Sync was my Reddit app of choice for over 5 years, and after 30 minutes on Sync for Lemmy, my brain is fully convinced I’m back on Reddit. Supposedly this is just a Public Beta, but the only bugs I’ve found so far are the fault of my Lemmy instance, not Sync.
Sync for Lemmy should honestly just be the world’s default Lemmy app.
OMG long-press to peek is so satisfying. And small things like image viewing. So easy with one hand double-tap slide, while connect had me pinching like a caveman.
And comment drafts.
Looking forward to the lifetime unlock.
I already like it.
…just too bad I can’t log into my Kbin account yet.
Not for me. It’s in sign up for auto install when available mode.
Have it installed. So far so good. We’ll see.
It’s live for me. It appears that the paid version, “Sync Ultra”, requires a $2/month subscription, or $17/year. Seeing as lemmy APIs are free, I am confused why this is so expensive? o_0
I mean it takes the developer time and effort to make the app, and he doesn’t benefit from any ad-revenue. It’s just paying for some nice features to support the work and effort of an awesome dev.
Why come so many other excellent free apps but this one ads and money tho
Also why need data?
A lot of the are Bibby enthusiast projects while sync continues the lineage of a well established app.
everything works great without ultra- not sure why you’d need that
I completely agree with someone trying to make some money off of their app, but when it comes to Lemmy I can’t agree with injecting ads just so people have to pay to remove them. If it were just about the added bonus features then it would be a lot more acceptable.
Lemmy doesn’t have ads and the instance hosters rely entirely on donations.
I must say, this is pretty uncool of Sync for Lemmy developers.
Moreover, it looks like it’s gathering user info to third parties like messages, device or other IDs? Hmm 🤔
Those are the ads SDK, which is disabled if you subscribe to ultra or pay a one time purchase to remove ads (available later when the app is out of beta).
Proof?
If true that is a real deal breaker for me. The whole idea of Lemmy is to break away from exploitative data gathering from corporations. If they are data gathering to sell to third parties then what makes them any different than Reddit? 🫤
If I had to guess most of that info is just to feed you ads, but that is already bad enough for me.
I think we can all make our own conclusions. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the app looks great. But I think the subscription model and the data gathering maybe isn’t the right approach in this instance, since we’re talking about a different culture in Lemmy. This is not Reddit. I’d be happy with a simple, straight app purchase with no bs data mining, thank you very much.
Any paid tier (ultra or eventually pro when it comes out) will have all the data gathering disabled. It’s purely just for whatever framework sync is using to serve ads.
What makes you think it’s gathering that data?
LOL this is not how you gather data in a mobile app. There isn’t a
GATHER_USER_DATApermission 🤣🤣🤣Ok then, how do you think it’s getting the user’s location data without access to the location permission, wifi, or Bluetooth?
That’s only one of the many data points an app could get. Simply tracking user’s network behaviour would be far more valuable than getting their location data.
Oh great they’re in the US…
It is indeed beautifully designed. By far the best looking client I’ve seen yet.
I’m confused how $17 is considered expensive. If that was a monthly price it would be expensive. $17 for a year? Cheapest subscription I’ve ever paid for, and I’m happy to do it as a subscription to continually support the developer.
While I hate subscription models, I actually paid the yearly subscription for this (fyi $27.99 in Australia.
One of the main reasons I paid is because I used Sync for Reddit multiple times a day for years and wanted to support the developer. If the fedeverse fails to take off at scale I won’t renew for additional years.
$28 is a small price to pay on my behalf to thank the developer for all his previous work, but also support further development. It’s high quality apps like this that help drive traffic to the excellent communities that are reestablishing themselves in the fedeverse.
Well it is cheap for people living in developed countries but in developing countries where the exchange rate vs the dollar is high and the average income is lower, the cost of the subscription is substantial. Yes we should support the developer but unfortunately this subscription model is unfeasible for some people.
To show some support!
I mean, we’re already browsing ad free on here and many developers are making their apps in their free time. I get that this are expensive times, but if no-one would subscribe to such apps. There would be much less developers.
So how would you feel about Lemmy instance hosters adding ads, harvesting user data to sell to third partiess, making paid subscription models to remove said ads they added and then charging for API access?
We spoke about it with Ruud on Discord actually. He’s fine with it. Most people understand that nothing comes for free.
Actually, it is even a nice gesture from the developer. The ones who cannot afford it can still use the app, without paying for it.
I’m not suggesting that they should or even can be forced to change or that lemmy.world admins actually do anything differently.
