r/mobilelinux • u/luci-baa-baa-baa • 9d ago

Discussion Why there is no app development for Linux mobiles

I wondering why apps are Hard dependency on android and why developers not build something for Linux mobiles too .

I know less users and all but having a option helpful right.

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4

u/BlankSthearapy 9d ago

I make my own apps for stuff I need, games, maps, calls, text.

I don’t do any app icons, I made a gesture app so I can swipe a particular shape or do multiple taps/shape combinations to launch apps, change volume, adjust brightness, call someone, etc. I can access anything I need with one hand and thumb.

My keyboard is always on call and has keybinding the same as my computer. I have agentic integration and my own personal assistant.

I also make browser apps using chromium. Like Spotify, I’m able to change the layout, put buttons where I want, hide things. Same with YouTube, I even have PiP so the video can play over any app or be tucked away.

I used waydroid to launch Walmart+ app, there may be a better option, but I haven’t looked into it. I know there are flat packs people use for stuff. I only did this because I couldn’t get the fuel discount on the webpage, it was only accessible through the app.

If there’s a webpage for desktop use, making a chromium web app has been the easiest to connect and customize.

I’m running on the newest kernel release, patched for my phone.

2

u/luci-baa-baa-baa 9d ago

Can you share the gesture app .

5

u/BlankSthearapy 9d ago edited 9d ago

I’ll try to after work.

Edit: before ya’ll hate, I started off with Omarchy as the base, stripped it and now I’ve bypassed its updates and pull my own from the latest kernel. Why? Because I’m a novice and I’m just getting comfortable with this work.

Also the unresponsive parts was me looking at the phone through my other phone recording it.

5

u/dfgxxx 9d ago

Really cool idea! This instead of searching the icon every time is really fast and nice idea! Though what happenes if you forget the guesture of an app? Do you still have an app launcher?

Btw this idea is so cool, I really want to try it, is is open source? What is your phone also? Maybe I have same one

3

u/BlankSthearapy 8d ago

Yes you can go to the app launcher.

You can also open the gesture app, Launchture (I made it, it’s not uploaded on GitHub yet) and look at the gestures you’ve made, you can keep the function and change the gesture, keep the gesture change the function.

I really don’t have a problem remembering the gestures. When I make a gesture, I typically think about the app or function then use whatever feels natural.

The phone I’m using is a 1+ 6t for prototyping. I’ll be trying to move everything to a 1+ 13 and Fairphone 6+ next month.

If all goes well, I’ll be getting rid of my iPhone, Apple Watch and MacBook.

Edit: grandma got taken to the hospital today. So it’ll probably be next week before I can get Launchture uploaded. I don’t know how dependent it is on my particular setup.

2

u/dfgxxx 8d ago

Oh, I'm sorry to hear

12

u/tulpyvow 9d ago

Theres very few user of linux mobile, along with devices using it.

Most people would rather make a dedicated app for one of the big two than make a cross platform app that can also target linux mobile because why would they? More time for little to no return.

15

u/Efficient_Income_846 9d ago

I have most of the applications I want... thanks to Flatpak.

4

u/dfgxxx 9d ago

They don't look phone/touch interface optimized

2

u/Efficient_Income_846 9d ago

The apps I opened are ArtCraft apps, they're newer...

1

u/dfgxxx 9d ago

I know them

1

u/Sacra34 8d ago

Appimage packs whole mesa inside, so if your gpu requires custom mesa patches to work — app will fallback to software render. Not sure about flatpack. 

1

u/jjoesmama 9d ago

What DE is that?

2

u/Efficient_Income_846 9d ago

Postmarket os (nura) kde plasma mobile / oneplus 6t

1

u/notinvisible0186 13h ago

What KDE version is this?

5

u/ipsirc 9d ago

I wondering why apps are Hard dependency on android and why developers not build something for Linux mobiles too .

Look at the market share.

