Android @lemdro.id moseschrute @lemmy.ml 1w ago

Looking for a few beta testers for my Lemmy Android Client

Google requires a dozen or so beta testers before you are allowed to launch an app on the Play store publicly. Given that this community lives on Lemmy, and it’s full of Android users, I was hoping I could recruit a few people.

My app, “Blorp”, is already listed on the official Lemmy website for iOS, but Android has been delayed due to this requirement.

Would greatly appreciate your help, and if it turns out you like my app, I’m happy to make changes based on your feedback.

For closed testing, Google requires you join a linked Google Group before downing the app.

Step 1: Join the testing group

🔗 https://groups.google.com/g/blorp-android-app-testers

Step 2: Download the app

📱 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xyz.blorpblorp.app

Thanks in advance!

Edit: there’s also a Lemmy community if you want to stay up to date or ask questions !blorp@lemmy.ml

47 comments

why wouldn't you <s>make it FOSS and</s> release it through fDroid?
- https://github.com/christianjuth/blorp
  
  It's GPL-3.0 licensed, so it is FOSS. They're just trying to get it on the Google Play Store.
  
  My time is limited, but I would love to get it everywhere including a Linux desktop app. I’m happy to look into fDroid. It’s really that if I have an hour to spend coding, I have to prioritize the task that will benefit the most users. Right now I’m very deep into solving Lemmy V1 support and PieFed support. That will likely take a couple months.
  
  Feedback from frequent users makes a big difference. If someone that uses my app every day asks for a feature consistently, it’s much easier for me to justify the time spent working on that feature.
  
  Also, in addition to FOSS, there is no data collected at all. The only communication the app has is with the lemmy server you select, or the default instance (Lemmy.zip) when you launch the app for the first time. MacOS will also ping GitHub releases for updates.
  
  thanks for the link
- Out of curiosity, what lemmy client did you use to add the strikethough? Or did you hand type it. As far as I know, Lemmy only supports strike throughs using ~~
  
  ~~Like this~~
  
  Asking because I made a conscious decision to not support HTML within markdown, but I’m curious if other clients do. I mostly use the official Lemmy UI and Voyager to compare against.
  
  hand typed. Old habits
  
  i'll try to use markdown ~~from now on~~
  
  On Boost it inserts the markdown like so
  
  ~~Blah~~ blah ::: spoiler spoiler blah ::: blah
Would love to look into this. Was looking for a new app just the other day! Im currently on Raccoon but looking for something else. Ill bookmark this post for now 🙏
- My goal is to launch a unified Lemmy experience across web, desktop, mobile and tablet. I’m also pretty confident my multi account switching experience is better than most Lemmy clients. Though I don’t have time to test every single one.
- Lol same here let me know if you find anything good!
just installed. looks great so far!
hey, trying your app out. it's pretty neat, but is there a way to have a more compact post view?
- yeah i think putting the com name and the up/downvotes on the same line would fill some of the dead space between posts
  
  Thanks for the feedback! Could you both share some screenshots demonstating what you are thinking? Or even a napkin sketch. Just something to help me visualize. Either here or on GitHub issues.
This is pretty nice so far! It's scratching an itch left behind by the abandonment of Sync for Lemmy

I think the hitboxes on the account switcher need to be horizontally larger. Right now I have to carefully tap directly in the center of the tiny profile picture in order to switch

EDIT: Also, I'm hitting a bug where one account's subs aren't refreshed and reloaded when switching from one account to another. I need to force close the app and re-open to get it to refresh properly
- That should be easy to fix. Though I’m looking at it, and I would guess sort and search would be a harder to hit target since they seem smaller.
  
  Sorry, I wasn't clear - I meant the actual separate accounts in the account sidebar, where it says "other accounts"
Does Blorp support mod actions? I love Thunder but am trying out Summit as it has these
- Not really yet. Maybe if you could make a list of which ones you want the most I can start there. Can’t make any promises as far as timeline, but my plan is to build a full featured client that runs cross platform.
  
  That'd be great, thanks! The Reports page like the site would be as much as I'd want due to Lemmy's own limited feature set currently, with tabs for unread/all, all/comments/posts
Done! I like the look of it, the black is great for oled. I'm pretty committed to boost, but I'll give blorp a good try, and it is already making me resent the charcoal theming in boost...

Update: Is there a way to include the community and post title when I see my posts and comments in my Profile? When I go to Inbox I see all the replies to my stuff, and the context. But when I look at my profile it's just a wall of text seperate with some lines, no indication of community, upvotes, whether it's a post or a comment. If I use the filter tap for Posts, it's much like what I'd expect with communities and votes, but the Comments tab is also a wall of text with no details.

For me, that's a big downside as I often go back to old threads I've contributed to because I want to see if there's been other replies or to find a interesting point someone made.
- Yeah I gotta fix that. I’ll probably look at the layout voyager uses for inspiration, but feel free to attach screenshots of other apps if there are any designs you like specifically.
  
  I also want to improve the saved page. Saved should be searchable imo.
It's on Jerboa. It's on Thunder. It's on Interstellar, You can get it on Eternity. It's on Voyager. It's on Raccoon. It's on Blorp. Download Blorp it's on there. Download Blorp.
Thank you for this app!
is there no compact layout?
- No, but you’re the second person to ask that. I’ll work on adding one
Is your app on a code repository such as github or codeberg? Because if it is then you could just have people download it directly from the source repository and get updates through Obtainium.

Fuck the Google Play Store.
- https://github.com/christianjuth/blorp
  
  One step at a time, but I love the idea! I only have so many hours so my plan is to get in on the app stores, then build out from there by supporting some of these more niche distribution methods.
  
  Yeah, you do you, but I would not put my time or energy into the big tech app stores, especially not with something where the community understands the need for open source self-hostable software.
You'll probably find a lot of Lemmy users do not use Google accounts and won't be interested in joining a google group or installing via Play Store. Do you have an alternative method for installation?
- Not yet, but you're not the first person to ask. I'm also not a fan of the Google Group thing. Unfortunately Google requires I conduct a few weeks of closed testing before I get access to the play store. The only way to run closed tests it to add people by email or via Google Group. Once access is unlocked, then you can install via Play Store like normal.
  
  I'm still operating under the assumption that more Android Lemmy users install via Play Store than other Android stores, but I could totally be wrong. I imagine it skews by community, For example, I'm sure if you ask one of the privacy communities they would tend to avoid mainstream stores.
  
  It would be interesting to pick a more general purpose community (maybe ask lemmy community) and ask people what platforms they use. I also imagine some of the other apps like Voyager may have a better idea since they have a substantial amount of users across multiple platforms.
  
  But I guess my TL;DR is what you're saying makes sense, but it's always better to conduct some research than assume you understand how someone uses your app. Genuinely I would be curious what a larger pull of Lemmy users would reveal.
  
  but it's always better to conduct some research than assume you understand how someone uses your app
  
  You can create a community here to conduct research, as aeharding (Voyager) has done.
I'll give it a shot. I'm running a Lemmy instance and (new!) a Piefed instance, I'll try it with both!
- PieFed unfortunately is going to take me a bit of time. But pretty high on my priorities rn.
Ive just downloaded and played with it a very little. Do you have an community put together yet so we can direct conversations and such to there? All the big name apps for lemmy do it and makes prioritizing things a little easier as the community votes on posts and such.
- !blorp@lemmy.ml
Going to try out your app. Thunder is tough competition, though.

47 comments