It’s also not about the cost or not being able to afford it. It is about principles and and the ad driven business model being antithetical to the goals of Lemmy. Being federated is one thing, but it is also about moving away from ads. I am fully in support of nearly any monetization of software other than ads and selling user data.
Personally I just can’t understand the person who would agree that Reddit was being egregiously corporate minded and greedy to the point that they move to Lemmy and then be ok with adding ads were there previously were none. I’m definitely not going to be using it and I don’t even care that much despite my comments here if other people do. I just want to make this point known. I don’t want Lemmy to become Reddit all over again and I felt there was a bit of an honor system in place to not do things like that and it has already been broken.
Another point of contention with ads is that everyone is generating the content for free that Sync is injecting ads next to. I don’t want to help them make money off of something I do as a hobby even if it is only pennies. This is one of the main reasons I won’t use Reddit and have been favor of the federated internet.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
These prices are for Ultra. Ultra is voluntary and only for super fans to support the developer. There will be a pro version that is a one time payment and it removes all the ads and is very affordable. But the developer didn’t want to start charging for the Pro version while bugs still exist and is waiting for the Beta to be over.
Bruh, you can’t spare two whole dollars for something you’re going to be using every day? Like, I use Jerboa, which is free, but I still signed up for dessalines patreon to support their work.
The future is either free to use, but put up with ads, or pay a meager amount to support the developers so ads arent required to sustain the product.
Bruh, you can’t spare two whole dollars for something you’re going to be using every day?
Or, we can just like …buy it once…like most other software that isn’t tied to a first-party hosted service?
The future is either free to use, but put up with ads, or pay a meager amount to support the developers so ads arent required to sustain the product.
I’d like to unsubscribe from your vision of the future
In this scenario you’d pay for updates though right?
Well games receive patch fixes and even content updates after release and most of them are pushed through to the people who purchased the game at no extra costs. Yes dlc’s do require you to purchase them but updates that fix bugs and improve performance resulting in an improved experience are usually free of cost
Well it’s been updated with a one time payment purchase option. That’ll get you updates with no recurring costs.
Yeah I know. I was just replying to your comment about paying for each update.
FYI there will be a one time payment option once the app is out of beta.
It got pushed out on the today actually.
These prices are for Ultra. Ultra is voluntary and only for super fans to support the developer. There will be a pro version that is a one time payment and it removes all the ads and is very affordable. But the developer didn’t want to start charging for the Pro version while bugs still exist and is waiting for the Beta to be over.
The option to remove ads has been added - it costs $20 USD. The lifetime Ultra costs $100 USD.
I’m somewhat with you on this, but most software that’s updating its pricing or is new, is using a subscription model. 2$ really is fine I think, even less with the yearly thing. I’d still like to see a OTP
The developer has confirmed on Discord that the one-time lifetime payment is planned for the full release.
That’s nice to hear!
It’s already live apparently, just update to the latest version and it’s “remove ads” under the account switcher section.
There will be an In-App Purchase later on. Keep in mind this is a beta and not the full release. For the beta the option is ads or ultra. For the full release it will be ads, pro (one time purchase) or ultra (subscription).
IMO that’s a good way to go
It appears IAP are coming later and I assume they will just disable ads for 5€ or something. Just like the original app.
The option to remove ads has been added - it costs $20 USD. The lifetime Ultra costs $100 USD.
deleted by creator
For me it’s 7x the price, bought Sync Pro for reddit fur 2,99€ in 2018.
$17/year to subscribe to Ultra, or $100/once. That means you’d have to subscribe yearly for almost 6 years to break even.
I mean Sync for Reddit was my most used app for like 8+ years. If my Lemmy use has the same longevity then $100 for lifetime isn’t too bad of a deal.
Idk what the plan is for Lemmy, but at least in the original Reddit version, ultra cost more because it also includes things like translation services that required third party server space
There’s a simple ad-free version pending approval I think that I assume will probably just cost the usual dollar or five
It costs 22 euro to remove ads for me, I find that too steep.
It’s moderately expensive actually at more like $20 (depending on location) but I’m happy to pay it - it’s a great app.
That privacy policy though. Not the best
That’s what I’m saying! It might be technically excellent, but one of the reasons I went away from Reddit is also to escape the aggressive data collection
Checked out connect because I have read about the private policy. Dunno who copies who, but connect almost looks the same and doesn’t collect anything afaik.
I literally don’t mind ads on my feed, I just want to support the developer as much as possible even tho I’m broke.
It has ads… Why are people so excited about this? Jerboa is open source with no ads and works perfectly.
Be cause Sync is a beautiful app with incredible flexibility. Jerboa is fugly.
