Jeez, why can't we have nice things ?!

What are the alternatives ? I'll be searching.

If you guys find something, please, report back.

Edit: For gallery, this looks promising: https://f-droid.org/packages/deckers.thibault.aves.libre/

The one and only up to date dialer app I could find. Updated 50 minutes ago at the time of posting this: https://github.com/oxcened/opendialer

Oh no, those apps have replaced many of the OEM' supplied ones on all my devices. I was fed up with constantly changing UIs and all the different feature sets on every device. I thought I had finally found something useful to consolidate on for the long term!

At least the current versions are pretty bug free and will stay.

From the comment thread it sounds like the contract might be on shaky ground. The original dev seems to be under the impression that a project licensed under GPLv3 can just be freely changed to another license, which it cannot without explicit consent from all contributors. We don't know the contract language of course, but the dev said it would "likely" not remain open source, which indicates that he told them they could change it. ZippApps' lawyers will hopefully notice that and refuse to buy, though either way we shouldn't trust this maintainer again and should move to the forks.

Looks like one of the maintainers/contributors has already set up a fork.

https://github.com/FossifyX

Working source: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/General-Discussion/issues/241

Aves Libre is already a far better gallery that you should be using even if this wasn't happening.

Not great, but it's open source. If they try anything, just fork it and move on to the fork.

just fork it

When ZipoApps adds advertisements and telemetry to a future version of the Simple Mobile Tools apps, will my Google-Play-installed apps be automatically updated to the newer version with ads and telemetry? I don't want ZipoApps to get any of my data.

So this just looks like the Community has to take care of the projects and/or find alternatives

Alternatives

File manager - Material Files

That one doesnt have the security vulnerability and I think it is also better. But they are pretty much equal.

Simple Gallery - Aves

I prefer Simple Gallery though, it is pretty great

Simple dialer - Welefon

Very basic, I personally use ACR phone for call recording, with disabled internet permissions. The Dev asked on Reddit about opensourcing the App and got negative responses, so maybe unlikely.

Simple Keyboard - Florisboard

Currently unmaintained but awesome. I hope it gets revived.

Simple Calculator

My favourite: Mint Calculator

Calculator

yetCalc

Unitto

Simple SMS

AOSP SMS/MMS, Quik Sms

AOSP SMS is poorly hard to find. That would be great on F-Droid. It also uses old libraries.

All these look way better and have unit transformations.

Some Gems

Some apps have no good replacement

Simple Gallery

Also in my opinion just the best. The Amaze Videoplayer and tools are great though.

Simple Contacts SE

That is the better version with some enhanced features.

Simple Calendar

I just got way better results than using Etar. The Widget is great too.

In recent times the developer has been showing some serious miscommunication and other issues regarding their apps. Just look at their terrible handling of the vulnerabilities found in their file manager's pdf reader (See his responses to the report)

Since around that time, I've been looking for alternatives to their apps, but I've kept using some of them because I couldn't find anything that feels as good to use. I guess now I'm forced to really look for those alternatives, or see if there's any serious fork that still gets actively maintained weeks from now.

Fuck

So now I have to contact all the family members where I removed the bloatware and replaced with the smt apps, uninstall them before the "just 39 euro per week for adfree" subscription scam starts, find suitable replacements, train people to get used to new icons...

Even if it's removed from fdroid because they want to close source it, I assume my current installations of their apps would be unaffected - just become stale and obsolete over time since they won't get updates... But as they're offline anyway, not too concerned in the short term. Hopefully the company respects the privacy amd care of the open source community and won't take that away from us, though. One way to find out.

NOOOOOOOOO

Thanks for pointing out.

I just went through my phone and this will cause a search for a new gallery, calendar, notes and keyboard.

SECUSO apps will most probably provide the notes replacement (I admit I'm really impress with the apps lineup they have).

What alternatives can you suggest to replace the other apps mention.

I pull FOSS apps from F-Droid and do my best to avoid the App Store.

There're good alternatives for every app, the only real lost are contacts and dialer, imo.

Ah yes, of course.

Oh :( should we do a 'what apps are you using post'?

fuck

Goodwy seems to be forks of SMT apps https://github.com/Goodwy?tab=repositories. Open source, no ads, no trackers and no internet permission, unfortunately you have to either compile yourself or download them from the play store. https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=8268163890866913014