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Ask Slashdot: Best Free and Open Source Apps For Android?
First time accepted submitter aNonnyMouseCowered writes "One of my favorite freeware Android applications has been pulled from the Google Play app store. While I found a replacement for the app, I've decided to install only apps that won't become obsolete merely because of the developer's whim or lack of interest. With the exception of games, which I don't deem essential for work, I don't want to install potential abandonware even if they cost the pauperly sum of $0.00. My decision has thus far meant installing a relatively crude text editor like BusyBox's version of vi, rather than any one of those full-blown mobile office suites. I've found a short list of open source Android apps at Wikipedia, including the usual suspects, Firefox and the VLC media player. There are also links to two other sites at the end of the article. But even the more comprehensive listings have large gaps in them even when compared 'merely' to the programs available in a typical GNU/Linux repository. So can anyone recommend useful or even just fun Free, Libre and Open Source Software for an Android smartphone or tablet? Free virtual beer to those that can find links for FLOSS programs for editing audiovisual media (Blender for Android?) and documents more sophisticated than HTML."
I wonder what the app was that got pulled. Why it was pulled would be good to know too.
Summation 2
http://code.google.com/p/bitcoin-wallet/ i find this pretty nice. hopefully it will become also useful when bitcoin will become more popular. (i know you probably don't give a damn about it, but this post with no comments was so sad)
NetHack :)
To imply that you can predict (or ask others to predict) which applications will become abandonware. Free, open-source program repositories are littered with abandonware. That is one of the real hurdles for open-source adoption in enterprises. Android will be no different. Besides, some programs will work fine even if they never get updated again.
F-Droid is the Android open source repository.
http://f-droid.org/
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This is just an exercise in futility. Most software gets abandoned at some point. One usually owns a cell phone for two years. If it works for that time period, who cares if it is abandoned later? This is not an attack on open source solutions (I'm all for them), I just feel that restricting yourself to only open source for fear of abandonment is a little bit like a single guy staying away from all girls because one dumped him once.
MuseScore Player
Partly closed but based on MuseScore from the same people.
EbookDroid Nice PDF reader.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
The Guardian Project develops and maintains a list of great security and privacy tools (Tor for android, secure chat, encrypted VOIP, PGP support for email... ). They're generally cross-posted on f-droid, and you can find play, f-droid and source links here: https://guardianproject.info/apps/
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
There are loads of free apps but not many open source ones, which is a shame but many developers give away apps in order to entice you to a paid version.
For developers that hope to make money from apps you may find it forked and sold. A shame really as there is a lot to be learnt from working code.
However wouldn't applications like titanium backup allow you to create your own local repository of applications.
Just one further thing in the play store it used to be possible to sort out your application history so you could easily find the apps you already paid for so you could reinstall them this doesnt seem to be possible now and is annoying
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Dude, the quest to avoid "abandonware" on the android or linux platforms is almost pointless. If you find a useful application, install it. Do not worry that this latest text editor will go obsolete (most likely since the developer has to get a real job), just use what you have.
The android marketplace (and also Apple's) have economic issues where the application price is not really enough to cover multiple years of support for an application.
But there are a great deal of free applications that are good enough to use. It is just that their developers eventually need to make more money and abandon these applications as they no longer can put in any time for free.
Freeciv. Clunky and old but graphics don't make or break civ games.
my sig
You want to edit A/V stuff... on a cell phone?
Ok I think you need to step back for a glass of perspective and soda. Smart phones and tablets are cool devices. In particular smart phones because it means you can get e-mail, web, etc anywhere you are. That is really useful. However they are really only good at content consumption. A touch screen interface is not very efficient for most software out there, at least at this point, and isn't very good for most creation in general since you hand obscure what you are working on.
The bigger problem is just power. For example I have a Galaxy Note II, one of the most powerful smartphones you can get right now. For all that it features 2GB of RAM, a 1.6GHz 32-bit processor that gets maybe 2 MIPS per MHz per core in the real world, and 16GB of total storage. Compare that to my desktop, which is not all that pricey, that has 2GB just for video RAM, 16GB of system RAM a 3.6GHz 64-bit processor that pulls 114 GIPS no problem on a real world benchmark and has a few TB of storage.
For A/V work, you really, really, want a real system. Heck for pretty much any creation, you want a real system. A tablet is fine for watching a video, it would suck for editing one. A smartphone is fine for reading a website, but I sure wouldn't want tot type this post out on one.
Also, perhaps you should define your desired use better, since Blender is really a 3D creation program, not an A/V editor. Sony Vegas would be an example of an A/V editor.
