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Apollo: An iOS Reddit app built for power and speed
- brobot182 7y agoDoes Apollo have any actual benchmarks behind their claims that it’s so performant? I’d be curious to see it measured against the official reddit client
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- lebowska 7y agoShameless self advertising?
- jedieaston 7y agoIt wasn't posted by iamthatis, so how is it self-advertising?
- qubex 7y agoI’ve been using it for (if memory serves) and I can confirm it’s by far the best Reddit client I’ve ever used. The only (microscopic) downside is that when one navigates to a Reddit link it isn’t offered as an option to open in. But that‘a Reddit’s doing and not theirs. Thumbs up.
- 1123581321 7y agoDo you use the Opener app? It is a quick two taps to share reddit links with it, and then it automatically kicks reddit links over to Apollo.
- qubex 7y agoNever heard of Opener before. Just purchased it on the App Store. Thanks!
- pzumk 7y agoYou could’ve always copied the URL and just opened Apollo. The app detects the Reddit-Link ask you if you want to open the URL inside Apollo. But I’m using Opener too, it’s a great app not only for Reddit links.
- snazz 7y agoIf you open the share sheet, there should be an Open in Apollo option in the same place as your share sheet Shortcuts and below most of the other app icons. You have to make one more tap, but it's worth it to not have to deal with Reddit's official mobile website (or worse, the AMP version).
- Phenomenit 7y agoIf you copy a reddit link to the clipboard and then open Apollo it will ask if you want to open the link. It doesn't work everytime but good enough.
- 1123581321 7y agoThis is possibly my most-uninstalled app because it makes reddit too addicting for me to handle. Its popularity is certainly a comment on the problems with overly JavaScript heavy web apps. Apollo’s biggest weakness is notifications. They don’t appear as quickly as they should and, for me, chat notifications don’t come through at all. I don’t prefer chat, but I’ve noticed an increasing number of users will open a chat with you instead of messaging you now. It also doesn’t support having multiple “tabs” open at once, although you can sort of hack it by using the main tab and the search tab. Hoping multiple tabs come to the eventual iPad-optimized release. But again, great app. Possibly too great for people with limited self-control!
- habi 7y ago> This is possibly my most-uninstalled app because it makes reddit too addicting for me to handle. That describes it perfect and is the same “problem” I have.
- pb7 7y ago+1 to that. I’m a huge Apollo fan and I do not have it installed solely for the fact that the UX is near flawless and I find myself scrolling mindlessly for hours. The Reddit mobile website is trash in comparison so I always leave after a few minutes.
- acheron 7y agoReddit hasn’t opened the chat API so third-party apps can’t use it.
- 1123581321 7y agoAh, that is unfortunate (and hopefully not how all new reddit features will be handled.) I’m glad to know it isn’t the developer’s fault.
- iamthatis 7y agoThanks, apologies for your loss in productivity. :P Great criticism too, re: notifications being a bit slow, that's something I'm working to improve; being an iOS dev the backend web stuff isn't my strongest programming suit, so I'm working to improve that or at least get someone who knows more to be able to help me there. Chat's a little trickier, I've talked to Reddit about that and they don't seem particularly interested in granting access to third party devs for whatever reason, even though they have an open API for basically everything else, and they said a few years back they were looking into it.
- hprotagonist 7y agoI don't use reddit any other way right now, honestly. I miss the side-pane view that AlienBlue had for iPad, but everything else is great.
- iamthatis 7y agoI'm working on an iPad app that takes better advantage of what it can offer, for sure. As it stands it's basically a blown up version of the iPhone app with an extra day's work tacked on top, the new version I'm working on is a ton better. :)
- elm_ 7y agoOne of the best Reddit apps I've ever used, makes it far too easy to browse Reddit! Plus updates usually come with pretty decent changes
- huhtenberg 7y agoDoes it show ads?
- hprotagonist 7y agonot that i've noticed. Then again, 95% of my subscribed subreddits are highly NSFW in one way or another, so i think that means they don’t have ads on those subreddits anyway.
