[HN Gopher] K-9 Mail is back
___________________________________________________________________
K-9 Mail is back
Author : jlelse
Score : 208 points
Date : 2021-07-24 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (k9mail.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (k9mail.app)
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Funny, I've been using it for years and never knew it was gone
| :coldsweat:
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| I've been using K9 email on my android phone for ages, and it
| just works.
|
| Anyway, there's an app update today, a major one. There have
| been recent updates, but only minor ones.
| pja wrote:
| Dev work stalled for quite some time as (I believe) a lot of
| work needed to be done to update the App for newer versions of
| Android.
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| Neither did I.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > Various improvements and bug fixes related to end-to-end
| encryption (Autocrypt, OpenPGP).
|
| Great to see that Autocrypt is still a priority. It's just a pity
| that Thunderbird isn't as enthusiastic about it:
|
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/openpgp-thunderbird-how...
| drdebug wrote:
| I've been using K-9 Mail for years, I love it, great work! If you
| can spare the time, can you please add a simpler way to donate? I
| really don't want to create yet another account (liberapay?),
| please just let me pay with paypal directly.
| sicco wrote:
| If you have a GitHub account then you can use that to donate:
| https://github.com/sponsors/cketti
|
| But I can really recommend creating a Liberapay acccount (it
| accepts PayPal) as many FOSS projects use it to receive
| donations and Liberapay is open source itself and run by a non-
| profit. Let's get K-9 to its goal of $1000:
| https://liberapay.com/k9mail
| Qub3d wrote:
| I switched from GMail to a paid SMTP service and had been using
| the gmail client until I found out about the K-9 beta. Super
| pleased with it so far, and its nice to have every step of my
| mail from server to client (that I can reasonably control) open
| source!
|
| I highly recommend giving a little via Librapay or GitHub
| sponsors if you use the app and want to see it keep long term
| support ;)
|
| https://liberapay.com/k9mail/donate
|
| https://github.com/sponsors/cketti
| sicco wrote:
| As noted in the blog post of this new release, K-9 is looking
| for more funding. Earlier this year a call for donations
| (https://k9mail.app/2021/02/14/K-9-Mail-is-looking-for-
| fundin...) was quite successful, but the goal of $1000 per week
| is not yet met. It is currently at $770, so let's get it to
| $1000!
| wayne wrote:
| How was the paid STMP service you were using? Been trying to
| find one and most seem to be used for email marketing/spam, so
| it's hard to know what would work reliably for small scale
| personal email.
| edoceo wrote:
| Postfix on BSD is bulletproof.
| jjkkknnn wrote:
| Irrelevant. The GP asked for a paid SMTP service. GP,
| FastMail is very good.
|
| edoceo, the reason your flippant comment is irrelevant and
| unhelpful is that running an SMTP service means dealing
| with often intractable deliverability problems that are
| only surmountable by having your mail sent by a server that
| sends a large volume of legitimate email to build
| reputation as a sender.
|
| It doesn't matter if you use postfix, exim, sendmail, BSD,
| Linux, or TempleOS, or manually wiggle magnets towards an
| open socket to send email, the reason the GP wants paid
| SMTP is so that he can rent access to a server with
| adequate deliverability to actually use his email.
| bityard wrote:
| Hmm, I've been running my own SMTP server on a VPS for
| over a decade with very few issues.
| edoceo wrote:
| Yea, same - and since it costs me $5/mo I view it as a
| paid solution.
|
| Do you have good deliverabikity to Google and MS hosted
| mailboxen?
| gnufx wrote:
| It's a pity it seems not to have incorporated the xoauth2
| implementation contributed at one time. I had to move to
| fareemail just for that.
| neilv wrote:
| K-9 Mail makes the very crippled Replicant on ancient hardware
| still be much better at accessing my email than my current iPhone
| is.
|
| https://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/wiki/GalaxyS...
| vsviridov wrote:
| Too late... Switched to FairEmail some time after learning about
| broken push in K9.
| mbeex wrote:
| Same here, not looking back.
| Fuzzeh wrote:
| Wait... where did it go, I've still got it on my phone and it's
| the only mail client I use.
