs.
I like Thunder best
Connect for me
thunder is better than sync idk what everyone likes about sync just seems like a copy of all the other apps except they have to groundwork for ads and monetization
how revolutionary
Sync for Reddit was around for a long time, about 10 years. It came out before the official Reddit app, which on release had a design that was heavily influenced by Sync at the time, and still to this day has some design elements it took from Sync.
Sync for Lemmy may be a “new” app, but it inherited almost everything from Sync for Reddit. If anything, others are copying Sync, not the other way around. What you see in sync for Lemmy is the result of about 10 years of development and refinement from the reddit days being ported over to work with Lemmy.
My problem with Thunder is how inconsistent the Slide to go back vs. using the back button is. There’s a lot of inconsistency in the UI decisions.
You guys have high requirements :)
But I agree, fantastic app. I think second best app is Liftoff though, it’s a bit cleaner since it doesn’t have a billion options.
Sync is like the professional choice in clients
Maybe I’m alone facing this, but I tried a few apps and the website itself - I was finding the interface very unintuitive and confusing
It has sooo many options, it could be a good idea to hide some of them behind an Advanced menu. That way the user interface still looks clean but power users can customize.
I think that would help a lot
old.lemmy.world should fix those woes.
I switched to Liftoff this week after Connect stopped letting me control my volume. My only complaint with is not being able to align post thumbnails to the left side of the screen. Other than that, I love the look and feel.
Personally I was a Boost fan and I’m excited for its release for lemmy. But I’m using sync in the meantime and absolutely loving it. There’s a smoothness to this app, a refinement if you will that I couldn’t find on any of the other apps. The level of customization to make my feed my own.
I’ve been jumping between Jerboa, liftoff and now sync. Sync just has a smoothness that the other two apps don’t have, at least in my experience on my pixel 6 pro, scrolling and everything is butter smooth on sync, the others have some odd stutters sometimes
Totally on point… Like you, I am a boost user, but the experience here in sync so far is the best regarding all other apps… Either way, before this, I was using thunder nightly and so far so good… Now, I’m waiting for boost to decide for which one I’m gonna go as premium user…
Baconreader user here to represent!
This is my first post too! :)
Now you are counted as an active user on Lemmy. :)
Same, it’s now understandable and makes sense to my pea brain
The app is beautiful. Former rif user and decided to give Sync for Lemmy a try and I’m not disappointed.
Same here
you should check out thunder i think sync is dog comparitively
all sync has going for it is a cluddered screen and ads no?
So you are the cause of the recent server problems!1!!
Used Sync for Reddit for 7 or 8 years, this feels like home!
It really does, but between the blackout and this release I realised how much I was using Sync.
I’ve managed to start putting my phone down and doing other things.
I can solve a rubiks cube in 3 minutes now! Because I deleted Sync from my phone.
And now it’s back on my phone…
Just think of the things I could have done.
I was using wefwef.app and liked the colored bars on the left when several users replied to each other. Now in sync these bars are the same color. Can I change this?
You can link to settings?!
I’m loving people’s reactions Everytime this pops up.
I never would’ve thought of this, loving sync as a first time user
Sync was the only way Reddit was usable and now we get the same benefits for Lemmy. The dev actually listens to feedback and deserves every praise he gets.
yes, hold down any switch or setting to get a sync-settings:// link in your clipboard to post, which is then clickable when in the app.
Settings shortcut: General > Community icons
holy shit! its that easy!
What a fantastic feature, never saw that in Sync for Reddit.
it was there but very rarely used, even on r/syncforreddit
this is the coolest thing i ever saw
I fucking love color bars and link to settings
Damn, I forgot this was a think in Sync for reddit. Just bought the ads removal even though I cannot see any ads anyhow. The dev deserves it.
So what does sync do that lemmy on broswer doesn’t?
Aside from the polish, it’s also the familiar UX that many of us have used for a decade. It just feels familiar & right now!
Ehh ill give it a look. I generally avoid apps that are just a website.
Sync UI/UX are carried over from years of refinement as a Reddit client with full native controls. It now mostly just has a different API and service layer wired in for Lemmy. Definitely not a simple web view app.
Ill give it a look
It just adds ads that you can pay for to have it removed. Sync is piggybacking on the opensource devs.
What a terrible way of looking at it. UX matters a lot when you’re using a platform, and some people are willing to tolerate the occasional ad if they get a UX they like and are familiar with.
Gross, I was reading through this thread thinking about checking Sync out, but the idea of wilfully adding ads is so disgusting to me. The browser works well for me anyway, I don’t think I’ll end up getting an app unless it does something outstanding.
I’m all for people liking a certain UI/UX and supporting the dev but seriously, putting ads on fucking Lemmy? This is just so wrong
What’s the point on not using reddit’s mobile app then? I was using a 3PA because I couldn’t stand the ads and now comes someone to put ads on an app for Lemmy jfc
Exactly. And with it, it brought an army of ad-loving nuggets (from Reddit I’d say by the way they reply so defensive to me, just look at the downvotes).
If instead they could appreciate and donate some of their hard earned money to all the devs of those instances… Instead of getting rid of ads on an non-ad platform (yeah, that’s dumber than Trump).
I’m 99% sure this army has been bought by Stync to promote their app. They’re making 100$ of those subscriptions. An army like this doesn’t cost much in comparison.
Baby needs his bottle
Lol. You go ahead and pay for no-ads on a non-ad platform and call other babies. At least one of us doesn’t have the intelligence of a baby, and you don’t know who.
You love paying for the trackers, I love the downvotes.
Cry more
I’m not crying. Just pointing out the hypocrisy of paying to get rid of ads on an (previously) ad-free platform. Pretty damn sure who to blame for that crap.
What the fuck are you doing on this community of you hate Sync so much?
That’s not hypocrisy. They’re not advocating one thing and doing another.
If you don’t like the ads don’t use the app.
Most of us are here because we used Sync for Reddit for years and want that familiar UX.
But not all of us! Yesterday was the first time I tried it
A far more polished experience
Some people don’t like using desktop.
It’s a smother experience on mobile and more polished
I really wanted to just use the PWA, but Sync really is just so much better an experience right now. It’s smooth, but it also doesn’t lose my place in the feed every time I open a post. Trivial yet crucial!
This is honestly a great experience, the app has integrated with my instance perfectly. Impressive work!