If you are just fishing for programs, well then stop. There's no reason. Programs on any platform, smartphone, desktop, whatever, exist to solve problems, to do things we need done. So figure out what it is you need to do, then you can ask about software.
However keep it realistic. If you want a suggestion for something to read eBooks, I can give you a good one. If you want an SSH or RDP client, I can suggest one though you'll find they are really good for emergencies only, real work is best done on a computer. If you want to cut a movie, then put down the tablet, and grab a real system.
That is your one stop shop for all open source android software. You won't find the f-droid app in the play store, but you can install it from http://f-droid.org/
Other than that, two of my favorite are AirDroid and Skifta.
Plex is disqualified as its not free, but its great.
It's not an "appstore" unless by "store" you mean "repository" instead of "shop" - F-Droid is more accurately a repository client, that ships with the F-Droid FLOSS Repository pre-configured.
You can run your OWN repository; some people use this to back up purchased .APKs, as F-Droid supports versioning.
All the other comments really just sort of become unnecessary when you consider the capability of F-Droid.
You can run your own repos with it, it's not just a gateway to the website.
> I've decided to install only apps that won't become obsolete merely
> because of the developer's whim or lack of interest... I don't want to
> install potential abandonware...
Life is full of uncertainty. Just as "It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all", I'd rather use a helpful app and then lose it than not have ever used it at all. If it's important, then by all means, do what you can to keep your data usable if the worst should happen, but even OSS apps can become abandoned. Unless you're willing to code them yourself, there are no guarantees.
Personally, my bigger problem is apps changing over time into something I don't like. This happens with open-souce apps, closed apps from the biggest companies in the world, and everything in between. Such is life.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Programs will come and go, whether commercial or not. What was more important to me was that the data I created was easily accessible by other programs should the need arise to replace what I was using. I've been burned a few times by using a word processor that was discontinued, and being stuck for trying to get my writings out of the files in which my work contained. Going from Wordperfect to Word to other word processors has been a pain. Whenever many programs are updated, their proprietary file formats also undergo a change that often means no backwards compatibility. This, too, can be a pain. Image processing programs (e.g. Photoshop, GIMP, Painter, etc.) have the same issues.
I finally learned to focus on programs that save in a format that is openly accessible to other programs. Or even better, store that data in a "human readable" format such as XML. When XML-based, it is a simple matter to write a script in PHP or Python to strip my data from the file and save it in another format that another program can use.
Learn to save backup files in formats that are open for other programs to access. Focus on programs that save to open formats that can either be used by other programs or in the event of an emergency, you can extract your work from the file manually. A good example of this in a word processor is Redler's Mellel. Their "native" format is a zip-compressed XML file, similar in concept to an EPUB file. Microsoft's DOCX file is also an XML file that can have the data extracted by a shell script if needed.
Whew! This water sure is cold!
Slightly off-topic, but sometimes I wish there weren't updates - or, rather, that the authors did a better job of keeping in mind the ramifications of their updates. Google's Play store doesn't help, though.
Just to venture on-topic for a moment.. keep the APK files around. Even if there's never an update, at least you'll still have the app. If the app also relies on a service, and that service goes down, you're still screwed. (F/L)OSS can help there, but only if you feel like compiling things yourself and actually know how the service worked.
Back off-topic.. an example of a bad update, Flightradar24 (Pro). I'm not even talking about the recent breaking of features, I'm sure that will be fixed. I am, however, talking about the 10MB+ that the app now is thanks to high resolution graphics for 'retina display' tablets getting included. For the top of the line phones, that doesn't matter - especially if they're running Android 4.whatever. For anything else, 10MB+ over the 2MB it used to be means you may have to juggle things around to get 20MB+ of free space before you can grab the app and have it not complain about free space. Even for the phones that don't have that problem, though, that's a bunch of resources being used for no particularly good reason.
One solution would be to split this out to different apps. But then of course the popularity of the app gets split out (which means you rank lower in Google Play, etc.), users end up downloading wrong versions, etc. So I can understand why most developers don't (some do split out HD versions, usually with a higher price on that version).
Another solution would be for the Play store to actually only serve up an APK with resources applicable to your device. It already knows whether an app can or cannot run on it, based on hardware specifications, the APK already has resources split out to various resolutions, and not too long ago the Play store started serving up update 'patches' rather than the full APK if the app is already installed. Would be nice if they put these things to good use.
Time for a '(system) storage is cheap'-phone upgrade, I suppose.
You want to edit A/V stuff... on a cell phone?
Yes. A cell phone includes a camcorder, and based on my sample, a growing number of people choose to own only a cell phone and not a desktop computer.
However they are really only good at content consumption.
I'll assume that by "content consumption" you mean "viewing works created by others". Being able to do limited creation on a pocket computer eases the barrier to entry for people who want to step up from viewing to creating. See my other comment about upward mobility.
