I am curious what your experience with a free and ethical app in a walled garden will be.
I had a similar idea. About two years ago my kid was playing a simple mobile game with her friends a lot. There are many variations of the game theme but they are all ad infested privacy nightmares listlessly fiddled together.
I thought we could do better and make a good and ethical version - also as an educational project. The game turned out well, but we haven't published it yet. It is still planned, but I had to learn free apps apparently are an uphill battle in walled garden ecosystems.
If you think about it, it makes sense: Apple and Google don't like to get their 30% cut from nothing. I believe that is the deeper reason apps like ours are so rare.
@skeledrew Fair question! For me, the drive comes from passion and the joy of building something clean and useful. It’s less about standing out for fame, more about being found by the right people — folks who value FOSS, privacy, and ethical software. And yeah, alternative stores like Aurora or F-Droid make that discovery easier. :)
My favorite simple compass app is https://github.com/Kr0oked/Compass which is also on f-droid.
Pretty snappy, almost matches the refresh rate and latency of the iphone's compass app.
TFA looks way more sluggish, but I guess it is an effect of the smoothing.
It would be really useful if it could show true north in addition to magnetic north. The location should give you declination.
Can you make it a widget so it stays on the screen?
Why does this app need network permissions?
Does Android not have a Compass app?
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Internet is useful for updating the declination "constants" for your location. Otherwise, the compass is not really very accurate in all locations.
https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/compass-declination....