If you don’t like it, or are a foss purist, don’t use it.
I like swiping gestures, it has a really nice UI, and I don’t mind unintrusive ads in otherwise free software.
There’s also Infinity for Lemmy now.
Personally, I love the UI/UX of it and how customizable it is. For me, it’s unparalleled, and I’m happy to pay for it to support the independent developer behind it. But I get that not everyone cares about it and would rather use a different option, and it’s cool that there are so many different options to interact with the fediverse.
True, but I found Jerboa to be very unpolished and barely worked so I crawled back to Reddit. Now that Sync for lemmy is released I feel right at home.
Was that during the period of time they couldn’t upgrade lemmy.world? Been stabe ever since the upgrade was done and the servers tuned. For me it is the most RiF like of all the apps, so I prefer using it.
Connect seems like a nice one
I used connect as an in-between while waiting for Sync, had been using sync for Reddit for years and years
It has ads unless you pay to remove the ads, which is a perfectly reasonable model for an app to use.
Or you actually own your device and can block fucking ads.
Imo that’s pretty unethical. If you don’t want ads, use an app where the maintainer has decided not to include ads or not to charge.
But don’t take something from a sole-developer (meaning in this case labor is actually getting all the fruits of their labor instead of a CEO), use one of the other options instead where the developers aren’t using it as their main source of income.
deleted by creator
Of course. I’m just saying pray for the ad-free version then. If you are going to use it.
Yup. I block all ads by default, and yet I still bought the lifetime ultra subscription simply because the developer is an awesome guy.
But ads don’t stand a chance on my phone.
I used the app for years and intended on removing ads as soon as it launched.
Personally, I like Thunder
They also cross post on every single instance and tech community so I have only seen 1 million “sync for Lenny” posts…… so far
Nice. Got it installed and walking through settings. Seems nice so far. Not sure about ultra pricing though…
I would definitely support the developer if it was a one time purchase. Paying monthly for an app to browse lemmy ain’t it for me
There’s gonna be an option for that, one time payment to remove ads. Let’s see how it goes.
The option to remove ads has been added - it costs $20 USD. The lifetime Ultra costs $100 USD.
Paying 100 bucks for an app to use a service that still growing (and in the state Lemmy is currently in) is having so much faith. I really hope Lemmy stays, grows and matures.
That’s for Ultra. Pro will be a one time payment available as a separate app on the play store. Pro will be available once sync is out of beta, from what I’ve heard.
Ultra is $100, and ad-free (I assume what is called “Pro”) is $20.
Yeah the $20 one is just to remove ads and is a lifetime purchase. I figured that there would be a “pro” version like sync for reddit but it seems like it’s all on the same app now and not separate.
Living on a third world country, yeah, it’s totally absurd pricing. I am not exited about the upcoming pro version pricing either.
I spent some time experimenting with Sync today, but I found that I prefer using Connect for Lemmy. While I appreciate the cleaness of Sync, I don’t enjoy seeing ads when there are alternative options available that are ad-free. As well as Connect handling hidden posts better. I may switch between the two services depending on my needs, but I’m more comfortable with Connect for now.
Does anybody know if it’s possible to either
- anonymously “log in” on an instance other than Lemmy.world, or
- set up a feed for another instance?
Under the anonymous account go to settings and search for “Home Instance” and then you can set a new default instance for Anonymous
Swag. Thanks.
HALLELUJAH
It’s like having Reddit back, this is amazing. 🙏
For as long as I can remember Reddit and Sync have been one and the same. I never used Reddit website or app, only ever used Sync to browse Reddit hosted content. I used it a lot. I’ve missed it a lot.
Between the Lemmy platform and Sync client, to all intents and purposes what Reddit was has been fully restored/migrated.
I know it’s early days, but I did not expect to see anything like this so soon and it gives me hope that Lemmy can grow and thrive into the network of people that always made Reddit what it was. Everything that’s needed is there - early, a little rough around the edges, but there. And being improved constantly.
Hallelujah!
It will not let me sign in on the app, Anyone else experience that issue?
Me too
My world account has been having issues in general today so I tried my CA account first when I downloaded sync and it worked fine. Have you tried an account on another instance?
I had to change my password… Super weird. There must be some symbol causing issues
Is it working fine for everyone? For me it crashes after I sign in and opening the app after being closed.
Works fine for me, but it is still a beta version after all.
https://github.com/laurencedawson/sync-for-lemmy/issues
That’s the official bug tracker, would help to report your issue there!
New version fixed it!
Wow, this is very clean! I never used sync for Reddit so I didn’t understand all the hype but I get it now. I’m very impressed
