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Sync was my Reddit app of choice for over 5 years, and after 30 minutes on Sync for Lemmy, my brain is fully convinced I’m back on Reddit. Supposedly this is just a Public Beta, but the only bugs I’ve found so far are the fault of my Lemmy instance, not Sync.
Sync for Lemmy should honestly just be the world’s default Lemmy app.
OMG long-press to peek is so satisfying. And small things like image viewing. So easy with one hand double-tap slide, while connect had me pinching like a caveman.
And comment drafts.
Looking forward to the lifetime unlock.
It’s like having Reddit back, this is amazing. 🙏
For as long as I can remember Reddit and Sync have been one and the same. I never used Reddit website or app, only ever used Sync to browse Reddit hosted content. I used it a lot. I’ve missed it a lot.
Between the Lemmy platform and Sync client, to all intents and purposes what Reddit was has been fully restored/migrated.
I know it’s early days, but I did not expect to see anything like this so soon and it gives me hope that Lemmy can grow and thrive into the network of people that always made Reddit what it was. Everything that’s needed is there - early, a little rough around the edges, but there. And being improved constantly.
Hallelujah!
That privacy policy though. Not the best
That’s what I’m saying! It might be technically excellent, but one of the reasons I went away from Reddit is also to escape the aggressive data collection
Checked out connect because I have read about the private policy. Dunno who copies who, but connect almost looks the same and doesn’t collect anything afaik.
HE SAID THAT THERE IS ALREADY A ONE-TIME PURCHASE SUPPORTED VERSION SUBMITTED TO PLAY STORE THAT WILL REMOVE THE ADS.
Patience. Some people, man. Geez.
The price might be a problem though. The option to remove ads currently costs 22.99€.
Better than the same every year
Needs to be regionalised yet
Likely won’t happen lol.
What, it costs 2€ for a month
The lifetime purchase costs 22.99€
I really wish the dev the best of luck. But personally, the idea of trying to make something lucrative and introduce ads (& the accompanying trackers) on top of something that people joined because they rejected that in the first place just doesn’t sit right with me, especially given that we have awesome apps like Voyager and Memmy that are purely donation-driven.
Those options are nowhere near the level of polish of Sync.
Nobody HAS to use it. Ultimately if you want a choice of premium apps there has to be some incentive for a developer, or multiple in some cases, to basically go full time to develop it. Talented devs don’t usually work for years on end for no pay, and I would be surprised if donations ever become significant enough to compare.
Exactly. The level of polish Sync has is unmatched in the android space and well worth the money for me.
It’s also just one dude. I’m very okay with supporting this one dude who makes what I think is the best app for this purpose, cuz I want him to keep doing it and to be able to do it full-time!
I personally think that a sign of a healthy technology platform is one where some people can make money from it, while the platform itself remains open. To use Linux as an example, it’s wonderful that it’s open source, and it’s great that Red Hat can be a profitable company based on Linux. It’s a good sign and it helps the Linux ecosystem thrive due to RH’s contributions.
For Lemmy there are plenty of free apps - no-one is being forced to use Sync. I’m happy to pay for something that provides some more polish to my Lemmy experience, and doesn’t require anything of anyone else.
I paid for the sync app on Reddit back when it was like $2 or 5. I’m not paying $99 to remove ads. I know there are dev costs, but there aren’t any API costs here right?
I’ll still use Sync here until I see what Boost brings over it’s released.
Was $26 CAD here.
Removing ads is $20, the lifetime cloud subscription is $99. $99 is definitely a high price tag, but I suppose if you plan to use this app for the next decade it may well be worth it.
Which is a big assumption to make on such a young site.
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I haven’t seen any ads yet . But I will definitely be willing to buy the pro version again like I did with Reddit .
Haven’t used the app yet as I’m not really sold yet but the Play Store and the app’s own privacy policy mention them:
FWIW, I think the dev has said somewhere that the tracker libs aren’t loaded if you are subscribed (or pay for the ad-free version when that’s available) as they’re part of the ad frameworks
Yes trust anything not open source, certainly it’s the truth!
