A group of open source Android apps without ads or unnecessary permissions
simplemobiletools.com
simplemobiletools.com
For the last two years or so they tried to retire "Simple Gallery" (which already had no ads or extra permissions required) and move people to its paid version by releasing updates with nag screens and fewer and fewer functions (edit: removals).
Every single time someone complained in a review, they would reply a canned answer: "Hey, there are many improvements in the Pro app version, it is definitely worth upgrading".
I have no issue paying for apps I like, but sorry, I won't reward scummy behaviour.
Do you have any other ways the developer can make a living?
AFAIK the pro features (excluding the closed source 3rd party SDKs) are all open source. You can build them on your own or download it off F-Droid.
The tag line is literally "free as in freedom, not as in beer". How is it possible to miss this?
Yes. Sell commercial software or If the developer cares about open source then charge for support. Its a disservice IMO to make the user install for free and then ask them money to use other features wasting users time. There is a incentive to make worst product in the free version which goes against the principle of opensource.
Which works okay for me and my projects, but if I wanted them to be serious players in the market rather than just side projects, I would need to find a way to earn money in a way which doesn't eat most of my time.
Personally, I want FOSS software to be able to be serious players in the market. Therefore, I want them to have enough developer resources to make that possible. Therefore, they need to make money.
I agree. I do not see anything wrong with earning money from open source software, lots of companies do it. Open source is always good for transparency than proprietary closed software. We should support open source devs to be successful, as you said, to go against proprietary monopolies.
My point is that if you want to make money for your code, either get a job writing software or create a business around the software you wrote.
I think open source should be created by people not trying to make money from it. I understand that not everyone feels this way, and I sometimes agree with the arguments. However, my overall feeling is that supporting open source work should come in the form of companies supporting their employees to work on open source work that is valuable for the company employing those people. They contribute to open source not because they are trying to make money from that work, but because they use that software to support their main money making work, and get more value by sharing the work than keeping it fully internal.
It must:
1. Support mediaapi - not be confused about where Whatsapp puts its images.
2. Allow management of files.
3. Be able to provide basic organization (folders/sorting[per folder]/cover images)
4. Support all modern image formats used by phones and the web.
5. Not crash.
6. Not delete/corrupt files by accident.
7. Be able to play modern video/audio files (pick top 20 popular codecs)
Is the source open and with a OSS-compatible licence? Then it's open source, not freeware nor shareware.
Red Hat has nagging too.
The _goal_ of open source is to provide free software. Software that is free to _use_ now, and in the future, not _just_ free to get the source, free to use. If you don't provide free software (and free build processes) it's not compliant with Open Source licences.
Paid binaries are permitted but you must be _willing_ to to give away your software free of cost.
Aguably nagware is a deliberate annoyance and time cost to the user that makes it not "free to use". Adding crippleware (making it not work after a period of time) is certainly forbidden.
If your are writing nagware with oss license no-one will take you to court, because they can fix it, but it's certainly deceptive. It imies you don't want your software to be free to use.
OS licenses were not designed as a marketing tool for individual developers to get you a foot in the door. You can do that, but don't be surprised if you get called out for it. That is not the _purpose_ of OS.
That's the purpose of a free tier.
As a RedHat customer I don't find any of the software use daily to be suffering from nagware.
If grep had nagware in it, I'd bitch about it on HN.
No, the goal of Open Source is to provide a user with ability access the source and do things to it. That's the difference between the Open Source and Free Software championed by FSF. FSF flopped. That's why we are still waiting for the Hurd to be useful.
Source: Sat in the room with Bruce Perens when this was happening.
Don't enter your license key and you'll see
Why does CentOS exist?
Can you develop and maintain a suite of 8-10 apps only on your free time? I was talking about how this specific developer who makes these many apps can make money, and not how you do.
As far as pro version is opensourced, distributed under free license and fully auditable, there is nothing defeating the idea of open source.
That's the problem with OSS and F-droid in general. Tons of apps. Very few polished enough for use of general population.
Simple is great. Simple Gallery Pro blows away every single gallery app on the market. A few minor bugs that the author(s) keep addressing.
P.S. Developers of useful apps should be able not to live on Ramen. They should be able to eat whatever they want and buy a house. Screw the entitled crowd who say "Shit should be free, open source blah blah" without maintaining a polished product for a few years.
Now everything is on a subscription basis, regardless of which OS you use. Even 'dumb' apps like music players and file managers, that don't require online access are being priced this way.
