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Can we talk about how bad the mobile app is?
(lemmy.world)
For context, I use obsidian on a PC, an iPad (with or without keyboard), and an iPhone. I use obsidian sync to keep everything going, and that works like a dream. None of my criticism is of sync itself.
Now, the complaints.
The iOS/iPad app is on the shitty side of usable for me. Navigating notes is very clunky, organising them is nigh impossible, and there are so many little UI papercuts that there’s just too much to list.
And I’m true online complaint style, I shall now try to list them:
- long pressing a tab on iPad brings up a context menu or makes the tab drag-able to reorder. One of the two, with no indication of which is which at the time you start pressing, like some sort of shroedingers pachinko long press function.
- if you’re a fast typer (I use obsidian, among other things, to write novels), then good luck with special characters. One in a while, obsidian will decide that you want all of them at the start of the line and nowhere else is acceptable.
- in the same vein, sometimes the cursor will disappear, or just chill above other UI elements like the tab bar.
- so you’re scrolling through a long file and happened to touch a link? Oh you meant to drag the link to keep scrolling? Fuck you, you are now in the note the link sends you to. Did you press back? Fuck you again, start scrolling from the top.
I could go on for a very long time, but the message is that the app is very clunky, very hard to use efficiently, and feels very out of place among other high-quality apps I use on a daily basis.
Anyone else have a similar experience?
I’ve used obsidian on android very briefly (I was still on android when I started using it) and the issues are definitely there. Maybe it’s not as half-baked as the iPad app, and doesn’t stand out as much in the horrible android app landscape, but the issues are certainly there.
I am sorry you are getting downvoted for expressing your opinion. I realize people who use iPhones don't like Android. It's why they prefer I phones, right?
Anyway, I consider it a good app. Like you said the sync is great (I pay for that feature happily). The start up time does bug me.
To deal with the UI issues I use a plugin that replaces the menu when you pull down from the top of the app. It lets you type in a command (any command) so really I basically don't use the menus much. For me the app is mostly used for reviewing data on the fly, for which I find it more than adequate.
You can always edit your markdown files with any other app and Obsidian will handle that well (just make sure it runs to sync). Not sure if you can access the files on the iPhone like that, though?
Maybe that’s where I’m going wrong. I want an app that gives me everything obsidian does on PC, with the same ease, on my phone. But maybe that’s just not easy to achieve.
Downvotes shmownvotes 😁
I used android pretty much since it first released, I’m entitled not to like it.
As a developer, I can see the line they are walking. It's a choice they made to try to keep the experience the same but using completely different interfaces. There's going to be rough edges. I am fine with it but I do know what you mean. I'm not doing any heavy lifting on mobile. Capture, review, checking items off lists - that's what I'm using it for.
I think the app is great but within the parameters of the big choice to work the way it does.
I actually used to use emacs on my phone for a long time via an ssh session so I guess I'm fairly tolerant of unorthodox interfaces (was doing this to have full org-mode experience). To each their own.
Yeah I mean compared to emacs of all things, obsidian on iPhone is a dream.
Compared to apple’s own app, for instance? It’s a lot behind. And I don’t mean in terms of what you can put on notes (my notes are almost 100% text-only and I want nothing but markdown), but in terms of how usable the interface is.
@Sheltac @grabyourmotherskeys
I find I have to remember to open the iOS app daily to make sure it’s in sync with the vaults on 2 Macs. I’m also mindful to disable all non-essential plugins on phone.
Do you have an example of an app that’s offers a great phone and desktop experience? I find that it’s often less than ideal on desktop to prioritize the phone, or like #obsidian can be challenging to navigate with your finger what was meant for a mouse or trackpad.
@Colman @Sheltac @grabyourmotherskeys if I go a couple of weeks without loading on iOS then it can take as long as 15 minutes to fully sync and it can crash a bit.
I think I found the offending plugin that wasn’t happy on mobile and that’s why the delay thing you mentioned is something I’ll check out.
On mobile I just want to check something or throw a quick note on my daily page. I don’t do much more than that.
@Colman @Sheltac @grabyourmotherskeys I use #raindropio and #omnivore more on mobile and then sync them to #obsidian on desktop.
@Colman @Sheltac @grabyourmotherskeys I need to try the plugin group thing.