No, this:
Discussion
Ah, easy copy and paste to the Apple Ecosystem is a PITA. Funny enough, KDE Connect is one of the best options between macOS and Android. Can't say much about iPhone.
We are not the same.
Apple's universal clipboard may actually keep me inside their walled garden it's that good 😔
KDE connect is not even close.
Fair enough, I get it. I mean, you never "left" Apple ecosystem to begin with using an iPhone and I don't share most of Nostr anti-apple sentiment (knowing that I can easily escape from it… I own Apple laptops myself). If throwing money at it is an option maybe try PushBullet pro https://www.pushbullet.com/pro before rolling back to macOS, or buy an Android Phone (which will have its own issues for folks coming from the Apple Ecosystem, but you will at least have a gazillion clipboard sharing options working fine, KDE Connect included).
I have Android phones, Apple phones, Macs, Linux, PC everything.
I have KDE on my Android phone and it does nothing except show lots of options I don't want and is not able to copy and paste anything without running both applications in the foreground.
I get it, Linux and Open source are great in isolation, but integration at the level Apple have done is in a different league.
I have airpods, they just work, all the time. I put them in my ear and they connect to what ever apple device I'm using. My wife has the best headphones money can buy, she is forever reconnecting them to the device she wants to use them with. She sees me do nothing and doesn't understand how easy life could be.
It's the same with electric cars, we have a Tesla, which just charges everywhere and every time perfectly and knows where to charge and it takes you there automatically.
The car works out where to charge, it knows there will be a free bay and it prepares the cars batteries by pre-heating them about 30 minutes before you arrive. When you plug in, it just starts charging, because the charger knows the car and it bills your credit card automatically without having to do anything. If you've never used a Tesla, you have no idea how seamless it is compared with other EVs.
Ignorance is bliss.
My brother in law has a Mercedes EV, which he stopped using for long journeys because it's a pain at every level, which I can't begin to describe to you.
I can't begin to tell you how bad KDE is in comparison to Apple, this is one of about 1,000 things wrong with KDE. If I hated Apple or couldn't afford their products or had never used their universal clipboard, I would live in blissful ignorance:
Still, all your data is being processed, stored, sold, stolen and one day you may wake up to the biggest rug pull. Your ID pulled from under you. So, although your airpods work seamlessly, you have to sell them because the bailiffs are coming
Yes, this happens:
I think you're generalising your experience a bit here. I have zero issues sharing the clipboard between macOS, Fedora, and Android using KDE Connect. It runs quietly in the background, and all I had to do was tweak a couple of settings and forget about it. For my use cases and device topology, it works pretty much like Apple’s Universal Clipboard. And this is coming from someone deeply familiar with what the Apple ecosystem has to offer.
That said, I do believe you're having a bad experience with your particular combination of devices, and I fully understand that for your use cases the Apple ecosystem may be a better fit. At the end of the day, you use tech to get work done. You don't need to feel embarrassed about it. I'm not trying to diminish your status as a "power user" or push OSS. You are well aware of the trade-offs. Just saying that if you're not yet 100% convinced to abandon your Linux setup and sell your ThinkPad, you can still try to either tinker or throw money at the problem. Not dismissing your very valid frustrations with KDE Connection, nor telling you what you should do, just giving you two options besides rolling back and selling your ThinkPad 🤣
I am playing with KDE connect, because it looks interesting, but it doesn't do the one and only thing that I installed it to fix.
Not running in the background on an iPhone is a BIG issue that makes it unusable.
I've never sold anything in my life, I'm not about to do that now. Fedora is interesting and has a lot of things that are very interesting.
The next goal for Linux is to dominate the desktop market, it has failed up till now because of its openness and infinite options, which most users don't want or don't have the time for.
As a Unix user since the 1980's, I can see Linux is getting closer to breaking the desktop market, but it isn't there yet.
What Linux needs to do to achieve this are less options, not more.
I think we are close, but not quite.
I don't think the KDE Connect devs can do anything to fix this, the issue is on iOS's end, as it restricts background processes. There are some workarounds, like what folks do with Syncthing, but nothing is perfect. (To be fair, Android is also heading in the same direction… Without rooting the device, using something like Shikuzu or falling back all the way to adb level there are some annoying restrictions on Androis)
But fair enough, it sounds like the purpose of your post was to vent your frustrations and announce your decision. You weren't looking for help or alternatives (apologies, I misunderstood your post). Since you know what you're doing and why you're doing it, all I can say is: welcome back to macOS :).
I am looking for viable options to Apple's universal clipboard. Kool Desktop Environment Connect does go someway, but not enough.
I'm actually sticking with Google Keep for now, but this will limit my ability to integrate Fedora into my work flow.
I never left Mac OS, but I would / will if / when Linux desktop is as usable as MacOS. Linux is a lot better than it was about 5 years ago when I last tried it in earnest.
I think Apple, along with Uber, Amazon, Netflix..... are all experiencing what Cory Doctorow described as enshitification 😂
Agreed (about the enshittification thing). Again, assuming you're looking for alternatives (you're a difficult man to understand, Mike 🤣), I'm not sure about iOS support, as the background process restrictions make Universal Clipboard or any sort of background sync a real PITA to implement. But try the PushBullet Pro thing linked above (you can get your money back if it doesn't work for you). Before KDE Connect matured, I used it and AirDroid on Android, and they both did the job quite well for me.
Otherwise, copying and pasting to Google Keep, Signal notes or whatever else is as good of a workaround as any. While not anywhere as convenient, it gets the work done.
Update: To be fair and correct my earlier omission (due to bad memory, not bad intentions), it turns out I did have to do some magic to avoid manually clicking a button to share the clipboard on Android as well. It's been long enough that I had forgotten about it.
kde ux is not great