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Is there any proprietary Android app for which you wish there would be an open-source alternative? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Basically, what the title says. Do you use any app, that is proprietary, but either has no OSS alternatives or they're all not good enough? If there is an alternative, what keeps you from switching?

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I'm not sure if this fits but here is mine:

I want to get away from Samsung but the "Sound Assistant" app let's me control the volume of every app, kind of like a mixer. Sometimes an app doesn't have a mute option, I can set the volume of that app to 0 without effecting the volume of whatever music I'm listening to.

I also like to listen to my local police scanner and music at the same time. I can set the volume of the scanner app low enough to not really bother the music but loud enough that if something happens I can still hear it and pause the music.

I can't believe Samsung and their app is the only way, but I haven't found an alternative.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My Motorola has it built into the sound settings so you should be able to find other alternatives

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Good to know, thank you for the heads up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

This is something I've taken for granted as per app volume control is integrated into the OS on Motorola phones and I've been using mid range Motorolas since the Moto G 4 in 2016 (they offer a reasonable price, reasonable performance, microSD card and headphone jack).

Then I was setting up a Samsung tablet last weekend and was horrified to see I had to use the Samsung store to download Sound Assistant for something I had just assumed was a standard OS feature for close to a decade.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I'm not super well versed in the world of app development, but I would assume due to the way apps are sandboxed, this isn't something that could be done with a third party app.