Just want to say thank you to Connect dev Kuro for making Connect for Lemmy. Amidst all this hype for Sync and Boost, Connect remains ad- and subscription-free without compromising quality. This app is bomb and I won’t be veering off to competitors anytime soon. Bonus points for being Canadian too! 🍁 Thank you!
Edit: adding donation link to buy dev Kuro a coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kurononeko
Thank you for the support. I think Connect is 90% feedback driven at this point haha. My goal has always been getting more people using Lemmy so monetization isn’t really a focus for me as I’m doing this for fun. Sending you love back fellow canuck!
I tried Sync for a bit, but I agree with the other posters that the pricing model is a little outrageous.
Have you considered adding a donation option through google play? I’m not sure what the process is like, but it might make it easier for people to donate.
Permanently removing ads in Sync is just 20$ though; I wouldn’t call it ‘outrageous’ for such a feature-rich app. The more expensive options are there if you want to further support the dev.
$20 starts putting it in the category of productivity apps like Lumafusion which is $20 on sale which is a pretty solid video editor on iOS. Or Procreate at $13 for a really good drawing app iPadOS. So when looking at Android it is definitely an outlier in price for a social media app. And those apps mentioned are one time purchases and straight up paid apps, so there’s no ad integration built into the app that needs to be disabled to begin with which makes it feel premium from the get go.
Most expensive app I spent money on was SeriesGuide X Unlock key which is $24.99 to I think get notifications. SeriesGuide as a base though has no ads and is open source, and feature rich even without the Unlock key. So that I felt better about supporting, since it wasn’t to remove ads and I liked their approach better.
Ah I must have gotten it confused with the lifetime ultra, which was $100
Love the app! Feels really similar to rif for me.
I used to use Sync for the other site, but despite all the hype for Sync for lemmy I don’t feel the need to try it when Connect meets all my needs.
I’ve seen people using other apps wishing that their app had this feature or that feature. Well Connect already has that built in! Spread the good word, lemmings!
Right. Handed. Voting.
I tried all the others and ended up with connect in the end. I like the look and feel of it, it just works with me. Thank you very much for developing this and keeping it available for us as FOSS and not tracking us!👍
Just switched from Jerboa to Connect yesterday and it’s so much better. Also, ain’t no way I’m getting Sync if they want my data.
Yeah, I don’t mind (non-personalized) ads actually, but the personalized data Sync was asking for is too much.
Right? I understand needing some ads to generate revenue, but the data ask turned me off.
I have to admit, I’m a leech when it comes to entertainment. I always use adblockers (even on Twitch) and have never spent a single cent on mobile apps. However, I donated to Kuro because he’s a boss and Connect is the best Lemmy app. All hail the king!
Edit: Here’s donation link - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kurononeko
Yes please share donation link. Would love to contribute to coffee fund!
Can you share the link to the donation page?
So how does that work? Just saw I need to type in my mail and what do I need afterwards? Is paypal doing the trick?
I think you put in your debit/credit card info after that. I didn’t see PayPal on their FAQ page.
Thank you for posting the link, adding myself to the pile of people who donated
New to Lemmy and have just installed both apps (Connect and Sync). Can someone quickly and briefly list what makes Connect better in their opinion?
Connect dev here. Sync is a great app and I think the developer did a good job and it’s benefitted a lot in terms of polish from being a Reddit app for years. I feel Connect is more or less at feature parity while being just over a month old. Maybe in terms of differences I would say Connect will never track you, doesn’t include ads or data collection, and isn’t a subscription service. But that’s true for a number of open source Lemmy apps too and I also think Summit, Liftoff, and Thunder are really great choices too.
Thank you for the response.
I am not so much into the mobile developing, but as I understand, you are not monetizing this app in any way, just taking voluntary donations?That’s correct
I would say a major feature for me that sync has is to be able to hide viewed/interacted posts on button press.
I also have bugs with connect not marking viewed/interacted posts as read.
But I keep both in hopes that Connect get polished overtime, i mean it takes time to get everything right.
I was not a Sync user on Reddit but LOVED Relay for reddit. Anything that navigates/looks close to Relay I will gladly pay for.
I just re-tested Connect and my marking as viewd bug seems fixed with the last update lol great!
Thanks for being an awesome dev, I did use connect in the interim before Sync. I probably will still use connect to some extent for other accounts, and definitely recommend it as an option for those who don’t wish to pay for an app.
10/10
ʘ‿ʘ
Connect is the best app available right now. Thanks to the dev
Lemmy connect gang fo lyfe!
Connect is fantastic.
I tried sync and I must say… I don’t find it that much better than connect, you can’t even hide the replays! I’m pretty happy with connect and I’ll keep using it
You can hide them with a long press
This is a little off topic but I like Connect after 5 minutes of playing around with it… So… Is there a Mastodon browser that’s equivalently good?
If like how Connect looks you might like Megalodon. It’s a fork of the official Mastodon app with a number of usability improvements and such, I’ve found it to be a well-balanced app in terms of features and usability/design. I haven’t used Fedilab, but I’ve seen people recommend it before and I’d say it’s worth a shot if you like lots of configuration options.
Thanks, this is awesome! I was using Tusky before, but Megalodon looks a lot more modern to me.
I’ve used both a lot. Megalodon for a smooth polished app with plenty of features. Fedlilab for every possible feature you could imagine and then 12 more than that, but less polished. I’m sticking with megalodon for now
Couldn’t agree more!
I will be sticking with Connect he didn’t try to overcharge his users.
Yup. I tried Sync and Thunder but both felt sluggish compared to Connect.
Agreed. I tried using sync this morning and just ended up back on connect. There are a couple of things like how hidden posts work/scroll past that I prefer how connect handles them. Id say sync has ever so slightly more polish on the ui front? maybe? but im super happy with Connect. Great dev.
I was going to install Sync to give it a whirl but after reading some feedback, and hearing the dreaded “ad” word, I’ve decided to stick with Connect instead.
Hello!
Does connect work with Kbin as well? I know it’s kind of different from Lemmy.
Currently no as there is no Kbin API but I’ll add support once that changes!
The API is still being worked on, but it is active on artemis.camp if you want to play with it (it’s unlikely to change significantly).
