Myco v0.8.0

v0.8.0 is about you and your apps.

• Every install now has an account from the first launch. You can log in with your own key or with a signer app like Amber.
• Apps find their own updates and share them with your Circle.
• The built-in Discover tab is replaced by an app store that is itself an app.
• The Apps screen now looks like the rest of Android.

No wire-format change from v0.7.0. A v0.8.0 phone and a v0.7.0 phone still pair and exchange apps and messages. A v0.7.0 phone passes napplet updates along as plain events. Only v0.8.0 phones download and share them. Everything upgrades in place.

At a glance

• Your own account. Every install has a Nostr identity from the first launch: a guest with a name and a picture. Show your key, log out, or log in with your own nsec.
• Log in with Amber. Sign in through a signer app (NIP-55). Your key never enters Myco, and every app signs through the signer.
• AppStore, an app store that is an app. Browse napplets, read recommendations from people you follow, curate your own stacks, and install from a store-style page. It comes preinstalled and replaces the Discover tab.
• Updates find you. Myco checks for app updates when you open it and every few hours. A napplet update one phone gets is passed to the rest of your Circle, even with no internet.
• A launcher-style Apps screen. Round icons, five across on a phone and sized properly on a tablet. A small globe marks the apps that are websites.
• Back works inside apps. The back gesture goes back a page inside a napplet, and never closes it.

Your account

Every install now has a Nostr identity from the first launch: a guest named Myco Guest NNNNN, with a picture made from the Myco logo in colours drawn from your key. When you're online, the profile goes out to the public relays, so other Nostr apps see you too.

The top of Settings shows who you are. It opens the Account page, where you can:

• Show your secret key, behind a warning never to share it.
• Log out. The key is removed from the phone. Myco offers to show it first, because a guest key you never copied is gone for good.
• Log in as a new guest, by pasting an nsec, or with a signer app.

Signer apps (NIP-55, e.g. Amber). Your key stays in the signer and never enters Myco. Napplets sign through it, in the background once you let the signer remember them, otherwise on its approval screen. Every event it signs is checked against what was asked for before Myco uses it. A napplet that publishes now waits while you approve, instead of timing out after 30 seconds.

A new guest follows three default accounts, so an app's friends feed isn't empty on day one. Open napplets hear about a login or logout straight away.

AppStore

The Discover tab is gone. In its place is AppStore, an app store for napplets that is itself a napplet. It comes preinstalled, and it reaches phones that were set up before this release too.

• Feed. Napplets published to your relays, newest first, with search. An app's page shows its description, the permissions it asks for, and its details. Install opens Myco's own install review, and nothing installs until you tap Add.
• Stacks. Curated lists of apps (NIP-51 app sets, the same kind Zapstore uses), shown as a carousel. A person's own recommendations are their default stack. Stacks come from you and the people you follow, plus two featured ones.
• Recommend. Tap Recommend on an app to add it to your default stack. Apps your community recommends are marked with who recommended them, and only people you follow count.
• My stacks. Create, rename and delete your own stacks, and add any app with Add to stack.
• Profiles. Tap anyone's name to see their stacks and the napplets they published.
• Around you. Napplets the phones near you hold, over the mesh. If you switched the Mesh permission off, AppStore shows how to turn it back on.

After you tap Add to my apps, the review stays up with Open and Done, so you can start the app right away. An installed app's review now says Already installed. If it's missing from the phone, it offers Download again. Either way, the permissions you changed are kept.

Updates that find you

• Automatic checks. Myco checks installed nsites and napplets about 20 seconds after it comes to the foreground, and every 6 hours while it runs. Automatic checks are quiet and run at most every 30 minutes. Check for updates still runs straight away and shows its result.
• Through your Circle. A newer version of a napplet you have, heard from a paired phone, is fetched (from that phone first), checked and kept, then passed on. It's the same way nsite updates already travelled. Updates found by the check are shared the same way.
• Restart when it suits you. If you come back to an app that was updated while it was open, it offers a restart once. Restart opens the new version. I'll restart later keeps what you have, and you aren't asked again for that version.
• Safe to accept.
  • Only the author's newer versions are taken, and a version never moves backwards.
  • An update never gets a permission you didn't review. Anything new it asks for goes through the review sheet when you next open it.
  • Downloads pushed by a peer are size-capped.

The Apps screen

The Apps screen now looks like a stock Android launcher:

• Round icons, one size per screen: phone size on a phone, a step larger on a tablet.
• Five across on a phone, and more on a tablet.
• A website favicon sits on a white disc, the way the launcher frames older icons.
• Napplets are the default and carry no mark. An nsite, a website Myco serves, has a small globe on the edge of its icon.