Well, while it’s obviously not certain proof—I have a pihole on my network, I’m not seeing any unwanted requests blocked whilst I’m using this app (paid)
It’s live for me. It appears that the paid version, “Sync Ultra”, requires a $2/month subscription, or $17/year. Seeing as lemmy APIs are free, I am confused why this is so expensive? o_0
I mean it takes the developer time and effort to make the app, and he doesn’t benefit from any ad-revenue. It’s just paying for some nice features to support the work and effort of an awesome dev.
Why come so many other excellent free apps but this one ads and money tho
Also why need data?
To show some support!
I mean, we’re already browsing ad free on here and many developers are making their apps in their free time. I get that this are expensive times, but if no-one would subscribe to such apps. There would be much less developers.
So how would you feel about Lemmy instance hosters adding ads, harvesting user data to sell to third partiess, making paid subscription models to remove said ads they added and then charging for API access?
We spoke about it with Ruud on Discord actually. He’s fine with it. Most people understand that nothing comes for free.
Actually, it is even a nice gesture from the developer. The ones who cannot afford it can still use the app, without paying for it.
I’m not suggesting that they should or even can be forced to change or that lemmy.world admins actually do anything differently.
It’s also not about the cost or not being able to afford it. It is about principles and and the ad driven business model being antithetical to the goals of Lemmy. Being federated is one thing, but it is also about moving away from ads. I am fully in support of nearly any monetization of software other than ads and selling user data.
Personally I just can’t understand the person who would agree that Reddit was being egregiously corporate minded and greedy to the point that they move to Lemmy and then be ok with adding ads were there previously were none. I’m definitely not going to be using it and I don’t even care that much despite my comments here if other people do. I just want to make this point known. I don’t want Lemmy to become Reddit all over again and I felt there was a bit of an honor system in place to not do things like that and it has already been broken.
Another point of contention with ads is that everyone is generating the content for free that Sync is injecting ads next to. I don’t want to help them make money off of something I do as a hobby even if it is only pennies. This is one of the main reasons I won’t use Reddit and have been favor of the federated internet.
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I’m confused how $17 is considered expensive. If that was a monthly price it would be expensive. $17 for a year? Cheapest subscription I’ve ever paid for, and I’m happy to do it as a subscription to continually support the developer.
Well it is cheap for people living in developed countries but in developing countries where the exchange rate vs the dollar is high and the average income is lower, the cost of the subscription is substantial. Yes we should support the developer but unfortunately this subscription model is unfeasible for some people.
While I hate subscription models, I actually paid the yearly subscription for this (fyi $27.99 in Australia.
One of the main reasons I paid is because I used Sync for Reddit multiple times a day for years and wanted to support the developer. If the fedeverse fails to take off at scale I won’t renew for additional years.
$28 is a small price to pay on my behalf to thank the developer for all his previous work, but also support further development. It’s high quality apps like this that help drive traffic to the excellent communities that are reestablishing themselves in the fedeverse.
Idk what the plan is for Lemmy, but at least in the original Reddit version, ultra cost more because it also includes things like translation services that required third party server space
There’s a simple ad-free version pending approval I think that I assume will probably just cost the usual dollar or five
It costs 22 euro to remove ads for me, I find that too steep.
It’s moderately expensive actually at more like $20 (depending on location) but I’m happy to pay it - it’s a great app.
It appears IAP are coming later and I assume they will just disable ads for 5€ or something. Just like the original app.
The option to remove ads has been added - it costs $20 USD. The lifetime Ultra costs $100 USD.
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$17/year to subscribe to Ultra, or $100/once. That means you’d have to subscribe yearly for almost 6 years to break even.
I mean Sync for Reddit was my most used app for like 8+ years. If my Lemmy use has the same longevity then $100 for lifetime isn’t too bad of a deal.
