Hey!
We’ve had some feedback from users who are feeling a bit unsure or dissatisfied with the way app icons can be hidden/unhidden or organized on the Mudita Kompakt. We’re not entirely sure what’s causing the negative reactions, and we’d love to understand it better.
Have you tried this feature?
What’s your honest impression of how app icon organization works right now?
What would you like to see improved or changed?
Your insights are super valuable to us as we continue refining the experience.
Thanks so much for being part of the journey of making Mudita Kompakt an awesome device.
We can’t wait to hear your thoughts!
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My thoughts:
What I love:
- It’s very important to me to be able to stop apps from showing in the main app drawer. The app organisation feature allows me to do this - so on the whole I’m happy with how it works. The apps that I don’t use (like calendar) are out of sight, out of mind.
- I’m very glad that I can hide sideloaded apps. For example, I have “obtainium” installed on my phone (which allows me to keep whatsapp up to date). I have no need for this to display in the app drawer, I just need it installed.
What I wish was different:
- I wish there was a way to uninstall the inbuilt apps. As a minimalist phone, it feels wrong that there are apps that I don’t need, don’t want, and have no way of removing. I would like to completely remove calendar, rather than just hiding it - because mentally I still know it’s there.
- Somewhat matching this, I don’t like how the app organisation has a toggle on/off switch. That makes it feel like the apps are always there. I’d prefer to be able to click a “delete” button for inbuilt apps, and have them disappear (I assume there’d be a way to “reinstall” deleted apps later). I understand that show/hide and delete/reinstall might even be the same functionality, but toggling show/hide just feels wrong.
- I want to choose my top most important apps to show on my home screen. Right now it’s locked to Phone + SMS. For me, I barely ever get SMS’s, but frequently get whatsapp messages. I wish there was a way of having my homescreen have phone + whatsapp instead
- I wish there was a way to reorder the apps. Currently they’re in two alphabetical lists - the inbuilt apps A-Z, then the sideloaded apps A-Z. Making this order customisable would really help me.
- I wish the icons for sideloaded apps would match the Mudita look. Right now, icons for sideloaded apps are (mostly) big slabs of black, and it feels a little ugly for such an aesthetic device. If there was some way they could automatically look like the mudita style, or even if there was a list of different custom icons I could select, that would be amazing.
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I think most people are unsatisfied because the apps are alphabetically arranged… and people might want to be able to personalise the looks of the screen.
For instance, let’s say I use “Maps” most often and I want it to be my first icon on the screen.
Personally it doesn’t bother me - I just get used to the way they are alphabetically arranged and don’t think twice.
I like the fact that I can hide the apps that I don’t use.
The one feature I would like to see included soon is the ability to customise the locked screen. Being able to display a “screensaver” of my choice is a must have in my opinion.
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Being able to rearrange the apps; being able to kill apps quickly - inkOS has it done pretty well.
Besides it’s ok IMO, I don’t need to change icons but I know some Androids (like Samsung) allow to change icons via Themes feature.
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Being able to organize the apps in the order I want would be sooo nice.
Also I would love a way to shut down apps more easily. Every time I use an app I have to go to settings → manage apps → click the app I just used and force shut it down.
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I think the real problem is with sideloaded apps. The icons are awfull looking. Text based launchers are so a better fit for this phone like Niagara or inkos. My opinion. Or add icons for sideloaded apps or a option to change icons
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Yes, please.
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Allow for custom icons packs, other than that it’s fine as it is.
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yes, I agree with most comments:
- custom ordering would be great
- option to quickly kill would be great
- option for either custom icons or alternatively a text view would be nice (though for me not a big prio)
One more thing from my side that was not mentioned: I feel switching apps is sometimes a bit cumbersome as there is no “open apps” feature to quickly go back to a previously opened app. (or close them). Not sure how to best address this. Some way to open the last two opened apps directly from home screen would be nice, but I cannot say how to do this nicely without cluttering it.
Otherwise this is really already working quite nicely and all these points are no big pain for me.
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Being able to re-order apps is the most important thing I need. And that should include placing sideloaded apps before pre-installed apps if I want to; I don’t want them separated like that.
Unlike some people, I don’t equate a text-based launcher with more simplicity. I find it a lot easier to spot the desired app in a grid of icons instead of a list where everything looks the same. To that end, it would be nice to have a set of e-ink-optimized icons and and be able to easily replace an app’s default icon with one of them.
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Agreed with the reordering. Maybe also have a few more apps on the home screen?
The icons of the sideloaded apps don’t bother me. I knew beforehand that sideloaded apps would be second-class citizens.
With the Mudita stock apps, there is also no use in accessing the recent apps, nor to see notifications, nor to kill them.
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Reordering and a way to quickly kill apps would be my primary request. Possibly a way to quickly switch between two apps as well. (Though this could be remedied by adding a share button to the gallery/camera).
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My take on this is simplicity:
I do like how you can simply hide apps in the settings. I am not a great fan of meddling with the order of apps - for me it never worked out — and in the end, it’s most convenient having them in alphabetical order.
However, I am not a great fan of the Mudita apps and would like to remove them as well (or at least, fully deactivate them). But this is not an everyday-user thing and any “pro user” can simple use the appropriate ADB command.
What I would like to see would be to add apps to the “Homescreen” (where you only have the Call and SMS app). It would also be nice to be able to have more proper looking icons, or at least to have the option to use one of the Mudita icons instead.
Just my 2c. 
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The only thing I’d really like to have is an easier way to force quit or freeze apps I’m not using.
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To answer the questions:
- Yes I have tried this feature and used it since day one over a month ago. It is a good bandaid to avoid showing built in apps that do not fit my use case. Unfortunately the only stock apps I use are phone, sms and music. I would prefer to be able to uninstall those apps completely but this is a good enough bandaid
- My honest impression is that it is sufficient, a great quality of life improvement would be to allow to move apps around, specially when mixing stock and side loaded apps. It is very uncomfortable to have to reach to the top left when the music app is my only stock app to play something. Next is a bluetooth connection manager app which is necessary at the time to go around bluetooth bugs and is also inconvenient to reach. But like I said it is sufficient but quality of life would improve substantially if they could be moved around.
- I already mentioned it, moving the apps around would be a great addition. Additionally being able to uninstall stock and sideloaded apps from the app management setting section would be good.
At this point i am making do with how my phone has evolved I loaded Ko Reader and i find going back to the MK because I can actually do some meaningful progress in small bits on reading but I go back to the LPIII everytime they push a new update because it seems like it is improving at a much faster rate than the MK. For now both phones still seem to be in beta but they are manageable for daily use.
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