My apologies if this has been asked before but I couldn’t find anything concrete.
Do you guys plan to add a native messaging app to the Kompakt? As I see it most of the people using the phone feel the need to sideload some kind of messaging app.
Here is how my situation looks like - I haven’t used SMS in the last 10 years or so and it turns out that it’s a paid feature in my country (I have like 50-60 free texts and then 15 euro cents per message). I have unlimited mobile data on my phone, though… and I would very much like to use some kind of native messaging app that uses mobile data.
I am not sure how this plays out with the whole “de-googled” OS and if it is even possible. I know that one other minimalist phone (which I will not mention by name) offers Signal as a feature.
Can @urszula shed some light on the topic, please?
I really don’t want to do that because it’s a rabbit hole for me If I break my rule for no sideloading it won’t just be for a Signal app and I will probably try to “tweak” my Kompakt into a smartphone.
Part of addiction recovery is being able to resist temptations. Mudita offers a balanced phone experience and not a device for phone addiction. I highly implore you to work on resisting temptations, this will be difficult but more successful in the long run.
You are 100% correct, but it really is a hard process. I am almost successfully combating the urge, but some things just feel non-negotiable. For example, I really wish I have a way to text (for free) with my wife, nothing else. I am Okay with not being able to see and respond to e-mails and text messages from other random people and it’s kind of is liberating!
On a similar note I am enjoying the Offline+ mode in the evenings. My phone has never been switched off in the last 10-15 years and I really need to rewire my brain to just understand it’s Okay. I don’t have to be available 24/7.
I just might have to bite the bullet with the paid SMS and just gradually reduce the texts I am used to send and receive from my relatives. Keep it only to the essentials.
I know it’s hard, that is why it’s an addiction. In my opinion you need to take radical responsibility for it. No device will save you or can save you and it’s unfair to put the burden on Mudita to provide specific tools for you to deal with addiction. Sideload Signal and go deep into your psyche: why do you scroll or whatever. For me it’s a way to push away negative thoughts so I don’t have to engage with them. Now I engage with them which sometimes sucks but leads to positive experiences in the long run. Mudita has provided you with the right tool already, just go for it and don’t be afraid to make mistakes and ride out the potential waves of anxiety. You can do it.
A very well worded and encouraging summary of what I think we are all dealing with to some degree. This community has helped me to keep going on my technology mindfulness journey.
Yes, tools are just one part of the journey. No tool will ever cure addiction if the mind does not follow. The Kompakt helped me in my journey as well. Who would think I’d be reading a book in the pizzeria waiting for my pizza to be ready? Well, now it’s a reality for me.
hey, maybe this idea is just stupid but what if you’d ask someone else to sideload Signal for you? wouldn’t be much different from Mudita providing a native messaging app. it wouldn’t be you modifying the phone. the app would just be there as if it was deployed by an update.
also +1 to everything said here about small companies maintaining something like a Signal fork. I did the Punkt-thing, it did not work at all. that’s why I ended up here and I’m super glad about it
Yeah I think sideloading apps like Signal, Whatsapp, Viber, etc are the best bet at this point. The main problem with those is that the notifications from sideloaded apps don’t show on the lock screen. If Mudita had kept the built-in notification functions that already existed, this would be a more practical solution.
I would not be too worried, signal is not a time wasting app, once you sideload it, take off aurora store you can’t sideload anything else on the run while you are out and about. I for example sideloaded email but literally within 10 mins went and removed it from device because its a time waster for me. Just add signal and be done with it, don’t add anything else, the great thing as I mentioned is once you take the aurora store off the kompakt there is no tempation to go and add any more apps.
Only apps I have sideloaded, are a weather app, herewe go maps, Yelp (used as a directory to search phone numbers business hours, onenote, habit tracker, Train schedule, and podcast.
All my apps are hidden from view, pure minimalist set up. In the end I realized to live in this world I can’t use a pure dumb phone, you need something that is a middle ground between dumb and smart, and that is the Kompakt.
I have phone addiction plus ADHD and the Kompakt has worked wonders for me. That being said I did spend 4 years on pure dumb phones that helped rewire my brain, but with the kompakt its not simple to sideload apps, its not like a google playstore where you simply click and download
I would very much appreciate a Signal/Molly variant for the Kompakt, with custom UI and notifications. I’m not a developer, so my hope is that adjusting an UI to paged navigation and e-ink is less complex than making it run on a very limited device like the Punkt Mp02.
To me, the decision to prominently support SMS seems to be very much geared towards the US market, as evidenced by the constant demand for group chat functionality.
SMS and group chat in particular are certainly not relevant in Europe, and I wish there was proper support for other messaging services on the Kompakt.
as mentioned before that would be too much. the problem would not be to adjust it once but too keep up to date with the original version. because Signal is using its own infrastructure (servers) in the background every change they make and deploy would be necessary to make on the custom fork as well. that is a lot of work! it is what broke the neck of Pigeon (Punkt’s version of Signal).
the only way I see would be a community driven fork of Signal that is optimized for e-ink. after all, there seem to be a lot of devs in the community here.
but what’s the problem with the existing versions? I use Molly and it works just fine.
I’ve asked our team about this & I’m waiting for their response. I’m kinda in the same boat as you when it comes to texting/SMS. I have family in the US, Canada, Poland, & Australia. Honestly- just keeping in touch without Whatsapp would probably bankrupt me. So, a native app would REALLY be nice
Would be cool enough if it came with pre-loaded Signal with eink icon and whatever settings optimized to make it work well with e-ink and battery-wise, unless this requires a fork. But yeah, Signal is a perfect fit.
Session could be considered a more secure fork of Signal (no need for a phone when creating ID, plus some crazy blockchain+onion crossover, which makes it possible to totally obfuscate sender and addressee aside the message), but is more cumbersome at first (long hash strings as your ID you have to share with others in a more or less secure way, or let them scan your QR code to let their Session know you).
Yeah honestly this wouldn’t be bad. Signal is a great app. Or really, if they just fixed the lack of notifications, I would find just using Signal as is without any special modifications to be a decent substitute.
If I break my rule for no sideloading it won’t just be for a Signal app and I will probably try to “tweak” my Kompakt into a smartphone.