For me it’s 7x the price, bought Sync Pro for reddit fur 2,99€ in 2018.
everything works great without ultra- not sure why you’d need that
I completely agree with someone trying to make some money off of their app, but when it comes to Lemmy I can’t agree with injecting ads just so people have to pay to remove them. If it were just about the added bonus features then it would be a lot more acceptable.
Lemmy doesn’t have ads and the instance hosters rely entirely on donations.
I must say, this is pretty uncool of Sync for Lemmy developers.
Moreover, it looks like it’s gathering user info to third parties like messages, device or other IDs? Hmm 🤔
If true that is a real deal breaker for me. The whole idea of Lemmy is to break away from exploitative data gathering from corporations. If they are data gathering to sell to third parties then what makes them any different than Reddit? 🫤
If I had to guess most of that info is just to feed you ads, but that is already bad enough for me.
I think we can all make our own conclusions. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the app looks great. But I think the subscription model and the data gathering maybe isn’t the right approach in this instance, since we’re talking about a different culture in Lemmy. This is not Reddit. I’d be happy with a simple, straight app purchase with no bs data mining, thank you very much.
Any paid tier (ultra or eventually pro when it comes out) will have all the data gathering disabled. It’s purely just for whatever framework sync is using to serve ads.
Those are the ads SDK, which is disabled if you subscribe to ultra or pay a one time purchase to remove ads (available later when the app is out of beta).
Proof?
What makes you think it’s gathering that data?
LOL this is not how you gather data in a mobile app. There isn’t a
GATHER_USER_DATApermission 🤣🤣🤣Ok then, how do you think it’s getting the user’s location data without access to the location permission, wifi, or Bluetooth?
That’s only one of the many data points an app could get. Simply tracking user’s network behaviour would be far more valuable than getting their location data.
Oh great they’re in the US…
It is indeed beautifully designed. By far the best looking client I’ve seen yet.
You are right, the pricing is just too high. Everything is a service nowadays because it is more common and people are used to it.
If only a few thousand fall for this, the income stream is wonderful, more than that and it would be astronomical.
I wish the dev all the luck in the world but with these prices the app was deinstalled immediately.
These prices are for Ultra. Ultra is voluntary and only for super fans to support the developer. There will be a pro version that is a one time payment and it removes all the ads and is very affordable. But the developer didn’t want to start charging for the Pro version while bugs still exist and is waiting for the Beta to be over.
Bruh, you can’t spare two whole dollars for something you’re going to be using every day? Like, I use Jerboa, which is free, but I still signed up for dessalines patreon to support their work.
The future is either free to use, but put up with ads, or pay a meager amount to support the developers so ads arent required to sustain the product.
Bruh, you can’t spare two whole dollars for something you’re going to be using every day?
Or, we can just like …buy it once…like most other software that isn’t tied to a first-party hosted service?
The future is either free to use, but put up with ads, or pay a meager amount to support the developers so ads arent required to sustain the product.
I’d like to unsubscribe from your vision of the future
There will be an In-App Purchase later on. Keep in mind this is a beta and not the full release. For the beta the option is ads or ultra. For the full release it will be ads, pro (one time purchase) or ultra (subscription).
IMO that’s a good way to go
In this scenario you’d pay for updates though right?
Well games receive patch fixes and even content updates after release and most of them are pushed through to the people who purchased the game at no extra costs. Yes dlc’s do require you to purchase them but updates that fix bugs and improve performance resulting in an improved experience are usually free of cost
Well it’s been updated with a one time payment purchase option. That’ll get you updates with no recurring costs.
Yeah I know. I was just replying to your comment about paying for each update.
FYI there will be a one time payment option once the app is out of beta.
These prices are for Ultra. Ultra is voluntary and only for super fans to support the developer. There will be a pro version that is a one time payment and it removes all the ads and is very affordable. But the developer didn’t want to start charging for the Pro version while bugs still exist and is waiting for the Beta to be over.
