Why is everyone talking about Sync? How is it better than other apps for Lemmy like Connect and Jerboa?

Better is mostly subjective, so take this with a grain of salt.

But it isn't better, not yet. And it may never be.

But, let's loop you in, Odd one (it's a book reference, not an insult)

So, Sync started as a reddit app. As you know, reddit fucked third party apps, and made a series of insulting statements to users and mods, generating an exodus that led some people to lemmy.

On reddit, when it was fresh news, many of those app devs that had a reddit presence were asked if they would migrate their app to something else, with the most common request being lemmy (the only option that had an API worth mentioning at the time).

Out of those, Sync was one of the top five android apps. For some, it was reddit, they'd chosen sync and used nothing else.

Thus, you had weeks of build-up after Mr Dawson announced he was going to migrate. Serious hype.

So, the app drops. People check it out. Those unfamiliar with the app from reddit are surprised to find it has ads. Those familiar with it were aware that ad monetization was part of how Mr Dawson made a living. The rest was through various ad free versions, and "ultra". Ultra was a service that added features to the app on reddit. Here, it doesn't really add as much because some of what it does isn't server based, so a subscription fee for those specific features isn't as attractive. A one time fee has been added to remove ads, and the price point is a matter of upset as well.

Secondary to that, the app is closed source. Again, anyone familiar with the app from reddit would know this. It was known when very fervent requests to migrate were made.

As you may be aware, lemmy runs high to open source advocates, privacy advocates, and general mistrust of anything that doesn't at least give a polite nod to those principles.

And that's where the drama starts.

With all of that in mind, you have segments of the lemmy population that are hyped to have an early version of a familiar and well executed app. Those folks are surprised at the sheer venom that has been directed to the app and its developer. A segment of those are very vocal in their defense of the app. Some cross the line into being jerks. There's another segment that dislikes the app on those principles, another that just don't like it as an app (or prefer others), and there's the small but noisy and rude segment that hates the app.

That's where the drama centers. It is magnified by the fact that the more energetic the opinion is, the more likely people are to voice it, and the inverse.

Most lemmings don't care much at all, but they're not emotionally driven, and/or would rather just avoid drama.

My bias: I think it's rather rude to throw nastiness at a developer that was practically (and in a few cases literally) begged to port his app for lemmy. One can object to decisions made in a civil manner. Sync was not my app of choice, but I found it to be a solid back-up, and Mr Dawson to be a fairly good example of how a developer should communicate.

Now, my opinion on sync for lemmy, as it currently exists. This is pure opinion, and should not be taken as anything else. While I despise ads, it's a case of "hate the game, not the player". I understand why app developers use ads, and I can't say I blame them. The price Mr Dawson has set for a one time ad removal is fair. Regardless of what level of income can be expected from ads, that income is continuous as long as the app is used. The fee represents a reasonable amount for an app that is likely to remain useful just as it is for years.

Now, it is not up to feature parity with core lemmy tools. There are plenty of apps further along in that regard. It is, however, a very well crafted UI and has a long history of being actively maintained as well as moved forward over time. That last assumes the developer doesn't throw up his hands as a "no win" situation and walk away. I doubt that will be the case, Mr Dawson is a pro. Wouldn't blame him if he did though, some of the comments directed at him would have been nasty on reddit; here, they're so far beyond acceptable it's disgusting. Lemmy is supposed to be better than reddit in that regard.

I don't do tl;drs because it ain't that fucking hard to read, but to kinda close things out, it can be summed up as a massive amount of confusion about exactly what the app was, is, and should be.

This is a good summary; as a reddit exile myself who exclusively used Sync, I think it's worth emphasising that Dawson has done an amazing job of making the transition from reddit to lemmy pretty seamless from an app design point of view. I can set my views and filters up identically as they were in the Reddit version of the app, and the lemmy experience becomes essentially identical to reddit.

There's definitely a conflict between "paid closed source app" and "FOSS fediverse", and there's arguments to be made about whether user revenue should be directed to server expenses to maintain communities or front end app development to attract more users, which I think will be interesting to see play out. But at the end of the day Sync makes lemmy "useable" in a way that replicates the reddit experience, which is what a lot of migrants were after - other apps (while arguably more feature rich in terms of the fediverse) just didn't quite hit the dopamine-feed the way Sync does.
- I get the idea that the FOSS outrage is not 100% honest. Not to say that they don't hold a strong pro-FOSS stance, but I think it's fueled by something else.
  
  I think a lot of people are just plain annoyed with the way the Sync fans suddenly took over discussion all over Lemmy, and the FOSS position was an easy one to "legitimize" their opposition to this new crowd.
  
  It's pretty normal to have people push back when there's such a vocal crowd about something. What's frustrating is how it's so polarizing that if anyone wants to express a dissenting opinion and have good faith discussion, they're usually lumped in with the massive circlejerk on one side or the other.
Thank you for the explanation!
I feel like you gave a really good reasoning for each different major perspective a Lemmy user can have on the Sync app. Thanks for writing that all up. I'll be linking to it if I see anyone wondering about the situation in other posts!

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.

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.)
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.

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.

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.

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 :)

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!

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!

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.

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.

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
- Here you can download Infinity for Lemmy: https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Infinity-For-Lemmy/releases
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.
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 💪

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).

Reddit cringe

Some Lemmings aren't doing better tbh.

Use infinity for lemmy

It's free software and yu can get it on fdroid