@lemmy hi. I have tried to install many android apps for Lemmy on an old android phone. And was disappointed they either don’t support older versions or just can’t work connect (flutter based apps).
I thought open source and libre movement cared about the environment and reducing e-waste. Instead it’s bigcorp who makes sure their apps run on potato phones even kaios feature phone.
Anyways a fork of inifity for Lemmy would be awesome
@eleitl I would like to be optimistic but most android apps nowadays just don’t support older phones. And the trend is also prominent in the android Foss sphere.
A link aggregator app is quite basic. And shouldn’t require the latest cutting edge tech to deliver a good experience.
RedReader and infinity are the best examples of how open source apps could be made. Light weight . customizable and backward compatible
I run LineageOS sans gapps with F-Droid so use only open source applications. These can be built easily for older systems, assuming you can install F-Droid on your older hardware.
Redditlikes are a lot more than just link aggregators, and the complexity is all server-side. Clients for these are not hard, though good UX is not easy. Which is why I’m currently using the web front end until Jerboa becomes usable or Slide is ported to Lemmy.
@eleitl even #jerboa by @LemmyDev only supports android 8.0 and newer.
That is indeed pretty old. At current lifetime cycles a lot of hardware is doomed by obsolescence well before it’s ready for the landfill.
There are some vendors like Fairphone and Framework that aim to support longer lived platforms. If it has a removable battery it’s a good sign. If it’s supported by a community rather than a corporation an even better one. Though with Android you’re limited by upstream support, where some Google hardware is more special than other.
Not sure what the other apps are supporting. So web interface might be the only option left in this case.