It’s not. It’s popular because it was a popular Reddit app and a lot of people here are former Reddit users.
Everyone has their preferences but that doesn’t make sync better than any other app. Just different.
It’s not.
But it has potential to be, let’s remember it is in beta state, as many other apps.
It is almost unbeatable in smoothness and I think only Summit, Voyager and Connect for Lemmy are good alternatives to it, regarding features and smoothness.
And it has one big perk against all the others, you can multitask with it.
I never said it didn’t. But you point out that it’s in the same state as many other apps but don’t mention whether or not those apps are better in any way.
I keep hearing about smoothness and polish. Can you define those for me? I see nothing about Sync that feels more smooth than other apps I’ve tried.
The animations are smooth, only Summit can compare (indeed I think it is better as of now).
The app lasts longer in the multitask/app switcher and it almost always remembers your place on the feed.
You have peek to see posts, and those are one of the top features that come to my mind that not all the other apps have, but I know some do, like Voyager holds on the background a bit longer than other apps as well, and I am pretty sure some have peek to see as well.
At the end of the day nothing is wrong with one of another, the good thing is that we get options.
I have to assume the animations are a personal preference. There’s certainly nothing about them that stands out to me.
I can’t speak to app switching as it’s really not something that matters to me to the extent I couldn’t tell you how well a lot of apps, Lemmy related or not, do with it. I’m glad it covers your needs for you.
I don’t know what you mean by peek to see posts. Maybe it’s a feature I didn’t enable when I tried it?
You’re absolutely right that having options is a good thing. The problem I have is when a vocal group pushes hard on theirs being the best. It stifles variety. Since Reddit had a large number of Android apps that didn’t seem to be an issue. The audience was always varied when someone had a recommendation or request. Lemmy is new to a very large part of its userbase. I worry that if “sync is the best” gets too overgrown then other apps that might venture in will look to replicate it, rather than make their own choices.
I heard it has ads and you can’t post. Some people are a little too loyal
Perhaps I am biased, but I’d still like to point out some facts :)
Yes, it has ads. It also has options to remove them.
No, you can post. That’s coming soon.
This app is also in its first beta release. It hasn’t been officially launched yet. It just happened that a lot of people who were excited about Sync coming back drummed up a lot of hype for it when the beta finally launched, that we kicked off a massive news wave apparently.
Also, of the ones I’ve used, the fluidity of the app, the smoothness of it, and the polish (especially for a beta) is unmatched from the other Lemmy clients I’ve used (haven’t used all of them, but I used a lot of them.)
There’s a lot of opinion in that last paragraph that a lot of vocal sync users don’t seem inclined to see.
It’s equally fine that you like it and I don’t.
You know what, yeah, completely fair.
If you don’t mind me asking, what apps are, in your opinion, as good as Sync? (Removing the ads, and payment and shit out of the debate).
I’ve used Thunder, Jerboa, Connect, LiftOff, and maybe another that I can’t recall. Last time I used each of them, they were nowhere near the level of Polish that Sync has. That being said, it has been a while because once the Sync alpha launched, I exclusively used Sync for browsing and Connect for posting. They might have changed and been updated, etc.
When did you last use jerboa? The quality of experience has gone way up with a huge number of new contributors. I used RIF for years and at first jerboa was way less polished but today I think it is better than RIF ever was.
No, you can post. That’s coming soon.
You have been able to post since it was released…
It’s a nice app, (first time Sync user) great functionality and design, but the downside is it’s not open source and it has ads and even optional subscription service. Some people think it goes against the whole fediverse mindset, others (long time Sync for Reddit users) defend it as they are looking for the same experience they had on reddit.
That said it’s 100% usable, but if you don’t like this kind of stuff you have half a dozen free alternatives with just as many functions and different designs.
Couldn’t agree more!