- jm1234567890 7y agoYes it does
- procinct 7y agoIt shows it’s own ads, not Reddit’s. you can pay a one-time fee to remove them as well.
- hombre_fatal 7y agoI've always thought that kind of business model was a bit questionable. You build a client and show ads on top of someone else's content? We consider it pretty ridiculous if a browser were to inject its own ads. Yet if you build a client that pulls free content from https://librivox.org/ https://librivox.org/ or podcast RSS and serve it from their servers, nobody bats an eye if you inject ads into it. Though I'm pretty sure I haven't noticed ads on Apollo off the top of my head. I thought their biz model was to just paywall pro features.
- samatman 7y agoWe consider it pretty ridiculous if a browser were to inject its own ads. Ridiculous or not, Brave does exactly this. I don't care, personally. If Reddit wants my eyeballs, they should stop with the user-hostile behavior that's driven me away from the site. As long as they serve an API, I'm in luck, because someone who cares about their users can build a better interface on top. If they stop doing this, well, no big loss; I have enough ways to waste time.
- 7y ago
- Jonahgay 7y agoReddit must die
- blackbrokkoli 7y agoIn my opinion Apollo retains the biggest flaw of the reddit redesign, which is sad: By making the post body, and especially pictures, the first class citizen you incentivize all the wrong things: * It is inviting to mindlessly scroll * Attracting karma is paramount: The game is "upvote this in the 2 seconds I am spending scrolling past it or not" * This in turn incentivizes shallow posts, strong, polarizing messages with no depth At the same time, the mechanisms why I use(d) reddit over all the other escapism-in-a-bottle platforms are all discouraged: * Reading comments, engaging in discussion. You don't even have to open the comment section anymore, so why would you? And if, you will only ever read one or two top comments, inviting the same lowest common denominator battle as with posts themselves. * Building community, in-depth analysis, being exposed to alternating view points. Well, no place for that in the framework of rapid swiping and shouting in the void. Good job on the Apollo team to at least include what they call "compact mode" (showcased about a second in the promo video), but the problem with these effects is that they are negatively affecting quality overall, whether or not you as a individual choose to sidestep them. I hope a new community aggregator like the old reddit will arise soon...
- bnt 7y agoI think the age of a mindfull, usefull Reddit are gone. It’s been trolls and crap content for years now, and it’s only getting worse IMHO. I think at some point the usefull, good communities will migrate somewhere else in the coming years
- jcims 7y agoAs long as your subreddit is small enough (500-25k) and never hits the front page it can be ok
- forgotmypw77 7y agomods are still allowed to opt out of front page. i encourage mods to do this.
- 7y ago
- skizm 7y agoI wish someone would re-make i.reddit.com a bit better. They stopped supporting it and bugs are slowly creeping in. Most notably the infinite scrolling doesn't work very well (for me at least) and my position gets reset when I go back after clicking a link.
- thekingshorses 7y agoTry this https://reddit.premii.com/ https://reddit.premii.com/
- geuis 7y agoInstalled the app, removed it pretty much right away. It makes the same poor design choices as the “new reddit” redesign. For what it’s worth, I still exclusively use the old reddit desktop mode on desktop and mobile. There’s an option towards the bottom of your account settings to make this permanent.
- srik 7y agoApollo is honestly the only way to tolerate reddit on iOS (despite all the shortcoming everyone has pointed out). But the most interesting thing about Apollo is the dev's tight feedback loop with his users. Apollo's subreddit has activity that most indie developers can only dream of, and it's well deserved too; Christian goes the extra mile to interact with his users and constantly takes their input into account. https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp
- highmastdon 7y agoI’m still using Alien Blue. The reader mode for external websites and the multireddit categories is what I’m missing most in other Reddit apps
- iamthatis 7y agoYo, Apollo dev here. Could you clarify a bit? There's a setting to make Apollo always use reader mode for websites, and you can create/edit/view multireddits in Apollo as well, I don't think Alien Blue even had multireddit support? (https://www.reddit.com/r/AlienBlue/comments/2kd9yz/does_alien_blue_support_multireddits/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AlienBlue/comments/2kd9yz/does_alie...)
