118
The unsung heroes of Android: Remembering 8 legendary apps weβve lost
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2025
118 points (91.5% liked)
Android
20612 readers
596 users here now
The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!
Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.
πUniversal Link: !android@lemdro.id
π‘Content Philosophy:
Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.
Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: !askandroid@lemdro.id
For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: !lemdroid@lemdro.id
π¬Matrix Chat
π°Our communities below
Rules
-
Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.
-
No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to !askandroid@lemdro.id.
-
Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to !androidmemes@lemdro.id.
-
No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.
-
No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.
-
No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.
-
No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.
-
No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.
-
No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!
-
No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.
Quick Links
Our Communities
- !askandroid@lemdro.id
- !androidmemes@lemdro.id
- !techkit@lemdro.id
- !google@lemdro.id
- !nothing@lemdro.id
- !googlepixel@lemdro.id
- !xiaomi@lemdro.id
- !sony@lemdro.id
- !samsung@lemdro.id
- !galaxywatch@lemdro.id
- !oneplus@lemdro.id
- !motorola@lemdro.id
- !meta@lemdro.id
- !apple@lemdro.id
- !microsoft@lemdro.id
- !chatgpt@lemdro.id
- !bing@lemdro.id
- !reddit@lemdro.id
Lemmy App List
Chat and More
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yeah, let me do it Authority
Feel free to add your own
I have no idea how they could omit Hangouts.
Allo, on the other hand, which was supposed to replace Hangouts, did not live as long as Hangouts and should probably remain forgotten.
Google chat was XMPP compatible. The shit that ensued after it's decommission still stinks to this day.
I've never heard about any of the apps in the post, but killing hangouts and podcasts still hurts.
Google allo did die quickly but had some nice stuff, most messaging apps still don't. Like change text size, use google assistant inside the app eetc.It wasn't anything amazing but I had some fun with it
And if Google had any sense, those were all improvements they should have just brought to Hangouts, haha.
But why improve a service when we can just create a competitor that does 2 things better, 5 things worse, and 1 crucial thing not at all?
Hangouts was the death of all Google messages for me. People I knew where using it and when they killed it no one would move over to another messaging app from Google.
We're on like the third generation of Google messaging apps since the death of hangouts. Giving up on Google seems like it was the smart decision.
Podcasts was good. Lightweight, cross platform and basic. YTM is a sink hole as a podcast alternative.
Apple Podcasts lives on as a far superior alternative whilst Google has left it's users in the lurch. In an alternate world, Google would still be developing Podcasts not only on mobile but also on Wear OS
Ytm still doesn't notify for new episodes. It's absurd
I didn't even try using YTM as a podcast client. Streaming music players doubling as podcast players always have a hindrance (but at Atleast Amazon Music has some ad free content from Wondery in some regions in case one is a Prime subscriber).
AntennePod is a good FOSS alternative whilst Pocketcasts is a decent cross platform one (but the latter basically is subscription based if one wants desktop and watch playback which is a downer).
I would 100% agree with you but pocketcasts recently added ads on free + has a really dated UI and antennapod is a pain if you want it to sync with other devices
Pocketcasts really is trying folks towards it's subscription driven model though I have no qualms with the UI. AntennePod relies on gPodder service to sync but that is slow and clunky sometimes.
There is Podcast Republic as well I think, which is still a one time purchase.
This is where I ended up. Republic
Reader was a site/service, but it was THE rss reader for most people. Fuck Google for killing it (and a lot of other things).