(I hope I don’t come off as attacking you! I’m kinda just using your comment to piggyback and make my own haha)
It’s closed source, as was his reddit version, so idk what anyone expected there. He also never said it was ever going to be open source. But I completely understand anyone who isn’t willing to let go of their FOSS. FOSS is good for a reason! :)
I do understand the mindset that it goes against the fediverse, but I happen to disagree. In other threads, there’s been discussion about how they are actively paying donations, patreons, paypal, etc to help fund their favorite instance or whatever else. That needs to happen to offset the cost. Especially if it is the instance owners hobby, and not full time job.
Well, what if we want a nice experience while using Lemmy? Sure, there’s plenty of apps, but what if someone was able to dedicate their entire working hours to that app? To make it as good as possible? Well, then they’d need to make money somehow, right? Or they’d have to get a different job, and do the app as a hobby. This hurts the app, and then it just becomes another run of the middle Lemmy client.
I understand why people are upset. Lemmy is free. The fediverse is free. (Most of) the apps are free. But someone is paying for all of this, whether we realize it or not.
Sync and Connect are pretty similar, but I prefer Sync. I like its design a bit more, also it is more customizable and has more features I use: customization of sorting for every feed and subscription, option to hide nested comments by default, button showing parent comment without need to scroll up. Also it can track comment count changes.
I think people are talking about Sync because it has ads and its pricing is too high.
I started using sync a week and I don’t believe I’ve seen an ad. Also, it hasn’t asked me to pay to use it. Am I missing something?
The ads depends on layout you choose. I’ve heard the ads aren’t compatible with every layout yet.
Ad placeholders are displayed in the slide view. And Sync doesn’t ask to pay for using it. It just provides payed options in its settings.
I think it’s just a what you know sort of situation.
If you’ve used sync for years, the interface, shortcuts etc feel intuitive even though that is caused by hours of practice/experience.
Personally, coming from another reddit client, all the Lemmy apps/interfaces I’ve tried still feel a bit awkward even after a month or whatever.
The uncanny issue may also be causing a problem. While Lemmy is different, the basic idea (communities, posts etc) is very similar to reddit. Something that is similar but slightly different can feel uncanny, which is often unsettling/frustrating.
What did you use? Memmy reminds me of Apollo’s gestures
Relay. I’m using connect which isn’t bad. I figure instead of looking for exactly what I had, I’ll just get used to Connect.
Though if you have (or anyone else has) another suggestion I’m all ears!
Just Memmy so far. Have only tried a couple, but I like it
Synch for reddit and synch for Lemmy just offer the best browsing experience for me.
That’s it. It just looks the best imo and has tons of settings to make it look even more like you want it to look.
Jerboa is pretty bad in many, many ways; at one point it almost killed Lemmy for me. Sync is at least polished and robust. I’ve not seen ads yet but I wouldn’t be opposed to paying something for a decent client - I used to pay for Narwhal too.
So the crashing isn’t Lemmy going down?
Apps should never crash, even if the Lemmy instance goes down or behaved weirdly.
It’s not. The Sync dev wants you to pay $20 to remove ads from the app. I’m sticking with Connect and Voyager.
I’m a Sync guy to be sure, but I was pretty happy with Connect while waiting for Sync. That app is looking pretty good.
I was waiting for Sync to come out but now I’m using Infinity because of how greedy the dev turned out. I tried Connect and Liftoff but Infinity is even better than those and with lots of customization.
I started out with connect, but sync is so much smoother experience for me. With my pi-hole I don’t see any ads at all so there’s that.
Totally anecdotal but I’d originally quit Reddit back in December and was an avid Sync user. Heard about Lemmy during the reddit drama and could just never get into it. After ljdawson dropped Sync, started to get into Lemmy!
Personally, I disliked Sync for Reddit and did not use it. And, personally some of those quirks still bother me with Sync for Lemmy.
But…Jerboa, Connect, Liftoff, etc. currently also don’t work as well or are as customizable as I’d like. Liftoff is definitely the closest, though, and I still switch back to it after each update to see how it is progressing.
For now though, Sync ticks more of my hot button boxes despite its flaws than any other app I’ve tried (so far).