- rlad 7y agoAlien Blue works better than Apollo in reader mode in several very significant ways: - In AB dark mode there is no white flash! The screen stays black while the page is loading. In Apollo the screen goes white until the page is finished loading. - In AB the reader mode forces all sites into reader / minimal HTML mode whether or not the website wants to allow reader mode - In AB the reader mode seems to get more images and other content which is left out of reader mode by websites. It also seems to be less confused by some websites that display something other than the main content when reader mode is selected.
- rladd 7y agoDisappointed that there was no reply to this from the developer. Apparently he either doesn't care about these issues or finds them too difficult to correct!
- niknetniko 7y agoPeople who want an app on Android with similar features can try Sync for Reddit, which is my go-to app. https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsync/ https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsync/
- samcat116 7y agoBy far the best Reddit experience I've used
- iamthatis 7y agoHey, I made this! Cool to be on HN. :D Thanks for all the kind words.
- jjcm 7y agoHeya Christian - huge fan of the app. I was wondering if you could share some of your journey / early designs for the app? It’s one of the most well designed mobile apps I’ve used and I’d be curious to see how it evolved in your mind.
- saagarjha 7y agoYou might find some interesting stuff on the subreddit (https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/); https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/); it was in TestFlight for quite a while even before being released.
- ftio 7y agoNot only is Apollo the best Reddit app for iOS, it might be one of the best 3rd-party iOS apps out there, period. It’s incredibly well-designed, very fast, and it’s updated very consistently. Christian, the developer, is a former Apple guy, and it shows — the level of attention and care he puts in is unparalleled. I’d love a hand-curated (by someone with good taste) list of apps of this quality. Anyone know of one?
- hombre_fatal 7y agoNot being a huge mobile user at the time, it's probably the first app that made me realize how compelling a mobile experience could be.
- bravura 7y agoBear app for notes, and also see recommendations on thesweetsetup.com... my only grip with bear is it’s iOS only, no web access even. I didn’t care until my iOS and mac both died during travel and i couldn’t use bear from droid or linux
- asdff 7y agoIf you want true cross platform, theres always a cloud service + plain text files.
- nikivi 7y agoI use quite a few native apps https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/my-ios https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/my-ios
- bhl 7y agoWhat’s an example of a well designed app that’s cross platform and not limited only to iOS? Is there a tradeoff between multiple platforms and attention to detail?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- x__x 7y agoI have completely fazed out reddit from my daily browsing. Unless it is an obscere sub on a niche topic, the posts on there are gamed and manipulated to the front page. That site has essentially turned into mainstream media with links curated by big companies and special interest groups, with the illusion of community curated content. It's going to be a shit show this coming election with groups spending tens of millions of dollars on gaming that site
- berberous 7y agoApollo is really well done, but there’s certain bugs that have been in it since day 1 that are still not fixed (despite reporting them) that kill it for me — namely that “load more” does not fetch the next set of comments in chronological order when sorting by new. I resorted to trying the official Reddit app and was pleasantly surprised. I assumed it would be way worse, but it’s actually excellent. If you haven’t tried it in a while, I’d recommend it.
- emit_time 7y agoI was back on the /r/apolloapp sub before the app was released, and was in an early public beta. I had so many major gripes with all the other reddit apps for iOS, and I tried all the major ones. I remember using it and dealing with all the bugs, and seeing all the deadline delays etc, never expecting to see it come to light. Left for a while, and then it was actually released. And I LOVE it. Thank you so much iamthatis :)
- StephanTLavavej 7y agoDark mode is still incompatible with monospace code regions, as reported several times in the ApolloApp subreddit; I tried using Apollo yesterday but couldn’t get past this bug (as I read a lot of code on reddit). Please fix this and I’ll buy the app!
