Simple Mobile Tools is being sold to a for-profit firm ZipoApps

3 years ago by Gogo Sempai to c/opensource

Simple Mobile apps have been very popular among FOSS enthusiasts. I've personally been using the Gallery, Contacts and the Phone app since a few years now. It's a shame that it has come to this, will be on the lookout for their forks.

Tiritibambix 55 points 3 years ago

Jeez, why can't we have nice things ?!

What are the alternatives ? I'll be searching.

If you guys find something, please, report back.

Edit: For gallery, this looks promising: https://f-droid.org/...

The one and only up to date dialer app I could find. Updated 50 minutes ago at the time of posting this: https://github.com/oxcened/opendialer

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satan 26 points 3 years ago

Jeez, why can't we have nice things ?!

Because freeloaders who call themselves "open source enthusiasts" aren't really good at supporting people who create them. It's often quite the opposite. Rude, entitled, and ungrateful bunch of whiners that want everything free and some more. Then act surprised after their favorite opensource app is shutdown, sold or archived.

This guy even had paid apps on the playstore so whoever says "but opensouce doesn't mean you can't sell em" can fuck right off.

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birdcat -6 points 3 years ago

lol exactly this. I never even liked those apps or the dev (cuz of the phone thing), but this makes me sympathize with him much more. glad for him.

ppl should stop wining and being very disappointed with this step and develop and maintain their own apps without getting anything back 🙄

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idunnololz 13 points 3 years ago

I've been maintaining a free app for over 6 years now. It's a lot of work. It's not like you have crunch time, but it's like you can go from just doing light maintenance to suddenly needing to drop 20 hours on it within a week on a dimes notice if there are major changes to certain dependencies. On top of that, the consistency is difficult. I will get bored and not work on it for months but I still need to keep up with the latest changes or else compatibility might break.

Having monetary incentive really helps with the boring work. The work that you need to do to keep the app going. And not necessarily the feature work which is usually a lot more fun.

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thru_dangers_untold 11 points 3 years ago

Aves Libre is a great gallery app, and Amaze is a good file manager

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Pantherina 1 point 3 years ago

Alternatives

File manager - Material Files

That one doesnt have the security vulnerability and I think it is also better. But they are pretty much equal.

Simple Gallery - Aves

I prefer Simple Gallery though, it is pretty great

Simple dialer - Welefon

Very basic, I personally use ACR phone for call recording, with disabled internet permissions. The Dev asked on Reddit about opensourcing the App and got negative responses, so maybe unlikely.

Simple Keyboard - Florisboard

Currently unmaintained but awesome. I hope it gets revived.

Simple Calculator

My favourite: Mint Calculator

Calculator

yetCalc

Unitto

Simple SMS

AOSP SMS/MMS, Quik Sms

AOSP SMS is poorly hard to find. That would be great on F-Droid. It also uses old libraries.

All these look way better and have unit transformations.

Some Gems

Some apps have no good replacement

Simple Gallery

Also in my opinion just the best. The Amaze Videoplayer and tools are great though.

Simple Contacts SE

That is the better version with some enhanced features.

Simple Calendar

I just got way better results than using Etar. The Widget is great too.

Forks:

https://github.com/SimplerMobileTools
https://github.com/FossifyX (from a big maintainer)

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maiskanzler 34 points 3 years ago

Oh no, those apps have replaced many of the OEM' supplied ones on all my devices. I was fed up with constantly changing UIs and all the different feature sets on every device. I thought I had finally found something useful to consolidate on for the long term!

At least the current versions are pretty bug free and will stay.

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itsaj26744 4 points 3 years ago

Same here.Also apps are completely offline with nice backups. Think like We have to switch

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maiskanzler 1 point 3 years ago

Let's hope some volunteers pick up the codebase. But it's a vast number of apps and some will probably be left behind.

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MaddestMax 32 points 3 years ago

Working source: https://github.com/...

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RootBeerGuy 18 points 3 years ago

Damn, I was not aware what kind of company this got sold to. Thats a shame.

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verdigris 30 points 3 years ago

From the comment thread it sounds like the contract might be on shaky ground. The original dev seems to be under the impression that a project licensed under GPLv3 can just be freely changed to another license, which it cannot without explicit consent from all contributors. We don't know the contract language of course, but the dev said it would "likely" not remain open source, which indicates that he told them they could change it. ZippApps' lawyers will hopefully notice that and refuse to buy, though either way we shouldn't trust this maintainer again and should move to the forks.

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merthyr1831 3 points 3 years ago

his last comment before closing the thread suggests that "99%" of the code is controlled by him and other paid contributors. still seems like you'd have to manually contact the last 1% to relicense their code.

