AnkiMobile(iOS) works standalone so it does not depend on Anki for desktop, many users in the community report already using only the iPad or iPhone.
Anki for desktop is primarily developed by the official Anki, but roughly 40% to 50% of its development comes from volunteers and third party contributors. It’s open source and users can use all features for free so no revenue is generated.
So IMO users can only make advanced requests like commercial apps when AnkiMobile users request features for AnkiMobile. Other programs are primarily developed by volunteers, so instead of complaints, contributions and volunteer work are generally what’s needed. (because we use them for free and no one is paying for them like free rider.)
So far a similar project by volunteers is voczi’s fork of Anki. This is an all-in-one so it’s probably similar to the old Anki.
- AnkiForums: Offline distribution of Anki
- Github: All in Anki
The GUI for the official Anki launcher is being developed by iamllama on this GitHub, I expect this will resolve the GUI issues.
- Github: feat: launcher gui #4390