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RiF for me. I was a fan of old.reddit. Liked the simplicity and didn’t have a need for all those flairs. And the filtering options I felt were the most extensive of the reddit apps and close to RES. I came to like stuff like Boost for a more prettier UI with showing banners of the subreddit and avatars and the viewing options were really nice. But, something about RiF feeling like a mobilized version of RES kept it in my rotation and never dropped out.
I was really excited about Sync coming out for Lemmy since that was my client of choice on Reddit. I was looking for the same ease of use and app logic that I had been using for years.
The issue I quickly ran into was the revenue model. Pushing ads on a Reddit app made sense, but it feels inappropriate on the Fediverse. I would have gladly paid just to support the developer, but when I see features being locked behind a $100 lifetime subscription, my willingness to contribute sours quickly.
So I checked other clients like Voyager and Infinity, and I discovered I don’t mind the change. Infinity is really good right now, for instance, and that’s FOSS all the way. So I figure, I just changed social networks, why not make an app switch too?
I think the Sync fan base is largely looking for some sort of continuity from their Reddit days. They feel the dev was slighted by the Reddit move to kill third-party apps and they want them to find a new home in the Fediverse. I certainly wish that as well, but I think the dev has some adjusting to do. Fortunately for us, there’s plenty of alternatives if Sync doesn’t do it. And no, Sync isn’t better than a lot of other apps; just more familiar, maybe.
I used Infinity for Reddit but I don’t see a Lemmy version in the Google app store. Does it actually exist and if so, where can I get it? I am using Jerboa and I like it a lot but would be interested in trying Infinity for Lemmy.
I tried Sync and just found it to be “more” than I needed… almost too many customization options
It’s still in early development so you have to download it manually for now. Definitely usable, though!
Here’s the latest version:
https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Infinity-For-Lemmy/releases/tag/v0.0.8
It has been added to the fdroid store
https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/eu.toldi.infinityforlemmy
But it seems to be an older release for now
Thanks, I will check it out!
Here you can download Infinity for Lemmy: https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Infinity-For-Lemmy/releases
Thank you!
I used sync on Reddit myself also, but yes the 100 pricetag also made me look around for alternatives.
I ended up with infinity and I really like it 💪
Sync isn’t better than a lot of other apps; just more familiar, maybe.
Was my feelings too. I actually ignored and underestimated the quality of the lemmy apps without the reddit lineage, and didn’t bother checking them out until Sync released. Then checked out sync but didn’t really like the ads or subscription model so decided to check out liftoff and connect. Was really impressed with them both, and been using it and unisntalled sync.
Not really been understanding people going on and on about the polish of sync and making it out like other lemmy apps are some buggy unpolished experience. Connect has especially impressed me and is only a few features away for me from being perfect for me with just a bit more extensive filtering options beyond key words, and ability to toggle between card and compact without going into settings. UI itself I love. And both liftoff and connect allowing viewing instances as guests to be able to browse what is local to that instance to discover new communities that hasn’t been added to your instance has been a vital feature.
Feel like people are putting down the alternatives way too much like I did initially with not even giving them a chance opting for browser instead thinking they fall short of reddit apps I had used. Can understand people vastly preferring the UI they prefer due to years of usage, but I didn’t get the sense the gap was as big as fans make it seem. If it was I’d be using the browser or using Sync.
It’s not. Its just another Lemmy mobile UI, that’s what they all are. I’ll be honest, I was not prepared for how cultish the syncers (Syncs? Syncheads?) are. Next level famboying.
Matter of preference, really. I like a nice UI, smooth animations, clean aesthetic, etc. Sync provides that for me and more, so to me, it IS better than all the other apps. :)
I never used Sync for reddit; I just like that so far it hasn’t crashed or failed to load posts like other Lemmy apps.
Suggest that it’s amusing that they pay for the app and they will rush in to try to mock you for not acknowledging the ad-filled free version lol, they love their GUI.
It’s the best UI currently :)
Use infinity for lemmy
It’s free software and yu can get it on fdroid
Reddit cringe
Some Lemmings aren’t doing better tbh.