I wonder if parent accidentally installed the Play Store version, or if there are only one or two of the apps that have this particular anti-feature.
Open Source means something, not just that the source code is available.
Nope.
> Open Source means something, not just that the source code is available.
That the source is openly licensed. Providing paid version is a different thing.
"there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable _reproduction_ cost, preferably downloading via the Internet without charge"
The software itself MUST be free, and the _reproduction_ costs reasonable.
You cannot add clauses that make me pay money or restrict my use. It must be free as in beer to use and redistribute either modified or in its original form.
When you pay for a copy you don't buy rights to use the open source software, you already had them. You buy the paper it's printed on.
And you can't deliberately make it hard for me to compile either.
Arguably nagware is that.
If you own _all_ the rights you can also release a version for cash, but if you then tell people that you are selling them open source software, and you sell them a version for which the source code is not freely available you are breaking the law/rules.
Even if that change is just removing the nagware.
>you sell them a version for which the source code is not freely available
But the source code IS freely available. All the nagware/restrictions/whatever is in there as a build option. Play Store builds have them enabled unless you buy a license, F-Droid & GitHub builds have them disabled.
In any case it seems you're mistaken about what free software exactly entails, and what is and is not allowed by GPL. For a TL;DR refer to the ones behind it.
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLCommercially
>You are allowed to sell copies of the modified program commercially, but only under the terms of the GNU GPL. Thus, for instance, you must make the source code available to the users of the program as described in the GPL, and they must be allowed to redistribute and modify it as described in the GPL.
Or get the source code for free, and build it yourself.
What's the problem? Pay for convenience.
None of the inventors or well-known stewards of Open Source ideas share your belief.
SunTimes - This app will set alarms at certain sun/moon points in the day. So whatever time sunrise is at your location an alarm can go off. I like to use it to let me know when Golden Hour starts and the day is almost ending.
QuillNote - I love this note taking app, and have taken to posting thoughts there to lower the number of tweets/posts I send. I get the dopamine rush of typing out and saving my thought, and it all stays local.
Mindful Notifier - Whenever this bell goes off (and I set it random between 90 minutes and 120 minutes) I take three very deep breaths. The sayings are okay, but the healthy intake of oxygen is great.
SMS Scheduler - An older app, but a great way to send a text at a later time. My daughter has a different work schedule than I do, so I schedule texts to her for when work is done. Also, if someone asks me to remind them of something later, I schedule the text and it sends as a reminder.
Dodge - Simple game of getting across the screen. My record is 13.
Snotz - I like this for non-thoughts (Quillnote) but tend towards quillnote more. It's a note taking app with nice colors.
FOSS Browser - This is a nice simple browser for when I don't want to be tracked.
Nunti - Pretty good feed reader that supposedly uses AI to tell what stories to share. I'm still training it, but prefer it over online news aggregation.
Vector Pinball - I played this game longer than I should have.
1list - great shopping list app, or any other list you may need to make, and all stays local.
The app developer did that.
Since it went not free, the free version doesn't generate notifications or alerts anymore. I almost missed appointments or meetings because of this.
This is planned obsolescence at best. I seriously despise everything about this.
If you are the semi-paranoid kind, the following stack of opensource apps will enable you to keep a calendar/contacts/tasks in sync between Linux and android without an internet connection.
On Android Side
1. Simple Calendar
2. Dec Sync (Fdroid)
3. SyncThing
1. SyncThing
2. Evolution with Decsync plugin
Decysnc also supports syncing RSS feeds between applications, although I have not been able to find a working Linux RSS app that has Decsync plugin.
And of course, you should install these from F-Droid, not Google Play
Edit: It seems like they are, but without the word "Pro" in the title. I can't figure out what makes any of them "Pro".
Edit 2: Nope, some of them say "Pro" on F-Droid, too. I guess it's just in the name. Weird.
TLDR: Their Calendar app became "not free" and you needed to pay to get notifications or alerts, but only if you downloaded from the Play Store. It's still completely free on f-droid
I have thousands of photos carefully sorted, categorized and synchronized with other devices, and Android's way of managing photos just does not work for me. Everything is messed up and ordered or grouped by some magic algorithm instead of showing me directories.
It seems that the app I'm using is somehow featured here now, but the previous version disappeared from the store? I'm confused and afraid of attempting any update because I don't want this feature to disappear.
In general, they are simple and functional and seem to be well made and privacy respecting ... but they are only "free" if you don't mind the nag screen and the orange theme which can only be changed in the purchased version.