The bigger problem is just power.
The "2GB of RAM, a 1.6GHz 32-bit [multicore] processor" is more than a lot of PC owners had during the Windows XP era.
Heck for pretty much any creation, you want a real system.
Not everybody has the money to spare in the checking account to buy "a real system" today. An application for a phone or tablet lets the user get started with creation while saving up for "a real system". As more people choose to buy only a smartphone and/or a tablet instead of "a real system", the economies of scale that currently make desktop PCs affordable are likely to evaporate. Look at how the price of a small laptop has shot up over the past couple months.
A smartphone is fine for reading a website, but I sure wouldn't want tot type this post out on one.
I've typed Slashdot posts on a Bluetooth keyboard paired to a tablet whose screen isn't much bigger than a Galaxy Note "phablet".
How about you don't worry about abandonware and, instead, keep a backup of all your apps (and any associated data) using something like Titanium Backup? Then, if something is pulled off the store you still have an apk you can install from if necessary. I know this doesn't handle new features but it would let you keep using something you really like.
-SaNo
To avoid abandonware you have to look for software developed by a strong group of well-organized developers that have a history of maintaining their software. The most reliable may be open-source developers or they may be commercial. If a project like VLC is abandoned, are you really going to take over developing VLC yourself, fixing all the bugs when the new version of Android comes out? Is that really better than just learning whatever video player has replaced VLC?
The Simple Directmedia Library (SDL) is a cross-platform library which there are many apps for, especially games. These games are ofte cross platform for Windows, Mac and Linux, and there are some fairly popular ones.
There is a lot of software out there under SDL 1.2 and before. SDL 1.3 and on was completely rewritten, relicensed and there is not anywhere near as much software out there using it. There are ports of both to Android - the SDL team did a 1.3 and on port, a fellow named Sergii Pylypenko ported SDL 1.2 to Android, as well as a lot of supporting libraries, as well as a number of games.
The best of them is the Quake III Arena clone OpenArena. It was just release and still has a little cleanup to do, but is not that buggy and has a 4.0 rating. He has been fixing it up more and those problems are sure to be dealth with. He has other ports of popular open source games to Android as well - OpenTTD, and GemRB (Baldur's Gate engine). Gerhard Stein has put out some of these - Free Heroes and VCMI (Heroes of Might and Magic engine), Commander Genius and OpenTyrian.
I have done a few of these open source SDL ports as well, with two on Google Play right now. One is an anime-style puzzle game Lily Hop, based off the open source Hex-a-hop game. I think the port came out well, although it is not popular and even if it was I am not exactly sure how I would monetize it even with ads.
Another open source SDL port I did is of the popular Linux math game Tux of Math Command, which I call
Free Math Games for Kids. That one is more popular - it has been downloaded over 35,000 times since the summer, and gets several hundred downloads a day. It could probably be more popular if I did more work on it - the original has translations to many languages, but I only offer it in English and Spanish currently. I have just been too busy to implement the other translations.
20 years ago I used NortonCommander aka NC in MSDOS, in Windows 3 I started using WindowsCommander, a NC clone running in Windows. It has been renamed TotalCommander years ago because of TM.
It is still being developped, and is avalaible for free in Android. Best app ever.
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
At the Montreal International Game Summit last fall, I believe it was Tim Sweeney that told the audience that the quickest growth in system power was going to be in the area of cell phones. He stated that in a very short time the average smart phone would be as powerful as our current desktops.
Given power like that is coming down the pipe fast, I expect MANY people will be editing videos on their smart phones in the near future.
Check out Andor's Trail by Oskar Wiksten and Scott Devaney (primary devs, others have also contributed of course). It's also available through the Play store.
If you're a fan of old-school hack & slash RPG's like Legend of Zelda, this is a delightful variant with hours (and hours and hours) of addicting gameplay :o)
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
If you have a (freeware, open source) OwnCloud (private cloud) server, you may want the following for Android.
OwnCloud client - (a few bucks, open source, free if you build it yourself) sync files with OwnCloud.
CardDav-sync - (a few bucks, open source, free if you build it yourself) sync contacts with OwnCloud into your contact managers.
CalDav-sync - (a few bucks, open source, free if you build it yourself) sync calendars in OwnCloud into your calender apps.
Just Player - (freeware, open source) sync music with OwnCloud and play it.
I developed this application, hopefully someone finds it to be useful. As always, I welcome feedback and/or contributions.
You try editing video on a desktop back in that era?
Yes.
You were only doing SD, and it was rather painful. You did a lot of waiting, a lot of bouncing to disk.
