What do you guys think of the MA apps?
I want a good app ecosystem that has basic android replacements. I tried Fossify apps but I dont know I didnt like them. I ve tried some MA apps and so far they look clean enough, I just wanna know if there are any flaws or issues with them that would make me wanna reconsider
8 replies
I am trying to create a single life-management app (calendar, tasks, bills, notes, goals, reminders etc.) too.
FOSS, self-hostable, obviously. I've been developing it for 6 months as of now, and I am actively working on improving it and making it available in F-droid (and the Play Store too, for that matter)
It's meant exactly to help people deGoogle themselves.
Anyways, I don't want to be advertising it too much because I am new here and don't want to get banned, but I think this is very much justified, whoever wants to check it out, here is the GH repo
Looks sick from the demo, will it have a free and premium version or will it be purely a premium service? Also if I wanted to support you without donating how would I go about it?
Thanks, I'm very glad to hear that.
It will be as much free as possible, I'll only charge for people who want to use my hosted instance at app.ontoplano.com. I am working now on developing a self-contained mobile version, as a third option of how to use the app: everything on the phone, but no computer sync, no MCP server, no API endpoints (stuff that requires accepting external calls) — for that, you could use the official instance I host and maintain backed up and enjoy these features, or host it yourself and enjoy them as well. Those will be the three ways of using it, for what I've thought so far.
As for as how to support me without donating, since this project is in very early development: anything that broadcasts the project helps: social network following, star on github, letting your friend know about it... you can also help by using it, be it by self-hosting or subscribing to my paid instance, and reporting suggestions / bugs on github.
What are MA apps?
Stands for "Modern Apps". It's a quite varied app suite that's been available on F-droid for a while. GH repo.
Thanks.
Searching for "modern apps" didn't work. I check the Github and found the devs name. Using that as a search worked.
Looks like the first release on their Github was this July. He says in the repo that he has been working on it for about a year, and all apps should be considered as in beta. It managed to make it to F-Droid already, or at least MA Office did. I tried it out and it is nice that it scales down to a mobile Ui a little better than Collabora Office, but missing features compared to that, and is inconsistent about whether it even responds to input at all, especially the edit button.
It looks like an interesting project, but definitely in beta and not yet established. These types of overly ambitious projects pop up a lot since Ai. Not saying he's a vibe coder, just saying. If he sticks with it, that's cool.
Lastly, I would advise against replacing Google's ecosystem with a new ecosystem. It is possible even for open source apps to get enshittified or sold, happened with the "Simple" suite before Fossify forked it. I do try to find apps that look like they have a similar Ui, Material Design if possible. But that's not too difficult these days.
I use a few MA apps, none of which have declared the internet permission. Nor would I ever want them to have internet access.
But a few MA apps actually do require internet to work for their intended purpose, and I will never install one of those out of fear all the MA apps "secretly" talk/share/IPC my data with eachother, effectively granting all the non-internet apps the internet permission.
I'm not saying this is happening. But I'm also not about to delve into the entire codebase to find out.