|
| _confused face_
| na85 wrote:
| A few years ago I had trouble with K9 going into "sync disabled
| mode", for lack of a better term. Push notifications simply
| didn't work no matter what I tried and I missed lots of emails as
| a result.
|
| Switched to FairEmail[0] and have been a happy user since.
|
| [0] https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail
| kijin wrote:
| That's when Android started to kill background apps very
| aggressively, more or less requiring the use of Google's own
| Firebase service if you wanted to get realtime push
| notifications.
|
| It was a monumentally stupid "feature". Even Samsung's default
| email app on my Samsung flagship phone only detects new emails
| every 20 minutes or so, which suggests that top-tier OEMs also
| have trouble getting past the ruthless background app killer.
|
| I'm glad that at least a couple of FOSS apps have found a way
| around this problem. I'm curious how FairEmail (and now K9,
| too) pulled it off. Is there an official "do not kill" flag
| now, or are they just using some sort of loophole that allows
| IMAP IDLE connections to be kept alive in the background?
| danuker wrote:
| https://dontkillmyapp.com/
| cketti wrote:
| Most apps use a foreground service. Using that the app is
| treated like an app running in the foreground and not like an
| app running in the background.
|
| https://developer.android.com/guide/components/foreground-
| se...
| Saris wrote:
| As far as I know the app can just ask to run in the
| background and then it works. Problem is many apps don't use
| the native dialog box to request it, and instead ask the user
| to go to settings and do it manually.
| LeoNatan25 wrote:
| In a previous work, an adjacent team used the K9 mail source code
| to implement a secure mail client. The consensus among the team
| was that the source code was terrible in many ways. On iOS, we
| had written our own mail client, but on Android, for various
| reasons, it was decided to use an open source instead of
| implementing our own. Not sure what amount of research was
| invested in investing alternatives, but for years the team
| complained about the quality of K9. This was 6-8 years ago.
| cketti wrote:
| If the team complained about their code base for _years_, I'd
| say the quality of the code base they started out with wasn't
| the only problem. Especially considering that you had the
| resources to write an email app from scratch.
|
| While it's true that parts of K-9 Mail's code base are gruesome
| (even today), I can't remember any significant contributions
| from teams that have built products based on K-9 Mail.
| jlelse wrote:
| Just blogged about it (https://b.jlel.se/s/49e) after musing
| about the Holo design in 2018 (https://b.jlel.se/s/9a).
|
| Great work! Just set up a Liberapay donation.
| kilodeca wrote:
| K-9 Mail doesn't send format=flowed
|
| https://forum.k9mail.app/t/k-9-mail-is-not-sending-format-fl...
| Markoff wrote:
| does it support Exchange?
|
| what benefits it has over Aqua mail feature wise (besides being
| open source)?
| brylie wrote:
| > You're welcome and sorry.
|
| I realize this was tongue-in-cheek, so should probably be "You're
| welcome and we're sorry."
| cketti wrote:
| Thanks.
|
| https://github.com/k9mail/k9mail.github.io/commit/fc497cd565...
| gizdan wrote:
| I've only ever used FairEmail, can anyone who has tried both (and
| not rage quit either) give a summary of the advantages and
| disadvantages of both?
|
| Also, can K9 do a "disable work emails outside of work hours"
| kind of thing? FairEmail (as far as I can tell) doesn't have
| this, and it gets a tad annoying to get emails at 9pm when my
| colleagues at the other side of the world.
| cketti wrote:
| > Also, can K9 do a "disable work emails outside of work hours"
| kind of thing?
|
| K-9 Mail has a "quiet time" feature that will not create
| notifications during the quiet period. It applies to all
| accounts, though.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| The biggest difference is that the fairEmail interface felt
| more in place compared with modern apps. I imagine with updates
| that will change.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| How long before the update hits the Google Playstore ?
|
| Bonus point: if I install k9 through f-droid or the APK, will it
| keep my settings ?
| mdaniel wrote:
| For the latter question, only if they have the same signing
| key, otherwise Android considers them separate apps, AFAIK
| cketti wrote:
| We're doing a staged rollout. Current status available here:
| https://forum.k9mail.app/t/k-9-mail-is-back-5-800-release/11...
