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The KDE Project announced today the availability of the March and April 2021 updates for their Plasma Mobile UI for Linux-powered smartphones, sharing details of new and updated apps, as well as new features.
Now that PINE64 choose to ship their latest PinePhone Linux phones with the KDE Plasma Mobile UI on top of the Arch Linux-based Manjaro Linux ARM distribution, the KDE Project is working day and night to improve Plasma Mobile by offering more new features, new apps, and whatnot to make your Linux phone experience better.
The Plasma Mobile updates for March and April 2021 brings several new apps to the ever-growing collection of mobile apps. These include AudioTube, a new application to listen to YouTube Music, DayKountdown, a new application for managing countdowns of special dates, Keepassk, a client for the KeePass password manager, OptiImage, an image optimizer, and Kolibri, a basic email client that currently only lets you read emails.
Of course, these new apps are in early development so some features might be missing at this time, but they will be improved in a future release of Plasma Mobile. Meanwhile, you can enjoy all the new features and improvements that were implemented in the existing apps.
For example, the NeoChat Matrix client has a brand new look, uses bubbles for messages and transition animations in chat, turns the context menu into a bottom drawer, and offers improved keyboard navigation.
The Koko image viewer now also features an image editor, supports viewing and editing of image metadata, makes it easier to manage a large number of images, supports image tagging and filtering of images by tags, lets you manage a favorite collection, and allows navigation on all folders in the Folder view.
Also improved is the Angelfish web browser, which now features a swipe feature for the navigation bar to go back or forward on a web page, a swipe left/right gesture to close tabs, and moves the tab page into a drawer.
Moreover, the Plasmatube YouTube video player now features video controls and uses the QtMultimedia engine, the KRecorder voice recorder now comes with a redesigned recording screen and list, and uses drawers for easier one-handed usage, the KClock clock app now offers keyboard controls for the timer and stopwatch, and a visual overhaul, and the Alligator feed reader app now features podcast support.
Last but not least, the Plasma Mobile shell has been improved to support multiple page on the homescreen, offer a more performant lockscreen that better handles a large number of notifications, provide a two-stage notification/quick settings drawer on the top of the shell, as well as to support custom font weights.
You can enjoy these and many under-the-hood improvements on your Linux phone if you upgrade your GNU/Linux distribution using the Plasma Mobile interface.
Last updated 3 years ago