What I don't like about purchased apps is the fact that you have to pay again for every upgrade. And I have to pay twice since I use 2 phones --- one private and one for work.
They're open source, just get the builds from f-droid instead of the paid play store builds. You can still pay to support the developer.
It seems even people who are reasonably technically savvy, as demonstrated by some posts, think that it requires various payments.
How did they come to this conclusion?
And I already pointed out the definition of "free" at work here.
In any case, I don't use "Google Play".
E: not very useful if you don't use "Google Play" Store
I guess for most people they see Google Play as an integral part of Android... ask Huawei what happens if Google can't do business with you or what if you don't like google so much.
Of course, one would be even worse off with Apple where there is no decent open source option to speak of, which GP is most likely to be locked into.
Just yesterday in an OpenStreetMap chat, I had to disappoint a user who wanted to access a locally stored recording in some app. They didn't have root and so they couldn't access it from outside the app.
Backups aka accessing your own data is one of the biggest problems I have as an android user, with as only solution rooting the device and treating it like a normal desktop OS where you also have root, except various apps start to complain when you do so. Apple really has the nicer solution here via the iTunes software.
Wow, add a gimmick as a little perk to those who donate without actually impairing functionality for free users and next thing people will comment on how annoying it is that the color orange can't be changed.
I've never before heard someone complain that a color can't be changed in an app, it's not a common feature.
I've got the orange theme myself also after donating, don't mind it. I also still get the nag screen in some of the apps once a month or so, not sure how to turn it off but it doesn't bother me enough to figure it out.
Personally, I agree with you; adding unnecessary customization options which are only available to pro features is one of the least unethical ways of making money for software.
People complaining about it is just complain to complain.
Doesn't bother me either now that I use a different app.
If the author is reading this comment, thanks for your work.
A lot of FOSS apps are taking this approach: offer the full version in f-droid, charge for it in the play store, both to encourage f-droid use and pay some bills. There's nothing wrong with it.
The only problem I've ever had with it was I used the contacts app when it was new and it didn't actually fill in phone numbers on vcard export. This was terrible, thankfully I had an older backup and only lost a couple of contacts, but still. Beyond that, these tools work extremely well.
So does anybody know if there is perhaps an archive of old APK app files (old as in Android KitKat and earlier)?
Set default phone number for contact: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Contacts/issues/...
Cannot create new group (category) for Nextcloud account/address book: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Contacts/issues/...
Favorites tab showing contacts from all accounts: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Contacts/issues/...
I only use F-Droid (which has the full versions gratis) so I donated to the developer's Patreon (until I switched to a Pinephone).
If these apps were proprietary, would you be entitled to them gratis (free of charge)? How does the developer granting you access to the source code change this?
If you use and enjoy these apps, please consider donating to the develop's Patreon in order to support them more fully.
Dude makes some android apps, decide to release them on Android for free, even sharing the code. Then he DARES to charge end users for downloading pro versions of the apps from the official Google Play store... while still making Available the functionality in the source code and in f-droid.
And people are complaining??
IMHO This is the best scenario a developer could provide with his software.
It is much faster than my phone manufacturer's gallery.
The app does exactly what it says (records audio) and doesn't phone home, try to integrate with any services, collect any information about you. It just works.
If that type of thing is important to you, and you have a need for the functionality provided by one of the tools, there's your use case.
However due to the stringent requirements, you can imagine that the selection is smaller. For simple everyday things like a phone dialer, contacts app, gallery app, calendar, etc, Simple Mobile Tools will show up near the top of the list on F-Droid. A lot of alternatives are just old and unmaintained. Simple Mobile Tools gets the job done and has a decent UI, so you can uninstall whatever sketchy bloatware your phone came with and use these instead.
TLDR: if you care about FOSS and privacy, these are often your best option.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/3cjj2e/how_secure_...
[2]: https://f-droid.org/en/2018/09/04/second-security-audit-resu...
Can devs pay for placement in the android store or something?
The free one hasn't been updated in a few years so is not affected by changes to Android 12.
In 6.23.0 it was removed: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Gallery/releases...
But in 6.23.6 it should be there again: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Gallery/releases...
But it seems it won't happen for the Play-Store version: https://www.reddit.com/r/SimpleMobileTools/comments/uqqqsj/c...
Love being able to browse so far back without having to go over internet (google photos or dropbox or ...).
It's maddening!
Actually Google got this right at one point - but then they reverted to the stupid way!!
Anyway that's clearly not the reason - Google switched back and forth years before navigation gestures were a thing.