/e/ OS’s App Lounge Apparently Still As I Remember

I used an /e/ OS-powered Teracube 2e as my daily driver phone from September 2021 to November 2022. It worked well enough for my purposes initially, as I explained in a very early review I published in November 2021, but I would eventually switch to a LineageOS-powered Google Pixel 3a XL (which, coincidentally, is my current daily driver as of publication time) due to call reception issues (which may have been the hardware rather than the software), the fact that the 3a XL is a better phone, and my not needing anything Murena offers on top of LineageOS. For example, one of /e/ OS’s standout features is that it comes with its own app store called App Lounge, which pulls from Google Play Store, F-Droid, and a Progressive Web App store (the latter led to a small game review). I largely ignored App Lounge in favor of F-Droid. I noted one thing I did not like about App Lounge all the way back in November 2021:

One issue I noted is that it is not always entirely clear what the source is for an app on first glance. This issue is sometimes relevant for apps that have distinct Google Play and F-Droid versions. For example, the popular Bitwarden password manager application has two versions. The Google Play version uses Google Firebase, which gives it notification support, whereas the F-Droid version lacks Firebase. The /e/ store includes the Google Play Store version, but not the F-Droid version. Those who are concerned about which version of an app that they may be downloading should check the app’s source in the /e/ store, which is listed with each app.

According to Igor Ljubuncic at Dedoimedo, the App Lounge’s opacity seems much the same today as it was almost five years ago.

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