5 ms·

This new app got released minutes ago. It's not going to be perfect out of the gate. Give it some time.

by morley 11y ago

minimaxir 11y ago
This app is not a one-week MVP of a side project released by a developer with zero resources. It is, however, an app with legitimate substitutes, so an incumbent must be equal or significantly greater.
- apetresc 11y ago
  I hope there continue to be legitimate substitutes. I still remember when Twitter decided to add the key limit to their API shortly after releasing their official mobile clients, for the sake of "maintaining a consistent user experience" or something like that.
  - odinduty 11y ago
    >shortly after releasing their official mobile clients ???
- Aleman360 11y ago
  The definition of MVP doesn't really depend on how big the development team is.
- rpgmaker 11y ago
  On android, 'reddit is fun' is great. Because of it I was never wanting for an official app and I knew that whatever they released officially wasn't going to be that good. Not out of the gate anyways. So far the release of the official app has just been mildly inconvenient for me, 'reddit is fun' had to be slightly renamed and the icon changed. But whatever.
ihuman 11y ago
I wasn't expecting it to immediately have every single feature that AlienBlue had. With the amount of time they had been working on it (and the number of developers working on it), I was expecting it to have at least half of them.
wvenable 11y ago
Why not make AlienBlue the official reddit app? They bought it! This is a very strange course of action. This is one of "Things You Should Never Do" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html
- robwilliams 11y ago
  Well it was the official app before this one. Considering how good AB is I think there's some technical reason to redo the app. Who knows.
  - joshschreuder 11y ago
    AB was developed by one person (who is still on the app team) - it's possible AB isn't suited to having a team work on it, or they want to follow new best practices (eg. Swift)
  - kennywinker 11y ago
    My guess: AlienBlue was developed with power users in mind and this new app was developed with showing people ads in mind. A major re-design gives them the excuse to remove and never re-add many features and tune the app for a different type of user and a different type of interaction.
    - robwilliams 11y ago
      Inserting ads into the Alien Blue feed would have been easy. You may be right about the different target user, though.
taneq 11y ago
It used to be that we developed, tested and polished software before releasing it. Does anyone else miss those days?
- Gigablah 11y ago
  "Those days" never really existed. Software has always been buggy.
  - taneq 11y ago
    Yes, there have always been (and always will be) software bugs, but it was at least intended to be used as shipped. We didn't release software with the stated intention of "ship it now, we'll patch bugs and finish features later."
Aaargh20318 11y ago
If you replace an existing app with a new one the new one better be at least as good and feature-complete as the old one. Remember that you can never take away features once they have been rolled out.
- supercoder 11y ago
  Of course you can take them away. If you don't you become Microsoft.

This new app got released minutes ago. It's not going to be perfect out of the gate. Give it some time.

by morley 11y ago

This new app got released minutes ago. It's not going to be perfect out of the gate. Give it some time.

This app is not a one-week MVP of a side project released by a developer with zero resources. It is, however, an app with legitimate substitutes, so an incumbent must be equal or significantly greater.

apetresc 11y ago
I hope there continue to be legitimate substitutes. I still remember when Twitter decided to add the key limit to their API shortly after releasing their official mobile clients, for the sake of "maintaining a consistent user experience" or something like that.
- odinduty 11y ago
  >shortly after releasing their official mobile clients ???
Aleman360 11y ago
The definition of MVP doesn't really depend on how big the development team is.
rpgmaker 11y ago
On android, 'reddit is fun' is great. Because of it I was never wanting for an official app and I knew that whatever they released officially wasn't going to be that good. Not out of the gate anyways. So far the release of the official app has just been mildly inconvenient for me, 'reddit is fun' had to be slightly renamed and the icon changed. But whatever.

ihuman 11y ago

I wasn't expecting it to immediately have every single feature that AlienBlue had. With the amount of time they had been working on it (and the number of developers working on it), I was expecting it to have at least half of them.

wvenable 11y ago

Why not make AlienBlue the official reddit app? They bought it! This is a very strange course of action. This is one of "Things You Should Never Do" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

robwilliams 11y ago
Well it was the official app before this one. Considering how good AB is I think there's some technical reason to redo the app. Who knows.
- joshschreuder 11y ago
  AB was developed by one person (who is still on the app team) - it's possible AB isn't suited to having a team work on it, or they want to follow new best practices (eg. Swift)
- kennywinker 11y ago
  My guess: AlienBlue was developed with power users in mind and this new app was developed with showing people ads in mind. A major re-design gives them the excuse to remove and never re-add many features and tune the app for a different type of user and a different type of interaction.
  - robwilliams 11y ago
    Inserting ads into the Alien Blue feed would have been easy. You may be right about the different target user, though.

taneq 11y ago

It used to be that we developed, tested and polished software before releasing it. Does anyone else miss those days?

Gigablah 11y ago
"Those days" never really existed. Software has always been buggy.
- taneq 11y ago
  Yes, there have always been (and always will be) software bugs, but it was at least intended to be used as shipped. We didn't release software with the stated intention of "ship it now, we'll patch bugs and finish features later."

Aaargh20318 11y ago

If you replace an existing app with a new one the new one better be at least as good and feature-complete as the old one. Remember that you can never take away features once they have been rolled out.

supercoder 11y ago
Of course you can take them away. If you don't you become Microsoft.