I use Sync because it’s just what I’m used to. I’ve been using it for more than 3 years, but I’ve also used Jerboa, Thunder, Liftoff, Lemotiff, Connect and Voyager.
Here’s what I think about those:
Jerboa is good, maybe a bit laggy and things take a bit to load, but overall good. Nothing that stands out.
Thunder is very good, but I’ve been unable to reply DMs and comments from my notifications, I’d have to go to the browser or use another app to reply. I’m almost sure it’ll get fixed in the future.
Connect is very, very good, but, and it’s a huge BUT for me, every time I’m commenting and I want to change part of my comment, I click on the part I want to add or erase more text but instead of doing that it selects the text from where I was to where I clicked, and it happens with every comment and DM, to fix it I have to copy the whole thing, go back to the post, paste the comment again and keep on writing. I stopped using it.
Liftoff is very good, but I don’t like that when I collapse a comment it says “comment collapsed, tap to expand” (that’s it, it’s just nit picking, everything else is good), I still sometimes use the app.
Lemotiff I can’t log in but the idea/design is good.
Voyager is one of the best but sometimes it jumps to random parts of the timeline, I also prefer having an app not a PAW (or was it PWA? I don’t remember the correct term)
Lemmur says my instance doesn’t exist so I can’t even try it.
Haven’t used infinity or Boost yet, just downloaded Sync and it just works perfectly.
Sync is great, but I’m not the biggest fan of introducing ads in a service that doesn’t inherently have ads - nothing against the dev getting paid. You also can’t currently create a new post (just says “coming soon”). I used Sync on Reddit for years, so I’m otherwise pretty biased toward it.
Connect is a close second, for me. It’s still a work in progress, but I feel it’s pretty close to Sync. Given time, I think it’ll be there. The dev is also very responsive. Features are pretty community driven as well - so if you want something, post in the community.
But I have to say, for its lack of polish, Jerboa still comes out on top for me. It’s not as smooth scrolling the feed and it needs an option to handle links in-app, but with it being open source and there being a bunch of contributors adding features, every time I think it’s missing something, it’s just a matter of waiting for the next update. The one from today added DMing, which was the big thing I saw other apps handling better. Plus, I think (other than Sync), it’s the only app that handles multiple accounts the best if you want sorting and defaults per account rather than app-wide.
I also still pop into Thunder, Summit, Liftoff, and Voyager periodically to see how they’re coming along. And now, I’m including Infinity (and Boost or any others whenever they’re ready).
At the end of the day, people are just going to have to try the different apps for themselves to see what works for them.
Tbh I didn’t notice the ads haha I have ads completely removed from my device using a private DNS so none of the apps I use show me ads.
I prefer supporting devs via donations whenever I have the extra money but I’m waiting for the lifetime donation for Sync, I not doing aubscription models and I have 0 tolerance for ads.
Like you, though, I’ll be jumping from time to time to other apps because what I’ve been loving about this Fediverse experience more than anything is how every app has been evolving and updating, it’s just amazing.
I’m also waiting for Boost and Infinity to realease, god damn this is why I love competition.
Shit, forgot to write about Summit, it was one of the ones I liked the most but only when I’m viewing content as a “list” as opposed to “cards”, IMO that’s when Summit shines more than any other app.
I feel like Summit works more for me as a news site rather than a “social media” app, so I like that a lot. I’m still jumping in between apps atm.
Oh, and Voyager JUST released as an official app in the play store, I just saw the post a few minutes ago.
I’m surprised by how much of a big deal apps are for the users. I would have kept Jerboa if it was more stable. I got Connect for no specific reason and don’t really see a reason to try anything else… I was still using old reddit and an app called Slide, so I guess I’m some removed user or something. Happy that those apps brings more users tho.
Honestly just using Lemmy in a browser (or Tildes even more so I imagine) I keep wondering why apps are a big deal to begin with. They both work 100% perfectly fine.
It’s the same with Mastodon, in fact their official PWA gives a fair few apps a run for their money.
Just using their websites can be a pain when links to content and other users or communities or whatever ends up taking you to a new domain because of the federation. Apps allow everything to stay together, so you can keep interacting as your intended user account.
Mastadon was much better for that like. I haven’t touched lemmys web interface on a while. Not a fan of its look or UX personally, so I don’t know if they fixed that.
I bounce between all the ad free apps, but please don’t forget to donate to your instance admins if they have a link set up. Especially if you paid to remove ads. Y’all got them deep pockets, show some love.
I’m using Infinity at the moment, since it is what I have used with Reddit until the API changes. I’ve always loved Infinity’s swipe actions, and I haven’t encountered any serious bugs so far. I’m gonna try and help contribute back to the app when I can.
It keeps complaining that it can’t sync multireddits (whatever tf that’s supposed to be) and I used Jerboa to edit my post because Infinity crashed but over all it’s been a great experience so far!
Yeah, I’m using Voyager as well, but if Christian Selig would decide to retool Apollo, and bring it out for Lemmy, it would instantly introduce MILLIONS to Lemmy. That product was huge.
I guess that was Reddit’s problem, the 3rd party clients attracted eyeballs on their own. Reddit no longer owned these eyeballs.
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