Deprecate Android/iOS apps
Deprecate Android/iOS apps. This issue is to track our thoughts and plans to make the transition smooth. There hasn't been an actual push to deprecate yet.
There are existing bugs and we already added a message to the apps section/page about our efforts being focused on the webapp
. We're adding new features to the webapp
like threaded conversations which will be missing on these apps and the glaring bugs don't reflect well on us.
Our efforts are focused on the webapp which is the backbone of the mobile/desktop apps but mainly focused on the web experience. There are a number of bugs in these desktop/mobile clients and they spread the Gitter team too thin for us to give them proper attention. The apps are open-source if you want to tackle something particularly annoying to you. (desktop, iOS, Android)
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitter/webapp/merge_requests/1444
The future is probably improving the PWA experience so it doesn't feel any different after you add it to your homescreen, https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitter/webapp/issues/1992
If the bugs ever get sorted, we can add them back to the app store, https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/gitter/-/epics/6
Questions
- If we remove the apps from the iOS app store, does it also stop existing users from using the app? We don't want affect existing users who find it good enough
- If we remove the apps from the Android Play store, does it also stop existing users from using the app? We don't want affect existing users who find it good enough
- How can we notify existing users of no future development?
Defer to the Element apps through Matrix
Because we are developing a native bridge between Gitter and Matrix, once available, you can use any Matrix client to access Gitter messages. There are nice glossy Matrix clients for iOS and Android that could be used.
- https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/element-ios
- https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/element-android
We only plan to bridge public rooms in our initial rollout so this doesn't solve every use case. But we do plan to make the bridge fully integrated to every conversation as time goes on.
webapp
a suitable replacement?
Is the mobile browser PWA
See https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitter/webapp/issues/1992
Push notifications
See https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitter/webapp/-/issues/1992#push-notifications
Remediation
Iteration 1
-
Remove links to apps from the apps page -
Add deprecation notice to gitter-android-app
readme -
Add deprecation notice to gitter-ios-app
readme -
Warn existing users that there is no future development
Iteration 2
-
Remove from iOS app store -
Remove from Android Play store
Issue spawned from https://twitter.com/serialseb/status/1171061674092244992