Hi! I am the developer of Una, a privacy first planner for families, households and couples. It is live on iPhone with a few hundred households using it daily, and now I am finishing the Android version.
Google requires 12 testers for 14 days before a new app can go to production, so here I am :)
Short version of why I built it: as family life gets busier it gets hard to keep track between different apps and text messages. My own household tried many different family organizers and I was flabbergasted by how many of them never say how your info is stored. You trust some of your most valuable information to these apps and expect them to handle it delicate.
So Una is privacy first. Household content is encrypted on your device before it syncs, and only you can decrypt it. We technically see nothing.
The app itself connects the context around each plan. Link a recipe note to dinner, a travel checklist to a trip, or school documents directly to the calendar event where you need them. No more digging through messages, mails and separate apps.
If you want in on the Android test you can apply on unafamily.app. All feedback welcome, also the brutal kind :)
27 Comments
lemmysmash@piefed.social · 3 pts · 2d
I can't help because I don't use Google Play, but it sounds like a nice app, good luck with it! It would be great to see it on F-Droid or Accrescent one day.
acgk@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
Thanks a lot! You are not the first person here asking about a version outside Google Play, so it is clearly something to look at once the Android launch is out the door. If it happens I will make some noise about it in this community.
CameronDev@programming.dev · 3 pts · 2d
Signed up, is the app open source?
acgk@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 2d
Not right now, it is closed source. The privacy side is built on end to end encryption instead: household content is encrypted on your device before it syncs, so we technically see nothing even though the code is closed. If you want the details: https://unafamily.app/privacy. Totally understand if open source is a must have for you, and thanks for signing up either way!
Crackhappy@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 2d
Ah yes, the trust me bro security model.
acgk@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 2d
Fair, and honestly that is the right instinct, you should not have to trust me. That is kind of the point of the design: the encryption key is created on your own device and stays in the device keyring. It never touches our server, so there is nothing to trust me with, I could not read your household data even if I wanted to. Details here: https://unafamily.app/privacy
OilyArena@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 2d
However, noone can inspect the source code and see if encryption is implemented properly, or at all.
acgk@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Fair, that is the unfortunate truth with closed source. I completely understand where you are coming from, it is honestly the same skepticism that drove me to build Una in the first place. That is why the encryption keys are created and stored on your own device and the sync traffic only carries encrypted content. But I do get you! I will be sure to have you in mind if we open source the Android and iOS versions.
Crackhappy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Which LLM model are you?
Evotech@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Haha, glad Iām not the only one.
App is probably slop too
CameronDev@programming.dev · 1 pts · 1d
You may want to consider splitting out the back end or the sync/encryption parts into a library that you open source, which would give a bit more trust that you have actually done the right things.
acgk@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Absolutely, the Android community has been a lot more vocal about this. I actually had it on an old roadmap back when the iOS client was created, but I have not really caught up on it since the feature list was not 'finished' until last month. But hearing that this many people want that transparency, I would gladly bump it and will work on it as soon as the bugs are ironed out and Android is fully out. I admire people who are cautious, I work with security as my day job myself and would act the exact same way.
schwim@piefed.zip · 1 pts · 2d
Done. Looking forward to giving it a shot.
acgk@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Welcome aboard! The invite mail is on its way to you now. One thing to check: the opt in link needs you to be logged in to Google Play with the same email you signed up with, otherwise the test page shows nothing. If you need to use another mail, one that is signed in on your phone, just give me a shout here or add it on unafamily.app :) Let me know if it works!
schwim@piefed.zip · 6 pts · 2d
Ahh, very sorry. I don't use play services or any apps that rely on it on my phone(I run Graphene). If you ever decide to offer an android app that doesn't depend on it, I'll definitely try it out.
Best of luck on your roll out!
acgk@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
No worries at all, thanks for giving it a look anyway. If I ever ship a build that works without Play services I will definitely post about it here. Best of luck with the Graphene setup!
assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 2d
I'll give it a go. My wife always tells me I forget to inform her of upcoming social events so maybe this will help.
Does it allow for calendar apps like gcal, iCal, and Proton cal to subscribe to the in-app calendar? Not sure if the e2ee would prevent that, but that would be a great integration for me.
assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 2d
@acgk@lemmy.world I installed and attempted to sign in with Google and it froze immediately after the oauth callback. Google thinks it completed the flow so I'm assuming it's your token exchange?
assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2d
I tried clearing data and trying again just in case and nothin
acgk@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Hm, interesting. I just ran through a fresh onboarding myself now and got past the oauth fine, so I want to figure out what is different on your end. Did you get any error message at all, or does it just freeze after the callback? And what device and Android version are you on? If you are up for it you can mail the details to feedback@unafamily.app and I will dig into the token exchange on my side.
assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 2d
Sounds good. It just froze, no message. Eventually Android sent me a toast notification that the app was unresponsive.
I'll email you my device info.
acgk@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Quick update: thanks to your report we found an edge case that could leave the app frozen after the Google sign-in. A fix is now in review and should be available as an update soon, I really hope it solves it for you. Thank you very much for flagging it, I had around 8 testers before you and none of them ran into it, so this really helps me cover every case, especially in onboarding š
assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2d
No problem, happy to help. I'll test again once the update comes through.
acgk@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Perfect, thank you! And good timing: the update is live now. Would love to hear if it gets you through onboarding.
acgk@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Today Una supports a one-time import from Google Calendar, the Android calendar and Outlook. There is no sync and we do not keep any tokens or ongoing access to your other calendars. A live subscription the other way, gcal or Proton cal reading the Una calendar, is not there yet. You are right that the e2ee makes that one tricky since the server never sees your events in plaintext.