|
| Switching between the F-Droid version and the official APK
| (Google Play version) is not possible. You'll have to uninstall
| the old version first (and that will remove all settings).
| However, K-9 Mail supports settings import/export.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Thanks for the detailed explanations ^^.
| omnibrain wrote:
| I used K-9 on Android (phone and tablet) and after switching to
| iOS (iPhone and iPad) it's the only App I miss.
|
| I would pay 10EUR for an iOS version.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| >The user interface has been redesigned. Some of you will love
| it, some will hate it. You're welcome and sorry.
|
| This is great, except now all of the UI elements are at the top
| of the screen, which on modern large phones is very awkward, even
| with my long fingers. Looking over the github repo, it appears
| that I'm not the only one with this concern, and that the author
| isn't interested in making this configurable. Too bad, this is
| the only thing that is keeping me from upgrading Lineage, as the
| older version of K-9 will no longer work.
|
| Anyways, thanks for all the hard work. Excellent tool.
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| > _This is great, except now all of the UI elements are at the
| top of the screen, which on modern large phones is very
| awkward, even with my long fingers._
|
| I've always found it easier to reach the top of the phone than
| the bottom, so his sentence is spot on: Some love it, other
| like you hate it.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| Interesting. How do you hold your phone with one hand, in
| such a way that it is secure, and you aren't accidentally
| hitting the buttons, or having the meat of your hand make
| contact with the screen?
|
| My pinky is normally a hard stop for the bottom of the
| phone,so that I don't have to apply much pressure with my
| other fingers or the meat of my hand. My thumb therefore can
| reach the bottom half of the phone easily, but needs to be
| readjusted to reach the top.
|
| This image leads me to believe that I'm not the only one with
| this problem: https://www.apptentive.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/10/Screen...
| zootboy wrote:
| I'm in the same position, and I've been considering wading into
| the misery that is Android app development just long enough to
| add a setting to move the action bar to the bottom of the
| screen.
|
| I've also been considering switching to FairEmail, though it
| has its own share of UI / user flow weirdness.
| 10GBps wrote:
| Nice. I have been following the betas so this update isn't really
| much different for me.
|
| I didn't see the update in F-Droid. I had been manually
| installing the apk and had to do the same for 5.800.
|
| I especially appreciate that it works on my Android 6 device. My
| MotoX from 2013 is still my primary phone and it has no newer
| updates (running LineageOS).
| GordonS wrote:
| I moved into Nine a while back - it's great, and in fact the
| _only_ Android app I 've ever paid money for!
|
| It works well with my self-hosted email accounts, and before I
| went full time on my own business, it worked well with O365 and
| Exchange too - and it didn't force Exchange PIN-lock policies on
| me.
|
| It also seems to allow customisation of just about everything,
| from view density to font sizes.
|
| Highly recommended it.
| Animats wrote:
| Oh, nice. I see it's on F-Droid, which is worth mentioning. My
| own phone is set up for F-Droid only; no Google.
| spinax wrote:
| Not only is the new stable there, cketti has been posting all
| of the betas leading up to this on F-Droid for quite awhile. :)
| You have to manually look once in awhile in the F-Droid client
| for newer beta builds to opt into using.
| sicco wrote:
| The betas have been great indeed!
|
| You can enable the 'Unstable updates' option in F-Droid's
| settings to receive notifications for new beta versions to
| avoid having to check manually. The downside is that you'll
| receive these updates for all apps, so be sure to check if a
| new version is a beta version for apps that you want to keep
| on stable versions.
| summm wrote:
| Unfortunately 5.800 is not yet on F-Droid. I am looking
| forward to it.
| spinax wrote:
| F-Droid builds in batches, about 3 days per batch (see
| monitor.f-droid.org). All the APKs are signed at once and
| published together so it should show up soon. Per the dev,
| the last beta is essentially what became the stable release
| so you could start today and just upgrade in a bit.
| cketti wrote:
| The only change between 5.740 (available on F-Droid right
| now) and 5.800 are updated translations.
| gspr wrote:
| Wonderful news! Hands down the best app for email on phones (a
| terrible, terrible concept made serviceable with K9).