- krbzsq 7y agoI rate Apollo highly. Very well-designed, very fast and honestly I won't use reddit in a web browser anymore, specifically because the experience doesn't come close to Apollo. So my hats off to the developer. That said, one really annoying bug that seems to have shown up since iOS 13, is that on the odd occasion after being on another app and swiping back to Apollo the swipe down to refresh feature just doesn't seem to appear or it freezes when it does appear and forces me to restart the app. Just curious if anyone else has had this issue?
- askafriend 7y agoIncredibly well design and executed Reddit app. If Reddit had any sense, they'd throw a pile of money at this guy to get him on-board.
- rhlsthrm 7y agoApollo is cool, but I found myself going back to Narwhal after trying out both for a while. I love the comments on top of the media view for Narwhal, and Apollo hasn't matched that experience. The app looks awesome though, either way they are both amazing apps.
- skunkworker 7y agoAlso on narwhal still, there are some issues with YouTube videos but it’s the best way I’ve found for long text posts.
- NoahTheDuke 7y agoAgreed. Apollo is slick but Narwhal continues to be the smoothest commenting (reading and writing) experience.
- rickharrison 7y agoCreator of narwhal here! Thanks for the kind words. We are working on an all new version and hope to share something soon :)
- TheFutureIsNear 7y agoAmazing to hear! Narwhal is my favourite reddit client as well. Any chance of getting in on beta testing when it's ready?
- slipheen 7y agoThe biggest advantage for me over the official app is that it doesn't automatically open why I try to load Reddit links in Safari. Afaik, ios doesn't provide anyway to forcibly disable that behavior system-wide. That behavior is a deal breaker for me, so I can't have any official apps installed.
- saagarjha 7y agoI believe you can disable that behavior by long pressing on a link in Safari and choosing "open in Safari" or whatever. After that it will continue to open links in the browser. (Yeah, they got rid of the more convenient way to do this…)
- teknover 7y agoReading the comments, I thought I’d jump in to try Apollo again. I recalled it being stifling and yep sure enough, it hasn’t changed: Basic navigational functionality such as swiping through content from one post to another is not available by default, instead it is behind a paywall. Look, I totally get if there’s premium functionality such as notifications, better posting functions that you need to charge for it. But as it exists it has less functionality than the default reddit app in which you can navigate. If you’ve already broken user trust by degrading a basic service I will not trust to pay you for the rest.
- megablast 7y agoApollo might be awful, but it can't be worse than reddit on the iOS browser, which they deliberately hobble by constantly asking you to switch to app, and logging you out. Now, if this app removed duplicates of stories and pics that I had seen, that would be great.
- tuananh 7y agoantenna is still my favorite reddit client. the ui is simple and fast. gestures are intuitive. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/antenna-client-for-reddit/id572391252 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/antenna-client-for-reddit/id57...
- dingo_bat 7y agoI have big complaint on ios reddit apps and that is no nsfw filtering. Many times /r/all shows nsfw images containing nudity or gore, and there is no way to tell the app to filter the thumbnails! This is such a basic feature on any android reddit app. I read that it has to do with something about app store policies. But that just sounds dumb. Why would policies force the app to show adult content always?
- mcatis 7y agoApollo had my favourite feature from any Reddit browsing experience, which was displaying the parent comment of the comment you are viewing if you used 3D Touch. I found this incredibly useful while browsing through long discussions, and it made the experience of reading through comments, which are often my favourite part of using Reddit, so much more convenient than anywhere else. After Apple removed 3D Touch from their new devices, I assumed that some kind of workaround would be introduced into the app, even if it wouldn’t be as convenient as the old method. But despite seeing it mentioned a bunch of times on the Apollo subreddit, the usually very responsive developer has ignored people asking about it, and no workaround has appeared. It’s still probably the best Reddit app out there, but it’s a real shame to see such a useful feature removed and users ignored.
- bestnameever 7y agoI wish this app had basic notification support. I don't care for push notifications.
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoDoes this use any third party analytics libraries, facebook sdk, etc?
- futhey 7y agoLoved Apollo. Great app. Lately, it's gotten stuck re-loading the app on every re-launch for me, after upgrading to premium, making it near unusable (or at least incredibly frustrating) on the iPhone.