Some feedback on Ratio 5

Ratio Wishlist & Feedback Feedback
#1

Hey, I just wanted to give my opinion on some of the new features and changes in the newest release of Ratio.

Overall, I find the update great! As a lot of people already have said here, it probably wouldn’t be that bad to delay it a few days, since some essential Tiles features still haven’t been added back yet, but I’m sure it will be fine as soon as they are added back.

New Tiles architecture

The new Tiles architecture is cool; I like the ability to have one app in multiple drawers. The app dock is also fine, I use it myself, but it's nice that users aren't forced to have it on their screen if they do not want to. Also, I believe that the swipe-up gesture to open the app drawer should be optional. People who don't use it can enable the app drawer when they need to. I myself find it useful, but a lot of people on here seem to be a little annoyed by it, which is understandable. A lot of people downloaded Ratio because of the extreme simplicity, and making the swipe-up gesture optional could help bring some of that back.

Some Tiles features haven't been added back yet, because the Tiles screen has been completely rebuilt. I'm fine with that, as I know that they will be added back at some point, but I would really appreciate if the ability to hide apps from the app drawer was added.

New Conversations UI

The Tree name swich to Conversations doesn't really matter that much to me. The new UI looks super cool, and the scrolling effect is nice! Also, it looks a little more minimalistic now, and matches the rest of the Ratio UI better. The UI inside of the conversations looks a little outdated now, though. I believe that the bubbles should have more padding, and that the text inside of them should be a little smaller, to match the main Conversations screen better.

Media player card

The media player card is an welcome addition, even though I personally only use Spotify. I know a lot of other people use other services, and I'm glad that they finally can use the card too.

Some final words

Some people on here seem to be unsatisfied by the update, and that's completely okay. However, it annoys me when the feedback isn't constructive. Saying that you don't like/want a feature is ok. Saying that the feature is "stupid" and that the launcher has been "ruined" does not help at all. Your feedback is extremely important and valuable, but only if you explain yourself and try to make people understand your point of view.

That's it for now, thank you for taking time to read this!
-Brage
9 Likes
#2

Thanks a lot for sharing, Brage! From what I’ve seen, you’ve helped Ratio quite significantly recently, so keep up the amazing effort!

Very well said, and I wish to remind whoever reading this thread that feedback is usually best received when constructive — while you may be disappointed with some decisions Blloc has made, please nonetheless remember the effort Blloc has taken to even bring you Ratio as a product to begin with. It doesn’t hurt at all to give a little thanks, and there certainly is no need for overly harsh words in your feedback!

Thanks again for the thread, Brage! :raised_hands:

4 Likes
#3

The only gripe for me is the loss of accessibility, now chats like Whatsapp won’t sync if I send anything from inside the apps. That is a bummer for me.

3 Likes
#4

I understand that this is very disappointing, but the removal of accessibility services will allow for new chat apps to be added a lot quicker. Blloc is a relatively small company, and as far as I understand, the accessibility services required them to find a new, unique solution/workaround for each and every messaging app they wanted to implement. They just didn’t have enough resources for it.

Even though you cannot view messages you send inside of an app anymore, the removal of accessibility services will allow for them to rapidly add new messaging apps, like Discord, SMS, Slack, maybe even legacy stuff like IRC, and a lot of other cool apps! If Blloc grows a lot as a company, maybe they will have enough resources to add accessibility services back one day?

5 Likes
Ratio v5 [Review & Suggestions]
Conversations is not in sync with whatsapp fully
Conversation needs to be like ratio 4
#5

Thank you for the kind words! :raised_hands:

2 Likes
#6

Don’t get me wrong I love Ratio and I am proud of the team’s work on the app. It is fantastic. My complaint comes from my OCD to have everything neat and on sync :sweat_smile:.

1 Like
#7

That’s definetly understandable!

#8

I would rather they drop conversations entirely if they do not have the resources to implement it properly. It completely defeats the entire point of the conversations section if they get fragmented from you sending messages from within them. I hate to sound harsh but it seems like their energy would be better spent working on ironing out bugs for The Root and going back to conversations later. Currently I don’t even bother using it anymore and now it’s just a useless page on the launcher. It’s a real shame how development of the launcher has been playing out because I’ve been trying to get friends and coworkers into Blloc as a launcher. But they install it an start running into bugs, the janky conversations implementation and finally it starts asking them to pay the subscription fee and they just drop it and give me a hard time for even bringing it up to them. Which hurts because I love this launcher and want it to succeed but they really aren’t making this an easy sell to people. Currently I just send people an older 4.X APK so they can try that out and fall in love with it before making them download the official 5.0 releases because it’s easier to convince people of the benefits that way.

1 Like
#9

Which is true… but what’s the point when you can’t get the complete history?

#10

You’ve read my mind!
It’s hard to get friends to try the launcher already and now it’s next to impossible.
I never really saw the need for the tree page, since people mostly just chat on one platform at a time and checking 3-4 apps has never bothered me.

#11

I would like the change log to return as since version 5.1.0 August 2nd it hasn’t been updated.

#12

Removing icons in the dock…dock will disappear

#13

This was remarkably well said :fist_right:t2: :fist_left:t2: .

I agree wholeheartedly on this review.

1 Like