| chucky wrote:
| > This version of K-9 Mail only runs on Android 5.0 and newer.
|
| That's an impressive "only"! Android 5.0 was released in 2014.
| beermonster wrote:
| And also no longer in support
|
| https://endoflife.date/android
| agilob wrote:
| I have 5 android devices at home, 3 of them are android 4.4,
| not planning to upgrade until hardware fails. One LG phone
| doesn't even get updates for google play
| jackewiehose wrote:
| It's a real shame that nowadays 7 year old devices are
| considered to be out of scope for support even though they
| would still be perfectly fine otherwise.
|
| Fuck google etc. and this whole throw-away society.
| jchw wrote:
| No, not supporting 7 year old software is not the same as not
| supporting 7 year old hardware. My 2012 Nexus 7 runs Android
| 7(!). Of course, my 2012 Nexus 7 is more obsolete than an
| iBook G4 by this point. Why? Because in 2012, phones and
| tablets were basically insecure little toys compared to what
| they are today. We witnessed the birth of a new computer
| market, and like the 90s era of computing, it generated
| landfills worth of eWaste. You can argue (validly!) that some
| of it was obsoleted quicker than necessary due to poor
| support or bloated software, but let's face it; by and large,
| old phones and tablets are the victims of progress. The 2012
| Nexus 7 is never going to be useful even with postmarketOS,
| because it simply runs poorly with any reasonably modern
| software stack, not just more modern Android.
|
| I'm not suggesting that this is a good thing, but it's not a
| conspiracy. Even if vendors were forced to support devices
| for longer, I super sincerely doubt we'd see people running
| around with 7 year old phones. In 7 more years? Absolutely.
| Just like you now see people running around with 7 year old
| laptops today.
|
| A real issue is probably just that Apple and Google and other
| flagship phone vendors continue to pump out a new phone every
| year even though it is clearly wasteful and pointless.
| Removing features just to bring them back sometimes is a
| truly pointless and stupid rigmarole when we could surely
| just wait 3 more years so that improvements can be made that
| aren't pointless tradeoffs. But that is a different story,
| and arguably is a lot more than just an issue for the
| computer industry...
| jackewiehose wrote:
| I agree with most of what you said but ...
|
| > My 2012 Nexus 7 runs Android 7(!).
|
| why not Android 11? The Nexus is from Google as well as
| Android. So at some point they must have pushed some
| "useless" new features into Android that makes it
| incompatible with the older hardware. I say "useless"
| because besides gaming or probably video telephony there's
| nothing we do today with our phones that couldn't be done
| with those older devices so I don't see a reason why they
| shouldn't be able to run the newest Android.
|
| > but it's not a conspiracy
|
| conspiracy is probably not the right term but I also don't
| think it's just a matter of circumstances. In the end they
| want us to buy new hardware every few years so I claim that
| the situation is brought to us intentionally.
| jchw wrote:
| I believe some Nexus 7 ROMs have been made with newer
| Android releases, but it is indeed pointless. It runs
| like shit even on the stock ROM anymore.
|
| Modern operating systems are built to take advantage of
| modern hardware; in my opinion, there is nothing immoral
| about software being less efficient. A lot of things can
| lead to less "efficient" software, including better
| security measures, graphical effects, support for more
| advanced software and hardware that simply requires
| greater complexity, ... I have trouble believing that
| software vendors are sabotaging their performance on
| purpose. I'd be more inclined to question the intent of
| silently throttling older phones to improve battery life,
| which is much closer to an identifiable way that older
| phone hardware gets slower. But there are so many demands
| being placed on phones. Lowering audio, input and
| graphical latency across the stack necessarily costs some
| throughput. Newer, more complex web browsers running
| bigger websites necessarily requires more CPU and RAM.
| These are self-evident truisms IMO.
|
| On the other hand, there's just so many features that can
| drive new phones other than the obsolescence of old
| phones. Enthusiasts might want Wifi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, 5G
| --all features that can't realistically be upgraded on
| existing hardware. Every day users might upgrade because
| their old phone has a cracked screen that costs more than
| the phone to fix, or perhaps their contract is up and the
| carrier or provider is offering essentially a free
| upgrade; because yeah, carriers certainly play into this
| role too, not only vendors of hardware and software. Some
| users might upgrade for features like eSIM, better
| battery life, wider coverage of international frequency
| bands, wireless charging...
