6 ms·

Incredible work really oozes polish and intuitive design. Have you been chipping away at this since 2014 or did something change in your motivation recently wh

by mentos 7y ago

Incredible work really oozes polish and intuitive design. Have you been chipping away at this since 2014 or did something change in your motivation recently where you decided to complete it? What would your reaction be to someone suggesting a rewrite in Electron so you could achieve crossplatform support?

morpheuskafka 7y ago
I think what makes Apollo great is how closely it integrates with the iOS interface and design language. Its value proposition is that it matches expectations of iOS users and is fast and intuitive on that platform. If you re-wrote it in Electron I think it would become "just another reddit client."
- vpEfljFL 7y ago
  Just to pint out using Electron will be able to allow publish this beautiful application to other systems. Electron not an issue here, vs code is written on it and it's loved text editor for thousands of software engineers which use it every day for several hours.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Apollo actually ditches native components in certain places and tries to reimplement their behavior, getting it wrong in some places. It drives me insane enough to use an entirely different app :(
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    Do you have some examples?
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      So you don't miss it, I just gave Christian some feedback in a sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22345278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22345278.
  - iamthatis 7y ago
    Apollo dev here, like what?
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Off the top of my head, Apollo's recreations of the action sheet, search bar, and navigation controller have subtle bugs. The action sheet is missing vibrancy and does not respond correctly to touch in/out events, nor does it give any sort of indication of being scrollable (it also does the "oreo" thing if you switch between appearances). The search bar does not animate correctly when navigating between view controllers and while collapsing has incorrect rounding and shading. It also fails to take user input or respond to touches at all during animations. Your custom navigation controller does not animate titles correctly, and its swipe handling is frustratingly divergent from the system's: it accepts swipes starting almost a centimeter from the edge and is far too sensitive to accidental flicks. Plus, stylistically, it should be using large titles in certain places but does not. These might seem like minor things, and they probably are for most people, but as an heavy iOS user I have a very good sense for how system components look and function, and it drives me up a wall when people reimplement them but break or fail to support some of their behaviors (specifically: if your custom component is supposed to look like a system control, it better act exactly like one!). As an iOS engineer I also know that these parts of UIKit are the somewhat problematic to deal with, but I appreciate apps that take the time to get it right and I would have hoped that an app that prides itself on looking at home on iOS would have put in the effort to care about this as I do. Hope this helps.
saagarjha 7y ago
Then it wouldn’t work on iOS.
phinnaeus 7y ago
It wasn't "recently completed." I've been using Apollo for years.
iamthatis 7y ago
Started working on it in 2014 then moving to full time in 2015 when I graduated university, then in late 2017 finally released it. :D So been full time about 4.5 years at this point. Electron wouldn't be a great idea since it doesn't work on iOS. React Native would be something to consider, but I've never been super impressed by any of the results (and it comes with a bunch of issues in and of itself, and to my knowledge isn't compatible with macOS like UIKit is now) so I'd change nothing in that regard.
- SkyMarshal 7y ago
  >Started working on it in 2014 then moving to full time in 2015 when I graduated university, then in late 2017 finally released it. :D So been full time about 4.5 years at this point. Out of curiosity, when did you work at Apple? Your website says "built by a former Apple employee", but it seems you've been full-time on this app for most of your post-college years. Great app though, I use it :)
  - flocial 7y ago
    "In the summer of 2014 during my Computer Science degree I was lucky enough to intern at Apple as engineer on the Enterprise App Development team in Cupertino (long way from Eastern Canada), where I learned an absolute ton from some crazy smart people." https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/cfnfu8/my_names_christian_selig_i_used_to_work_at_apple/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/cfnfu8/my_names_chris...
    - mentos 7y ago
      Would love to hear what the big lessons were from that experience if they could be enumerated at all. I jumped directly into working for myself after college and have never held a corporate job. I wonder all the learning I’ve missed out on not being apart of a crazy smart team of people.

by mentos 7y ago

morpheuskafka 7y ago

I think what makes Apollo great is how closely it integrates with the iOS interface and design language. Its value proposition is that it matches expectations of iOS users and is fast and intuitive on that platform. If you re-wrote it in Electron I think it would become "just another reddit client."

vpEfljFL 7y ago
Just to pint out using Electron will be able to allow publish this beautiful application to other systems. Electron not an issue here, vs code is written on it and it's loved text editor for thousands of software engineers which use it every day for several hours.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
saagarjha 7y ago
Apollo actually ditches native components in certain places and tries to reimplement their behavior, getting it wrong in some places. It drives me insane enough to use an entirely different app :(
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  Do you have some examples?
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    So you don't miss it, I just gave Christian some feedback in a sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22345278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22345278.
- iamthatis 7y ago
  Apollo dev here, like what?
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Off the top of my head, Apollo's recreations of the action sheet, search bar, and navigation controller have subtle bugs. The action sheet is missing vibrancy and does not respond correctly to touch in/out events, nor does it give any sort of indication of being scrollable (it also does the "oreo" thing if you switch between appearances). The search bar does not animate correctly when navigating between view controllers and while collapsing has incorrect rounding and shading. It also fails to take user input or respond to touches at all during animations. Your custom navigation controller does not animate titles correctly, and its swipe handling is frustratingly divergent from the system's: it accepts swipes starting almost a centimeter from the edge and is far too sensitive to accidental flicks. Plus, stylistically, it should be using large titles in certain places but does not. These might seem like minor things, and they probably are for most people, but as an heavy iOS user I have a very good sense for how system components look and function, and it drives me up a wall when people reimplement them but break or fail to support some of their behaviors (specifically: if your custom component is supposed to look like a system control, it better act exactly like one!). As an iOS engineer I also know that these parts of UIKit are the somewhat problematic to deal with, but I appreciate apps that take the time to get it right and I would have hoped that an app that prides itself on looking at home on iOS would have put in the effort to care about this as I do. Hope this helps.

saagarjha 7y ago

Then it wouldn’t work on iOS.

phinnaeus 7y ago

It wasn't "recently completed." I've been using Apollo for years.

iamthatis 7y ago

Started working on it in 2014 then moving to full time in 2015 when I graduated university, then in late 2017 finally released it. :D So been full time about 4.5 years at this point. Electron wouldn't be a great idea since it doesn't work on iOS. React Native would be something to consider, but I've never been super impressed by any of the results (and it comes with a bunch of issues in and of itself, and to my knowledge isn't compatible with macOS like UIKit is now) so I'd change nothing in that regard.

SkyMarshal 7y ago
>Started working on it in 2014 then moving to full time in 2015 when I graduated university, then in late 2017 finally released it. :D So been full time about 4.5 years at this point. Out of curiosity, when did you work at Apple? Your website says "built by a former Apple employee", but it seems you've been full-time on this app for most of your post-college years. Great app though, I use it :)
- flocial 7y ago
  "In the summer of 2014 during my Computer Science degree I was lucky enough to intern at Apple as engineer on the Enterprise App Development team in Cupertino (long way from Eastern Canada), where I learned an absolute ton from some crazy smart people." https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/cfnfu8/my_names_christian_selig_i_used_to_work_at_apple/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/cfnfu8/my_names_chris...
  - mentos 7y ago
    Would love to hear what the big lessons were from that experience if they could be enumerated at all. I jumped directly into working for myself after college and have never held a corporate job. I wonder all the learning I’ve missed out on not being apart of a crazy smart team of people.