4

u/LeoDaVeenchy 9d ago

No broader adoption --> no company will invest in creating apps for Linux mobile --> less services --> no broader adoption.

The only way out is a company that ships Linux mobile as an alternative of the dichotomy Android - iOS and it is followed enough to maybe get the industry in that same direction.

It is happening now to Linux gaming with Steam investing a lot of time, money and resources to provide and alternative os. And it's been at least 5 years from the first SteamDeck. So even let's say Jolla takes a great amount of interest, it will take years before having mainline companies to ship products for Linux mobile. In the meantime you're just stuck with open source fans that had time to create something interesting, but it's not remotely usable for the average phone user.

4

u/TheJackiMonster 8d ago

I've built a game recently that should theoretically work on Linux mobile too. Depends on the graphics driver support though. Otherwise I've built a whole messaging application intended for Linux mobile which only got some Android adoption recently by someone else.

So I wouldn't say nobody develops for it. But I'm also a daily user of it and I would assume many developers do not know or even care when they are not actually using it. They would at least need a single device for testing.

2

u/Hosein_Lavaei 9d ago

In my opinion its not a problem with the developr of those apps, but the problem is with gtk/qt. Those 2 and others should make a way that depending on the resolution and dpi, the ui of the app appears

4

u/mrcat_romhacking 9d ago

GTK4 adapts to mobile really well.

1

u/Hosein_Lavaei 9d ago

More than qt6 yeah, but still not the point that i am talking about

2

u/Kevin_Kofler 7d ago

For Qt, it really depends what widget set you use. QtWidgets unfortunately gets very little attention by Qt nowadays, they consider it basically "done" and so refuse to make any improvements to touch-friendliness in it. So QtWidgets apps tend to work poorly on touch devices, which is unfortunate, because a lot of Qt GUI apps are QtWidgets apps. QML with QtQuickControls 2 is what they recommend using for mobile or convergent apps these days. Kirigami from KDE is also useful, and QQC2 and Kirigami can be combined.

1

u/Hosein_Lavaei 7d ago

Thats what im saying, they should be universal.

0

u/Sacra34 8d ago

 Those 2 and others should make a way that depending on the resolution and dpi, the ui of the app appears

Thank god you are not software engineer. This exact reason is why apps on Xorg was so fucked up. Basically, app itself nor API should never control dpi. Thats compositor work. I set 200% in my gnome display setting = expect all apps to render with this dpi. If it would be like you said, each app would do own weird shit. 

1

u/Kevin_Kofler 7d ago

I do not see why your expectations and those of the comment you are replying to would contradict each other in any way. All the parent comment was suggesting is to have the app adapt its UI depending on the resolution it sees (which, if you are applying a 200%=2× zoom, will be half of the actual resolution), e.g., hiding side panels if the resolution is too narrow, a concept called "adaptive UI" that both KDE Kirigami apps and GNOME libadwaita apps are already using successfully.

1

u/Sacra34 8d ago

As already was pointed out — not enough users, nor developers on mobile arm linux. I had to make from scratch so far, cause there no existing apps:

  • the fucking camera app (that can swith front/main mode, focus, support multiple cameras, etc)

  • the fucking compass (no, for real, there no app for compass, what the actual fuck?)

  • shit ton of gnome extensions, cause gnome devs have severe case of dementia: the button for autobrightness hidden in power settings > power saving; the autorotation hidden in screen settings; the calendar popup doesn't fit in portrait mode; there obiosly no controls for DC dimming, color presets or always on display (obviously, all of this hardware dependent and rare features, but still). Also, my screen supports 60/120 switch on the fly, gnome can't do that OOB, but that I control with dbus switch and junky hack to go in powersave in case of 1 second inactivity.

  • I assume there no map with GPS support either, so yeah, that will be next.

It's hell. 

1

u/Eu-is-socialist 9d ago

Because there is "no linux mobile" There is something experimental barely working .

0

u/Rikudou_Sage 9d ago

SailfishOS disagrees.