|
| Something like postmarketOS is still good, but I really
| feel like these approaches will really start to shine in
| the coming few years. I believe it is the phones and
| tablets coming out today that are likely to remain
| relevant for a long period of time, personally.
|
| Absence evidence that, say, AOSP is being made
| intentionally slower, I have to sit on the side of doubt.
| Zhenya wrote:
| SoC BSP support is your answer. It's not a conspiracy.
|
| Dollars to support vs user base size / revenue /
| contractual obligations. The devices were cheap in the
| first place specifically because there wasn't going to be
| a 20 year BSP support contract.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| That's not really a fair assessment. The Nexus 4 was released
| in 2012 and runs Android 5.1. The devices that didn't get
| Android 5 are pretty much a decade old. And essentially all
| of them can be rooted and upgraded to a more modern version
| of Android, if you want to. Do you want to, though? Probably
| not: even if the batteries in them still held a decent
| charge, the devices that didn't get Android 5 almost all have
| less than 1gb of RAM (Nexus S had 348MB non-gpu memory) and
| only one or two CPU cores, with a bunch of older devices
| shipping without 3g. Having internal storage measured in
| gigabytes was at the upper end of the market (Nexus One,
| Google's flagship device from 2010, had 190 _megabytes_ of
| app storage). "Perfectly fine otherwise" really doesn't
| apply to the overwhelming majority of folks who use their
| phones more than any other device (hours each day).
| csnover wrote:
| The OP said old _devices_ , not old _OS versions_. In other
| words, the lack of software support is the problem, not the
| hardware.
|
| I used a smartphone that was released in 2014 until the end
| of 2020. It worked perfectly fine, and would have continued
| to work perfectly fine--except for the software. The GPS
| date rollover happened and there was no official update to
| fix it to the new epoch. VoLTE support in custom ROMs was
| impossible (because this feature is locked in a closed-
| source binary blob), so it couldn't make phone calls once
| my provider turned off their 3G network. Otherwise, it was
| fast and worked fine.
|
| When I gave up and looked for a replacement, I found that
| most low- and mid-range phones sold in 2021 have _slower_
| hardware with _fewer_ features than my 2014-era flagship
| phone. Lower-resolution non-OLED screens, lower benchmark
| scores, no wireless charging, no waterproofing, no
| replaceable batteries, no unlocked bootloaders. The idea
| that newer hardware is objectively superior is simply
| untrue.
| lmns wrote:
| Modern low- to midrange phones certainly have more RAM
| and storage than your 2014 phone, which matters more than
| the raw benchmark scores.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > I found that most low- and mid-range phones sold in
| 2021 have slower hardware with fewer features than my
| 2014-era flagship phone
|
| Slower hardware doesn't mean equally outdated, and I
| honestly can't back up your claim with any data. A $30
| Android Tracphone on Amazon has 1-2 orders of magnitude
| more storage, a 50% bigger battery, twice the cores, a
| bigger screen, better camera, and 4g (compared to the
| flagship phones in 2011).
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09238C448/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt
| _fa...
|
| The features you mention (wireless charging, screen type)
| have nothing to do with app or OS support.
| andrewaylett wrote:
| The OP said old devices, but in response to someone
| complementing support for old software -- you can see
| where the change in topic might lead to difficulties in
| communication?
|
| Unfortunately, board support packages from the system-on-
| chip manufacturer limit kernel upgrades. Even then,
| Project Treble should make it easier to upgrade to newer
| versions of higher-level components. But Treble was
| introduced with Android 8.0, so while newer phones should
| be able to be upgraded more easily, that doesn't help
| hardware of the era you're referring to.
|
| In any case, the problem isn't with app developers and
| older versions of Android -- although I'm happy that many
| try to mitigate the hardware vendors' lack of support.
| It's that phone hardware is insufficiently open or
| standardised (in contrast to x86) meaning that OS vendors
| can't support it.