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AnActOfCreation 28 points 3 years ago

Looks like one of the maintainers/contributors has already set up a fork.

https://github.com/FossifyX

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RickyRigatoni 8 points 3 years ago

His original comment of not wanting to fork to respect Tibor's decision to sell his users out doesn't make me confident in him.

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AnActOfCreation 22 points 3 years ago

I'd like to think he was just trying to be respectful of the author, probably having worked quite a bit together. But he changed his mind pretty quickly when he saw the original author had totally checked out. Maybe that's a generous reading though.

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RickyRigatoni 11 points 3 years ago

Maybe he wasn't even aware of this until everyone else was and got blindsided too. I'm still wary but I'll give him a shot.

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erAck 3 points 3 years ago

It's been renamed to FossifyOrg.

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uninvitedguest 19 points 3 years ago

Aves Libre is already a far better gallery that you should be using even if this wasn't happening.

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gogosempai 6 points 3 years ago

It doesn't have a video editor AFAIK. Any FOSS video editors around?

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uninvitedguest 3 points 3 years ago

https://f-droid.org/...

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gogosempai 1 point 3 years ago

That's a video transcoder. Simple Gallery could crop videos, trim videos, merge them, add filters, text, music and what not. Good thing it's forked by one of the devs who plans to maintain it.

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uninvitedguest 1 point 3 years ago

It allows you to trim videos, but yes, not any other functions you mention.

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fl42v 3 points 3 years ago

ffmpeg in termux 😁

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time_fo_that 2 points 3 years ago

I like the interface, but I miss the ability to show/lock hidden albums/folders with fingerprint.

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GissaMittJobb 18 points 3 years ago

Not great, but it's open source. If they try anything, just fork it and move on to the fork.

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sag 8 points 3 years ago

Who gonna maintain it? Community? Single Dev? Or You(Me)

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lntl 16 points 3 years ago

just fork it

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Linus_Torvalds 15 points 3 years ago

Got forked by one of the Contributors:

https://github.com/FossifyX

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pineapplelover 1 point 3 years ago

Damn, I think I'll donate what little I can so FossifyX keeps things running

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lseif 9 points 3 years ago

fork you

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qyron 9 points 3 years ago

Fork you too and, while we are at it, fork us all.

We all got forked with this one.

With a large barbecue one.

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lseif 3 points 3 years ago

oh no! fragmentation!

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Pantherina 15 points 3 years ago

So this just looks like the Community has to take care of the projects and/or find alternatives

Alternatives

File manager - Material Files

That one doesnt have the security vulnerability and I think it is also better. But they are pretty much equal.

Simple Gallery - Aves

I prefer Simple Gallery though, it is pretty great

Simple dialer - Welefon

Very basic, I personally use ACR phone for call recording, with disabled internet permissions. The Dev asked on Reddit about opensourcing the App and got negative responses, so maybe unlikely.

Simple Keyboard - Florisboard

Currently unmaintained but awesome. I hope it gets revived.

Simple Calculator

My favourite: Mint Calculator

Calculator

yetCalc

Unitto

Simple SMS

AOSP SMS/MMS, Quik Sms

AOSP SMS is poorly hard to find. That would be great on F-Droid. It also uses old libraries.

All these look way better and have unit transformations.

Some Gems

Some apps have no good replacement

Simple Gallery

Also in my opinion just the best. The Amaze Videoplayer and tools are great though.

Simple Contacts SE

That is the better version with some enhanced features.

Simple Calendar

I just got way better results than using Etar. The Widget is great too.

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Linus_Torvalds 8 points 3 years ago

What about OpenBoard? It is maintained and a great keyboard

NVM, it is not maintained, but there is a very active fork: https://github.com/Helium314/openboard

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Pantherina 1 point 3 years ago

Dann that is nice!I It will probably be the replacement for people needing autocomplete!

Testint it currently and I think it is the perfect replacement for iPhone people as the cursor thing is similar.

I love the granular autocorrection as I would set only suggestions without correction if the language was new to me.

I will stick with Florisboard though, I prefer the pitch black dark mode (and dont need anything else) and I love the internal clipboard, history, deletion etc. It is so much better for privacy.

Also the text editing shortcuts are great and needed for the clipboard.

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merde 1 point 3 years ago

koler is much better then welefon

i tried wele after your comment, i'm keeping koler

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Pantherina 1 point 3 years ago

Welefon is very basic, but if it works it aint shit

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time_fo_that 1 point 3 years ago

Thank you for the recommendations! Material Files seems to work well, I've been struggling to find a file manager that doesn't reset the date modified metadata when transferring photos to the SMB shares on my NAS. Several folders of hundreds of photos now have completely incorrect dates attached to them because of a file manager I used previously :(

So far from my testing Material Files does not do this!

