[Updated November 13, 2021]
Alpine / Postmarket has over 21K packages for routers, servers, appliances and desktop. And multiple phone interfaces. So what are the current best practice apps? It can take some effort to figure that out. So a list! Obviously it is incomplete but a place to start. Will try to keep this top post edited as suggestions come in and the state of play changes rapidly. Would also be willing to maintain a similar list for Plasma if enough contributions come in.
Assuming you are running Edge since things are still moving pretty quick.
Browser
Communications
Email
Camera
2FA Authentication
Navigation
Document / Ebook viewer
Image Viewer
File Manager
Text editor
Music player
Video player
Other multimedia
Utilities
Things you might want that don't fit a category above.
Anbox
Anbox works well enough to be useful, but it has glaring problems. The onscreen keyboard can't shift and it won't see a BT keyboard at all. Sometimes it won't see the onscreen keyboard either. Many apps, especially involving sensors, simply won't run at all. The useless extra bar with a redundant close button is annoying but livable. It can fill two important holes in application coverage though.
2FA
Navigation
Waydroid (New for November update)
Waydroid is still in rapid development but already generally performs better than anbox. The onscreen Android keyboard works, My BT keyboard double enters every keystroke and does something whack with a pointer that also renders it unusable. But network now works and the screen is a lot more responsive. No GPS yet, but OSMAND~ does install and you can manually look at the map. As of now though, waydroid is just for playing with since it devours your battery if a waydroid session is enabled. The phone simply will not sleep, the screen keeps turning itself back on.
Alpine / Postmarket has over 21K packages for routers, servers, appliances and desktop. And multiple phone interfaces. So what are the current best practice apps? It can take some effort to figure that out. So a list! Obviously it is incomplete but a place to start. Will try to keep this top post edited as suggestions come in and the state of play changes rapidly. Would also be willing to maintain a similar list for Plasma if enough contributions come in.
Assuming you are running Edge since things are still moving pretty quick.
Browser
- Firefox-esr is the best supported option, be sure mobile-config-firefox is also installed to make it usable on a phone. The mainstream firefox is also available and some people report it works with the mobile config as well.
- Chromium now works out of the box. Always good to have a second browser for balky sites.
Communications
- The base Chatty does XMPP inline with SMS so that is covered. MMS and SIP support are now experimental.
- Dino gives you XMPP support including conferences.
- Telegram is in the repos.
- Fractal gives you riot.im / Element / Matrix access.
- Hexchat is in the repos, just don't expect much on a phone screen. (Any other IRC?)
- No Discord or Signal yet.
- Don't know. Evolution is in the repo but not terribly useful on a phone.
Camera
- Megapixels is the only game in town for PinePhone and is currently fairly good for still pictures. It even recognizes QR codes. No effort at video support yet.
- Cheese is good if your camera is supported by the usual GNOME Gstreamer plumbing. Pinephone isn't.
2FA Authentication
- Numberstation is now in the repos and seems to work like it should.
Navigation
- Gnome-maps works if you have constantly available data.
- Pure-maps is supposed to be able to work if you jump through enough hoops for API keys and are willing to drag in some Qt dependencies.
- If you need offline navigation and do not want to struggle too much, see the anbox/waydroid notes below about OsmAnd~.
Document / Ebook viewer
- Evince seems the consensus choice.
Image Viewer
- eog (Eye of Gnome) is the default even if it isn't well optimized for mobile. Ideas?
File Manager
- Portfolio is working well now and is optimized for a phone display.
- Nemo seems to be installed by default, but it is clumsy on a phone display.
Text editor
- Mousepad looks pretty good to edit, file dialogs are a bit whack on a phone.
- Gedit is often installed by default but the UI tends to overflow the screen. No perfect choice yet.
Music player
- Lollypop is the current best choice. It supports pausing suspend. Still a bit buggy.
- Gnome-podcasts is also a recommended choice, serving a different need.
Video player
- Vlc-qt is probably the best option, same as everywhere else. Not really mobile optimized and frame rate stinks, but it is the only real choice.
- Mpv is out, no UI.
- Mplayer also has no UI.
Other multimedia
- Sound-recorder
Utilities
Things you might want that don't fit a category above.
- gnome-calculator (only one that actually works on a phone)
- gnome-clocks (alarms might not go off from suspend, but it is supposed to work now. Don't overly rely on it yet!)
- gnome-calendar isn't well optimized (adjust scaling!) but it works.
- gnome-disk-utility
- gnome-usage
- powersupply
- dconf-editor
Anbox
Anbox works well enough to be useful, but it has glaring problems. The onscreen keyboard can't shift and it won't see a BT keyboard at all. Sometimes it won't see the onscreen keyboard either. Many apps, especially involving sensors, simply won't run at all. The useless extra bar with a redundant close button is annoying but livable. It can fill two important holes in application coverage though.
2FA
- FreeOTP runs and produces the same results as a real Android phone. FreeOTP+ and the other probably work as well. No camera of course so no QR codes, either import existing ones from another device or try to put in the long string correctly. With a dodgy keyboard.
Navigation
- OsmAnd~ runs and even gets a location lock and downloaded my home State's maps for offline use. The keyboard problems would be an issue eventually, but it is usable now.
Waydroid (New for November update)
Waydroid is still in rapid development but already generally performs better than anbox. The onscreen Android keyboard works, My BT keyboard double enters every keystroke and does something whack with a pointer that also renders it unusable. But network now works and the screen is a lot more responsive. No GPS yet, but OSMAND~ does install and you can manually look at the map. As of now though, waydroid is just for playing with since it devours your battery if a waydroid session is enabled. The phone simply will not sleep, the screen keeps turning itself back on.