| phonon wrote:
| > most low- and mid-range phones sold in 2021 have slower
| hardware with fewer features than my 2014-era flagship
| phone.
|
| Unlikely. Top of the line then was a Note 4; 3 GB RAM, 32
| GB storage, Snapdragon 805 quad-core (Geekbench 5 score--
| around 154/449).
|
| Mid-range now--
|
| Motorola One 5G Ace, $349
| https://www.amazon.com/Motorola-battery-Unlocked-Camera-
| Silv...
|
| 6 GB RAM, 128 GB storage, Geekbench 5 score 660/1888
|
| PLUS 5 G
|
| So-2x RAM, 4x storage, 4x CPU + 5G.
|
| At about half of the price of the Note 4 when it came
| out.
| csnover wrote:
| I think you're probably right about the performance
| (though I did typo '2021' instead of '2020', so the
| specific model you mention wasn't available at the time).
| I do remember feeling very surprised that contemporary
| mid-range phones seemed to have worse benchmarks on
| PassMark, but my old phone model (Galaxy S5) seems to be
| conspicuously absent as I look again, so I wonder if
| there was a data issue. It's also possible that I misread
| something, or that the devices I was looking at weren't
| representative of the best of the mid-range market at the
| time due to carrier restrictions and essential-to-me
| features (e.g. headphone jack) that have been getting cut
| from newer phones.
|
| In any case, I regret bringing this specific point up,
| both because I try not to say things which are
| inaccurate, but also because I feel like it has
| distracted from the main point: my old phone did
| everything that most people do on their phones (phone
| calls, chats, video streaming, music streaming, web
| browsing, light gaming) with no
| performance/memory/storage problems, had a (subjectively)
| better feature set than many more recent models, and the
| only reason I had to buy a new one anyway was because the
| manufacturer made it impossible to keep the software up-
| to-date.
| kbenson wrote:
| I had a similar situation, where my 2015 Samsung S6 still
| seemed as good or better than most the mid to low range
| phones I saw in 2020, and open source support for the old
| phone through Lineage was spotty at best (one person
| would update new releases _maybe_ ). I eventually got a
| Samsung A51 which has about equivalent specs in most
| cases but has a slightly bigger screen.
|
| It's sad how mostly fine hardware (just one replaceable
| component is bad) gets left behind, but it's not entirely
| limited to phones. A couple years back I had to replace
| the main board of my son's computer because the old
| gateway it was that came with windows 7 or 8 and that was
| updated to windows 10 stopped being supported in one of
| the fall or spring patch rollups. Windows 10 had worked
| on the computer for about a year, that mainboard wasn't
| supported in the update, so the update never applied
| cleanly. I understand dropping old system support
| eventually (even though the Linux kernel still supports
| everything, that doesn't always mean you can get really
| old systems to boot a modern distro without problem), but
| I would rather it wasn't mid-way through the OS lifetime.
| :/
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| I'm typing this on a Thinkpad X220 released in 2011, and
| running the current Debian.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I am sure you get Lineage OS, or something like it to run
| great on an old phone, just as I am sure you installed
| Debian yourself.
|
| Mostly when we are talking about phones getting upgrades
| or not getting upgrades any more it is about updates from
| the manufacturer, so I don't see where you are going.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Did Lenovo push the current Debian to your device? Have
| the apps when you bought your laptop increased in
| resource use by an order of magnitude?
|
| It's not the same kind of device running with the same
| constraints. Phones were pushing the limits of
| miniaturization. The difference in the underlying
| technology is vastly different. Comparing a laptop from
| 2002 trying to run the current Debian is more apt.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| I'm using an Android which has seen two battery
| replacements in ~5 years, and it still holds a charge for
| 2-3 days.
|
| All apps I use in regular life (Youtube, Google Maps,
| Gmail, Signal, a shopping list, music player, virtual train
| ticket) run absolutely without issue. I'm sure they'd run
| at 30FPS more if I bought a new phone, but this is a tool,
| not a toy.