You also do "a lot of waiting" while you save up hundreds of dollars of your disposable income for a PC.
A processor- and memory-efficient editor will make a copy of the source videos scaled down to LD (e.g. 240p), let the user manipulate those videos, and save the user's edit decision list for later rendering to SD or HD. Even if the full-resolution render takes overnight while the phone is on the charger, it's still better than having to wait until you've bought a PC.
That's excellent, I've been looking for a good streaming media player. Everything in the market is rubbish!
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
"I've decided to install only apps that won't become obsolete merely because of the developer's whim or lack of interest. With the exception of games, which I don't deem essential for work, I don't want to install potential abandonware even if they cost the pauperly sum of $0.00." Why are you so angry at people that give you stuff for free? Your tone is really unappreciative; developers often make OSS for FREE.
Just forget about crappy Android apps and write a proper Qt one with Necessitas ! :)
Summary: if you didn't buy it from Apple, you can change the battery - and spare ones of an SGS3 are in the region of $5 each from China.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Not a Windows user then!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
But were those PC owners editing 1080p HD videos
Does it matter? You can work with LD and then render SD or HD later, as I mentioned elsewhere.
on a 4" touch screen?
There is a video game creation toolkit that works with the 3" touch screen of a Nintendo DS. It's called WarioWare DIY. I thought video games were more conceptually complex than movies, so if it's possible to pack a usable interface for a video game editor into such a small screen, a movie editor certainly is possible.
Depends on what you mean with "editing" video. If this means cutting and putting pieces together: This is very easy on the hardware. Especially if you have a fast HD/flash.
If you mean actually editing the content of the frames, not so much. But cutting videos into pieces and putting them together again and putting something in between etc. this is dirt-cheap in terms of hardware requirements. Surely most halfway decent smartphones or tablets are totally capable of that (having your flash in form of SD cards certainly doesn't help here though, writing things there is extremely slow).
The dropbox app is excellent. Really, it is. Free. Great features. Works wonderfully. No complaints on that score.
The dropbox android app permissions are excessive and unreasonable. It has the ability to read and change your google account password. It has the ability to allow for your google phone and account to be easily taken over. This, to have access to your files in the cloud on your phone. It is not worth it. Doesn't stop lots of people using the app, but I do wonder if they know that they are one step away from having no phone and their google account pwned.
"Can you please recommend some new apps for me to trojan that won't be pulled as quickly? KTHX."
A great replacement for google maps that allows you to download the Openstreetmap vector data to your phone. Perfect if you'll be out of 3G/data coverage but still need to get around. Very actively developed too.
Seriously?! So no one can pay $400-$800 for a "real system" anymore?
It's not that "no one" can, but that some identifiable groups of people who currently own a smartphone can't. For example, the mother of a child not old enough to work might say "I just bought you a phone and an iPad; why do you need a computer so soon?" Having creation software for a smartphone or tablet gives the user something to do while waiting until he has saved up $400-$800. Besides, as a larger fraction of the market chooses to own only a smartphone and/or a tablet, a "real system" might not stay $400-$800 for long. Allow me to quote the comment that I linked:
You wrote:
The computer would only require maintenance/upgrade costs every couple of years, not a monthly fee.
It would realistically require Internet access, which carries a monthly fee. PCs tend to use more gigabytes of Internet traffic per month than smartphones, and a family with only smartphones and/or tablets might currently access the Internet only through a cellular data plan whose single digit GB/mo transfer cap is not designed to be a PC's primary Internet connection. Such a family might not be able to afford another $60 per month for wired Internet service for the new PC.
A most insightful comment. I can only add that I don't intend to maintain an app past the point when its security holes is as large a meteor crater. I just want to have some time to prepare before I migrate to another app or live the life of a Luddite.
Abandoned apps can be salvaged by having apk back-ups, as a number of posters have already pointed out. That's another avenue worth exploring.
RE: "Also, with things like VLC and Firefox, the "world" itself, that is to say things like CODECs used, HTML versions, etc. can, and will change. Is he then going to chase THAT, too?!?"
Besides my above comment, I'd also like to point out that codecs and HTML version don't change arbitrarily. There tends to be a gradual migration to newer formats, if at all. For example, even as the world moves to Blu-Ray and 10-bit h264, you still get DVD XviD rips of the latest movies off Pirate Bay, perfectly readable with 5-year-old video players. And what audio format even comes close to the ubiquity of Mp3, whose essential patents are about to or have already lapsed? The horrible Flash plug-in has outlived the man that augured its demise.
I remember reading that LibreOffice has a HTML5 edition of its Writer (or perhaps entire suit). Should be possible to run in a HTML5 friendly browser.
Defining Statistics and Social Research