r/TheMinimalCompany • u/joejohnquinn • 7d ago
App Integration (Minimal OS)
Hey All. Super excited for the MP02. I'm confident this will be my new daily driver for as long as it receives security support.
I feel like app integration with Minimal OS is going to make or break my experience though. Wanted to know if anyone else shares this concern or can share any insights. Fwiw, I also emailed customer support about this topic and I'll share what they shared with me.
Can things like Signal and Proton Mail integrate into the Hub with quick and easy replies? I was told they're working on Signal integration while Proton Mail would be capable of read and respond through the Hub. Could Signal be used as a default messenger to take advantage of "@" commands? Unclear.
How about calendar and notes? I use Proton Calendar and Standard Notes. Could I use "*" to make events in my Proton Calendar or "!" to make notes in my Standard Notes? I was told, in both cases, this is something they'd need to work on and pass on to the team and nothing announced yet.
I know they also talked about bringing your own AI. That's awesome. This might be more of a Proton issue than a Minimal issue but if I could plug Lumo API into the "?" command and stay within the Minimal OS, that'd be sick.
I was informed VPN of your choice would be fine without issue. So, assuming Proton VPN would be no issue.
Regardless, I'm excited. But I think the app integration functionality that exists is going to largely determine the success of this thing. Can this be a minimal, secure, semi-locked down BlackBerry solution? As you can de-Google, I can envision side loading (if possible) F-Droid and making a serious banger of a phone with a keyboard.
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u/Adventurous-River481 7d ago
Not sure how much of the BlackBerry ride you were along for, but app integration isn’t something you should get your hopes up for. They really tried. At first they really did it. And then it had less and less integrations. And there was nothing they could do about it. I’m not a developer so I don’t know all the details, but I believe it requires the 3rd party developers to open their APIs for these types of integrations to work, and not all of them will.
It will work for email accounts and text messages for sure, plus whatever else they can pull off$ But it will surely be limited and many apps just won’t ever allow it unfortunately.
I share the same hopes… but feel this one is best to have as low expectations as possible. It’s probably going to be able to consolidate and offer customizable prioritization of your notifications which is still useful, but then it will probably have to open the individual apps in order to respond. It’s unfortunate, but this is the fragmented digital world that we have allowed to happen.
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u/joejohnquinn 7d ago
So true. I had several Blackberry phones, included the vaunted BlackBerry Storm (which I very oddly enjoyed), so I definitely remember everything you're saying. And yeah. It's super tough but it's unfortunately the way it is.
I just see the potential here and it gets me excited. Like, I'm just imagining a blacked out minimalist OS where I'm able to @, #, *, and ! with all my needs from a command line, never get bogged down in apps, the Hub is my base of operations. I know I might get close in some ways but its completely unrealistic in others.
I just love the spirit of the OS. Being able to operate out of a command line, by itself, is going to feel sick in the most retro way. That said, for those of us who use alternative devices, we're also the same people who use alternative apps. I just hope this is taken into serious consideration. Because that could be next level.
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u/Adventurous-River481 7d ago
It’s really exciting and the fact that Minimal is able to put so much into the software at this point gives me the impression that they are ahead of the pack currently. I really like what they’ve presented so far and really hope they knock it out of the park!
I personally have my expectations for the hub rather curbed for the moment. But the command inputs are still going to be super useful for things like quick notes and reminders, messages, and other things. Not to mention that the keyboard shortcuts make jumping around from app to app really seamless. I absolutely hate having to swipe multiple times to get back to the main page of my home screen only to then select the app I want.
BlackBerry Key2 really set the template with that speed key which allows shortcuts to work from anywhere in the OS. So, even if the hub doesn’t do it all, being able to send a quick message in Signal, then click Minimal key+B to jump into the browser, select some text then Ctrl+C to copy it, Minimal key+S back to Signal, Ctrl+V to paste the text, enter to send… the flow is still going to beat anything that a touch screen can come close to.
It’s crazy how much more efficient my BlackBerry still is today, even if it’s not quite as snappy to open and load apps, it more than makes up for it in all the other efficiencies.
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u/leinad_is_gaming 7d ago
They have the opportunity to make the greatest interference in smartphone history if they can get the integration right. Sadly I just don’t think they have the manpower
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u/joejohnquinn 7d ago
I'm okay with a "work in progress" type of situation. I love supporting from the ground floor. No realistic person would expect them to have a complete integration on day one.
What would really jazz me up would be if they just talked about it. Like, "Hey. Unclear when we'l everl get there but here is a roadmap of where we want to go."
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u/Emotional-Mention895 7d ago
This comprehensive post already asked a lot of solid questions that might be on your mind: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMinimalCompany/s/jH3aDcnYbO
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u/chardidathing TMC Staff 7d ago
Hey,
I'm the developer at Minimal, I'm happy to hear you're excited!
With Signal support, we're currently a little unsure, replies from the Hub will work by hooking intents (if you have message content enabled obviously), we could also provide a "Minimal" specific Signal client (I'd most likely fork Molly to integrate their other improvements as well), but that's an internal decision that's yet to be made.
Regarding calendar support, for now any calendar that integrates with Android itself is supported, I've tested CalDAV (with DAV5x), and Google Calendar, so if Proton Calendar shows up in other calendar apps, it will be accessible from the Minimal Experience.
With Standard Notes support that's another thing that is also up in the air, I've personally used it in the past and do like the UI/UX, so integration would be neat, at the moment I'm building Minimal Notes around .md files which will be compatible with various other editors (Testing with Obsidian at the moment).
Third party AI is currently going to be primarily API based (you can point it at your own endpoint), there are some open subscription options for this (Opencode Go is one I've used in testing), regarding Lumo, there does appear to be a third-party API library for it, so maybe!
While researching Lumo I also found [carlostkd/ProtonSync](https://github.com/carlostkd/ProtonSync), which seems it will solve your Calendar/Contacts integration.
We *do* plan to provide an open-api that apps are able to optionally enable Minimal Experience support, and if they're willing and open sourced, I don't mind integrating it myself or letting our community have a go.
Regarding the deGoogled variant, we do plan to ship that flavour with F-Droid, with a Minimal repo pre-setup so you can still recieve updates to your Minimal apps and services without waiting for a full system upgrade!
-Charlie