The option to remove ads has been added - it costs $20 USD. The lifetime Ultra costs $100 USD.
I’m somewhat with you on this, but most software that’s updating its pricing or is new, is using a subscription model. 2$ really is fine I think, even less with the yearly thing. I’d still like to see a OTP
The developer has confirmed on Discord that the one-time lifetime payment is planned for the full release.
That’s nice to hear!
It’s already live apparently, just update to the latest version and it’s “remove ads” under the account switcher section.
It has ads… Why are people so excited about this? Jerboa is open source with no ads and works perfectly.
It has ads unless you pay to remove the ads, which is a perfectly reasonable model for an app to use.
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Imo that’s pretty unethical. If you don’t want ads, use an app where the maintainer has decided not to include ads or not to charge.
But don’t take something from a sole-developer (meaning in this case labor is actually getting all the fruits of their labor instead of a CEO), use one of the other options instead where the developers aren’t using it as their main source of income.
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Of course. I’m just saying pray for the ad-free version then. If you are going to use it.
Yup. I block all ads by default, and yet I still bought the lifetime ultra subscription simply because the developer is an awesome guy.
But ads don’t stand a chance on my phone.
True, but I found Jerboa to be very unpolished and barely worked so I crawled back to Reddit. Now that Sync for lemmy is released I feel right at home.
Was that during the period of time they couldn’t upgrade lemmy.world? Been stabe ever since the upgrade was done and the servers tuned. For me it is the most RiF like of all the apps, so I prefer using it.
Connect seems like a nice one
Personally, I love the UI/UX of it and how customizable it is. For me, it’s unparalleled, and I’m happy to pay for it to support the independent developer behind it. But I get that not everyone cares about it and would rather use a different option, and it’s cool that there are so many different options to interact with the fediverse.
There’s also Infinity for Lemmy now.
I like swiping gestures, it has a really nice UI, and I don’t mind unintrusive ads in otherwise free software.
Personally, I like Thunder
Be cause Sync is a beautiful app with incredible flexibility. Jerboa is fugly.
If you don’t like it, or are a foss purist, don’t use it.
They also cross post on every single instance and tech community so I have only seen 1 million “sync for Lenny” posts…… so far
Now we just need Reddit is Fun for Lemmy.
Interesting name.
Lemmy is Fun? 👍
RiF is Fun for Lemmy
Limmy is Fun
Yea I’ve used RIF for 11 years. Sync is pretty good but I’m really missing RIFs comment jumping system. Jumping from comment to comment and parent/root was so good
Sync supports comment jumping.
Yes but it’s not quite the same. It jumps to each top level comment so that it’s at the top of the screen. RIF would have the jump button on the comment and jump so that the next comment would be right where your finger is
Ah okay,I understand. I don’t know if I ever going to use it but I will throw it in the suggestions room on discord.
Sync is in beta now, so I guess the dev will be busy with ironing out the bugs and make sure everything is running smooth.
But perhaps he’ll add it in in a future update.
Thanks!
Boost is IMO the best Android Reddit app and they have a Lemmy version coming soon…
yeah I used RiF for like 10 years, trying Sync for lemmy now, it’s not bad, but not as simple and clean as RiF is.
though maybe it’s just that sync is different from what I am used to
Sync is quite customizable. Play around in the settings and you can get it close to RiF. Source: switched from RiF to Sync a couple years back.
Finally logged in with Sync. 😆
I created my account a while ago but not having an App back then was more annoying/cumbersome to use the web front-end. Hence I quickly lost interest.
Learned about Sync today and just started to actually use Lemmy and subscribing to all the different communities.
Awesome to see so many vibrant communities now 🥳.
Liftoff is pretty great too.