Edit: it's extremely slow though lol, that's weird. 250 small photos took several seconds each.

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Pantherina 1 point 3 years ago

Weird, it is fast on my Pixel 4a that even struggles haaard with Opencamera

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time_fo_that 1 point 3 years ago

Strange, I'll do some more testing. My S23 Ultra is not that old.

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mamg22 14 points 3 years ago

In recent times the developer has been showing some serious miscommunication and other issues regarding their apps. Just look at their terrible handling of the vulnerabilities found in their file manager's pdf reader (See his responses to the report)

Since around that time, I've been looking for alternatives to their apps, but I've kept using some of them because I couldn't find anything that feels as good to use. I guess now I'm forced to really look for those alternatives, or see if there's any serious fork that still gets actively maintained weeks from now.

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citytree 13 points 3 years ago

When ZipoApps adds advertisements and telemetry to a future version of the Simple Mobile Tools apps, will my Google-Play-installed apps be automatically updated to the newer version with ads and telemetry? I don't want ZipoApps to get any of my data.

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lseif 24 points 3 years ago

i would encourage you to switch to fdroid or obtainium as soon as possible, if you are able to

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Ikarus 15 points 3 years ago

Yes. If you have automatic updates enabled, it will install the newest version with trackers and ads. You could disable the automatic update for these apps and hope they stay relevant to your os for a little while.

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WeLoveCastingSpellz 11 points 3 years ago

NOOOOOOOOO

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redd 5 points 3 years ago

Don't Panic!

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merde 2 points 3 years ago

and always have a towel with you

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Moonrise2473 10 points 3 years ago

Fuck

So now I have to contact all the family members where I removed the bloatware and replaced with the smt apps, uninstall them before the "just 39 euro per week for adfree" subscription scam starts, find suitable replacements, train people to get used to new icons...

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rainerloeten 2 points 3 years ago

I thought you were excaggerating, but looks like 39€ wouldn"t be enough, they'd take closer to 60€ 😂 See this comment on github

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qyron 9 points 3 years ago

I just went through my phone and this will cause a search for a new gallery, calendar, notes and keyboard.

SECUSO apps will most probably provide the notes replacement (I admit I'm really impress with the apps lineup they have).

What alternatives can you suggest to replace the other apps mention.

I pull FOSS apps from F-Droid and do my best to avoid the App Store.

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uninvitedguest 7 points 3 years ago

Aves gallery is fantastic, far better than Simple Gallery.

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qyron 1 point 3 years ago

Already installed!

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retrolasered 3 points 3 years ago

you-apps might serve to replace a few too

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qyron 2 points 3 years ago

I've seen these but nothing I use currently

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fahad 9 points 3 years ago

Thanks for pointing out.

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Mikelius 9 points 3 years ago

Even if it's removed from fdroid because they want to close source it, I assume my current installations of their apps would be unaffected - just become stale and obsolete over time since they won't get updates... But as they're offline anyway, not too concerned in the short term. Hopefully the company respects the privacy amd care of the open source community and won't take that away from us, though. One way to find out.

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danileonis 7 points 3 years ago

There're good alternatives for every app, the only real lost are contacts and dialer, imo.

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gogosempai 7 points 3 years ago

The Gallery is also the most feature-rich one in FOSS with even a video editor. Couldn't find any other FOSS video editors out there.

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danileonis 2 points 3 years ago

I also was an user but Aves Libre is a very good replace if you don't mind the video editing aspect. But yeah, that app also probably deserve a good fork.

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merde 1 point 3 years ago

aves +1

simple is simpler, aves is more efficient

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LWD 2 points 3 years ago

deleted

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kylian0087 2 points 3 years ago

Their are not many other good foss calendar apps that I know off

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10_0 6 points 3 years ago

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retrolasered 3 points 3 years ago

Oh :( should we do a 'what apps are you using post'?

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anotherinternetrobot 3 points 3 years ago

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10_0 3 points 3 years ago

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time_fo_that 2 points 3 years ago

Damn it. I use their Gallery since it allows me to hide/show folders easily using a fingerprint lock. I guess I'll just keep an old version until it no longer works.

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Alternatives

File manager - Material Files

Simple Gallery - Aves

Simple dialer - Welefon

Simple Keyboard - Florisboard

Simple Calculator

Simple SMS

Some Gems

Simple Gallery

Simple Contacts SE

Simple Calendar

Alternatives

File manager - Material Files

Simple Gallery - Aves

Simple dialer - Welefon

Simple Keyboard - Florisboard

Simple Calculator

Simple SMS

Some Gems

Simple Gallery

Simple Contacts SE

Simple Calendar

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