|
| In fact, the biggest issue I'm running into is exactly what
| parent said. Thoughtless companies (like my credit card
| issuer) just build apps which could run on a phone from
| 2012 (basically just displaying my monthly credit card
| bill), but then make them unavailable on devices older than
| 2 years.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > just build apps which could run on a phone from 2012
| (basically just displaying my monthly credit card bill),
| but then make them unavailable on devices older than 2
| years
|
| How is this the app developer's fault? There's plenty of
| Linux, macOS, and Windows software that only runs on
| recent kernels because they use new APIs. Why would ANY
| developer target OSs that the overwhelming majority of
| their users don't actually use, skipping out on
| supporting modern functionality?
|
| Edit: Really eager to hear from the folks downvoting
| about their great experiences bending over backwards to
| support SDKs from 2013 to target devices that literally
| can't even connect to a mobile network anymore.
| kortilla wrote:
| Not supporting old OSes is fine. The blame is squarely on the
| phone manufacturer for not allowing upgrades to OSes that
| receive security patches.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| How do you imagine budget or mid-class 7 year old phones
| running a new Android release? The specs are too weak.
| remram wrote:
| You expect that none of Android would work but all of K-9
| should work?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Yes. K9 hasn't bloated much over the years, and I've been
| using it for the past 10 years so I'm quite certain of
| this.
| hulitu wrote:
| I would say the bloat is too big. The difference between
| Android 2 and 9 is some fine grained permissions.UI is
| the same.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I agree, the bloat is significant. To nitpick, I'd say
| that the UI has actually worsened between 2 and modern
| versions.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Most devices I have seen gets 2-3 years of updates, so you
| are looking at devices that are about a decade old at that
| point: exactly how long do you think it is fair that the
| manufacturer pays for updates to your phone?
| bbarnett wrote:
| My thought on this is, if you cannot update the device
| yourself, manufacturers should be mandated to support the
| device for 4 or 5 years past last point of sale.
|
| If they unlock it, and release full sources so you can
| access all the hardware in alternative builds, then fine,
| they can drop support when they please.
|
| It isn't an either/or, in my world they could keep it
| locked for 3 or 4 years, providing full updates, then
| provide unlock and a year later drop security updates.
|
| My point is, security updates need to come before profit,
| and no one should be selling phones a year before updates
| end. Or even, not even do updates!
| tomjen3 wrote:
| That actually sounds pretty fair, with the proviso that I
| would say 4 years after the sale of the phone, rather
| than that phone model.
|
| But given that we are talking about Androids here, why
| should they be required to release full source? Shouldn't
| it be enough that they release driver code?
| bbarnett wrote:
| Sure, I think the key part is sources so you can fully
| support the hardware yourself.
| citrin_ru wrote:
| I have a phone I bought around 2015. It has Android 4.4 and the
| vendor provided only minor bug fixes for a very short time
| since then. I think it is quite typical for Android phones. HW
| is still OK but more and more apps drop support for such old
| OS.
| cketti wrote:
| The note is primarily there to let people know whether or not
| they can update to the latest version. K-9 Mail 5.600 supported
| Android 4.0.3 and newer.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Google Gmail authentications broke K-9 mail usage with Gmail
| accounts a couple of years back.
|
| Has that been addressed?
|
| (Why I still have gmail accounts is a separate issue. Working on
| that.)
| cketti wrote:
| https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7126229#zippy=%2Ci-ca...
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Thanks.
| yshalsager wrote:
| You can use app passwords to add a Gmail account with 2fa
| enabled to K-9, works flawlessly for me.
| beermonster wrote:
| What happened to it, for it to come back?
| cketti wrote:
| "The release of the latest stable version of K-9 Mail (5.600)
| was in September 2018"
|
| https://k9mail.app/2020/06/01/Whats-Up-With-K-9-Mail
| beermonster wrote:
| Thanks
| tjoff wrote:
| I've been afraid that I was going to loose K-9 (due to it
| becoming incompatible with a newer android or something). Thanks!
|
| One note, If I opt out of giving the app contacts permissions I
| get nagged about it each time opening the app and composing a new
| mail etc. etc.
| vzaliva wrote:
| I remember using it under Symbian OS at my Nokia phone.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-07-24 23:00 UTC)