Nice. Got it installed and walking through settings. Seems nice so far. Not sure about ultra pricing though…
I would definitely support the developer if it was a one time purchase. Paying monthly for an app to browse lemmy ain’t it for me
There’s gonna be an option for that, one time payment to remove ads. Let’s see how it goes.
The option to remove ads has been added - it costs $20 USD. The lifetime Ultra costs $100 USD.
Paying 100 bucks for an app to use a service that still growing (and in the state Lemmy is currently in) is having so much faith. I really hope Lemmy stays, grows and matures.
That’s for Ultra. Pro will be a one time payment available as a separate app on the play store. Pro will be available once sync is out of beta, from what I’ve heard.
Ultra is $100, and ad-free (I assume what is called “Pro”) is $20.
Yeah the $20 one is just to remove ads and is a lifetime purchase. I figured that there would be a “pro” version like sync for reddit but it seems like it’s all on the same app now and not separate.
Living on a third world country, yeah, it’s totally absurd pricing. I am not exited about the upcoming pro version pricing either.
I spent some time experimenting with Sync today, but I found that I prefer using Connect for Lemmy. While I appreciate the cleaness of Sync, I don’t enjoy seeing ads when there are alternative options available that are ad-free. As well as Connect handling hidden posts better. I may switch between the two services depending on my needs, but I’m more comfortable with Connect for now.
It appears that it is not opensource, unfortunately.
What made you think it would be?
I didn’t think that it would – I was hopeful that it might.
gestures to the platform we are posting on
Hello World!
I’m a simple man. I see sync for Lemmy posted on 1000 communties and I uplemmy them all.
Anyone figured out how to enlarge comment body text?
That’s pretty cool that it generates a link straight to the setting
Omg sick link. Now I go reset back to default other font settings 😜
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Oh wow. I REALLY like that feature.
It’s so convenient. It’s the type of feature you love to have but don’t automatically think to request.
Thanks!
I have to admit I’m totally soured.
Serving ads is not cool, and specifically poisoning the Lemmy instance with all the problems of tying near permanent content to an ad ID is negligent.
No you won’t convince me he had to to make a living, or do you not use wikipedia.
So you want them to make a professional grade app for free?
There are other methods of monetization besides ads. Such as… selling it.
The Lemmy userbase is so small by comparison to reddit. I don’t like subscriptions or ads but my god man’s gotta eat. People get butthurt way too easily over this stuff.
Which he is doing with the subscription model. Put your money where your mouth is in that case. Have you supported Lemmy or the 3rd party apps in any way?
Which he is now also doing - one time payment to remove ads permanently.
Is that available yet, or he’s developing it? Or you have to pay ultra?
Edit: nevermind, found it on the sidebar not under settings.
Good to hear. Now remove the ad version and I’m convinced. 👍
There’s nothing wrong with having an ad supported version if people want to use it.
Are you really trying to compare an app that connects to a service with maybe 2M monthly users to fuckin Wikipedia, one of the best known sites on the internet that’s used worldwide and still has to beg yearly for donations?
Ads get you free services, welcome to the internet since it’s inception. If you don’t want ads, pay to not have ads. The god damn entitlement here, telling a guy that he should be working for tips.
The entire body of issues from the ad supported model are legion and documented by people better than I.
My point to wikipedia is it’s a charitable model with substantial overhead. The time of the dev is the product here, there is no overhead beyond the play store scrape.
He can work for what he wants, but he’s shutting where I eat.
The entire body of issues from the ad supported model are legion and documented by people better than I.
So someone told you to hate something and you just went for it full send without understanding it, eh?
The time of the dev is the product here, there is no overhead beyond the play store scrape.
He shouldn’t value his own time and effort? Damn you’re entitled.
He can work for what he wants, but he’s shutting where I eat.
No he isn’t, just go use a different app ffs.
Ads and data gathering are really damn annoying. I’d like to purchase this software, but instead it’s just a monthly subscription. I’m posting this from sync, but I gotta say - if there’s no update removing this stuff, I’m switching back to jerboa.