Napplets

• Back goes back. Myco delivers the back gesture to the napplet as an Escape key. An app that handles it stays open and goes back itself. One that doesn't is sent to the background: you land where you came from, and the app keeps running in Recents. An app can't trap you: after three backs it absorbed without a touch in between, the next back leaves it. Only a crashed or hung window is closed. For app authors: handle Escape and call preventDefault() when you went back.
• Mesh on by default, for now. The tools authors publish with drop Myco's own permissions from what an app asks for, so no app could ask for Mesh. Until they keep it, every app gets Mesh like Relays and Identity. It's still on the install sheet, capped by App reach, and you can switch it off per app. Apps you already have get it at their next open, unless you switched it off.
• Links. A napplet can ask to open a web link (your browser, after a one-tap confirm unless you just touched it). It can also point you at another napplet, which opens Myco's install review over the running app.
• Theme. Napplets can match Myco's light or AMOLED look. A switch while the app is open reaches it without a restart.
• Who you follow. Napplets can read your follows and mutes.
• Faster publishing. A napplet's publish answers once the event is stored here and two relays have it. The rest finish in the background.
• Faster adding. Adding a napplet fetches only its manifest for the review. The app itself downloads when you tap Add.

Fixes

• Napplets saw nobody logged in: identity.getPublicKey answered in the wrong field.
• A removed app that nobody could deliver came back on its own. Remove now closes its window and keeps it gone until you add it again.
• A manifest a napplet published over the mesh ignored the hop budget it chose. It now keeps to it.

Known issues

• Profile pictures and app sizes in AppStore. Napplets can only load files by their hash (blossom:). A picture on a server Myco doesn't know about, or any plain web image, shows a placeholder. An app page may show "Unknown" for size. #67 covers finding servers properly.
• Open nsite windows and updates. A napplet offers a restart when it's updated while open. An nsite doesn't yet, and an update can mix old and new files in an open nsite window until it reloads: #71.
• No "recently updated" mark on the Apps screen yet: #69.
• Nearby nsites aren't listed anymore. The old Discover tab showed nsites your Circle held. AppStore lists napplets only. An nsite still arrives by a share, a scan or a link.
• A phone in your pocket finds nobody. Myco winds its radios down when it isn't on screen.
• Wi-Fi Aware is shut off by deep Doze on Android 13 and later after a long idle period: #30.
• A napplet's relay access is all-or-nothing, and with the outbox grant it may name its own relays. Review the install sheet.

Getting it

• Android: install the APK from the v0.8.0 release, or via Zapstore.
• From source: run cd android && ./gradlew assembleDebug from a checkout of the v0.8.0 tag, with fips on its feat/multi-path-switchover branch. See CONTRIBUTING.md for build prerequisites.

Phones don't need updating together.

The full per-release change history lives in CHANGELOG.md. Issues and discussion are at github.com/Origami74/myco.

Contributors

Thanks to @Origami74 for maintaining the project, and to everyone who tested on real phones in real rooms.

What's Changed

• fix: NAP-IDENTITY answers in the fields the spec names by @Origami74 in #54
• perf: answer outbox.publish at a two-relay quorum by @Origami74 in #55
• fix: removing an unreachable app makes it disappear and stay gone by @Origami74 in #56
• fix: napplet review on the manifest alone; download only on Add by @Origami74 in #57
• Account: a guest identity from first launch, nsec login and logout (N1) by @Origami74 in #58
• Log in with a signer app (NIP-55, Amber) (N2) by @Origami74 in #59
• feat(napplet): NAP-LINK and NAP-THEME, granted by default by @Origami74 in #60
• feat(napplet): ship Discover as a default napplet by @Origami74 in #61
• fix(napplet): let a publish wait for signer-app approval by @Origami74 in #62
• feat(napplet): review sheet says when an app is already installed by @Origami74 in #63
• feat: retire the native Discover tab for the Discover napplet (N5) by @Origami74 in #65
• feat: check for app updates on foreground and every 6 h by @Origami74 in #64
• feat(napplet): forward napplet updates to the Circle like nsite updates by @Origami74 in #66
• feat(apps): stock-launcher grid with round icons by @Origami74 in #68
• fix(napplet): deliver back to the napplet as Escape before closing by @Origami74 in #70
• feat(napplet): offer a restart when an open window's napplet was updated by @Origami74 in #72
• fix(napplet): grant mesh by default until the tooling keeps it in requires by @Origami74 in #74
• feat(napplet): keep the review sheet up after Add and offer Open by @Origami74 in #75
• chore: seed the AppStore napplet under its new name by @Origami74 in #77
• fix(napplet): back sends a napplet to the background, never closes it by @Origami74 in #76
• chore: v0.8.0 release prep by @Origami74 in #73

Full Changelog: v0.7.0...v0.8.0