I’ve seen the app Apollo as the center of the reddit protest (it was mentioned and cited more than any other app in relevant posts). I’ve also seen many Lemmy clients in development taking inspiration from it.
As a lifetime Android user I’ve never been able to use it, and I’ve never gotten a proper answer to “why not just use the official app?” What made it different from the official application and other unofficial clients that consequently made it so popular among Redditors?
Reddits objective is to provide a tunnel of ads to its users. The third party apps were created to provide a better interface with reddits content.
Thats pretty much all you need to know.
Its got a sleek and easy to use UI, is jam packed with features like customisable gestures, no ads, a great media player and (I think) lots of accessibility features.
It’s also wonderful that the dev loved his app and continually updated it
And the Dev was always listening to his users. He’d even personally reply to people on email.
He was just a good dude. He was the anti-spez.
He was even better than that - not many people realised he purposely allowed free posting from Apollo to Reddit groups related to depression, suicide, addiction etc.
Normally you had to pay for Pro sub in Apollo to be able to post, but he didn’t want to create any barriers for people seeking help so allowed the free app to post to those subs.
I didn’t know that. Yet another reason to love Apollo.
we even had a bunch of chats on twitter about random things, animals rights, electric scooters and all that. Just a really good dude.
This right here. Someone showed me wefwef the other day, and it feels like Apollo if you want the experience. Definitely my favorite mobile app for the fediverse.
I’ve been losing my shit over Wefwef honestly, shit is really amazing, especially for a “side-loaded” app on a relatively small service, especially compared to the native reddit app. I’m excited for more features to come, and specifically that there’s just no ads on it, and shit scratches that itch that my iPad baby ass needs. More than anything, I just cannot get over how it allows you different experiences across these connected instances like kbin.social or sh.tjustworks, like an actual full link aggregator, compared to a single continuously self contained site feeding you it’s own content. The link to it is wefwef.app works for Apple and Android
Does that work for this server?
I had issues with it not loading posts and comments properly, and just put it down to it not being compatible with servers older than 0.18, which lemmy.world isn’t on yet.
Yeah, I’m posting from WefWef using lemmy.world for this. I’ve had some issues, but genuinely, nothing that the Reddit app wasn’t doing itself in not loading content for me.
Fediverse stuff takes an extra second sometimes since it’s not all hosted on a single instance, so it will sometimes take a second try to access stuff. As chronically online, it’s worth the second chance.
honestly, I have been blown away by how cool Wefwef actually is. I’d recommend it to anyone migrating to Lemmy.
Wefwef is my first experience with PWAs and I’m blown away at how well it works. It feels like a native app and super similar to Apollo in UI which is just astounding. I don’t see why this isn’t a more commonly used “platform”
Seriously tho. Wefwef is incredible. Every instance should install it and give the choice to its users between the two frontends. PLus it would solve the rate limitation problems as both would be hosted on the same server.
I use Mlem ATM and I like it but Wefwef is crazy good.
I’ve been trying out Wefwef today and, while I agree it’s amazing, I’m hoping that it eventually develop its own character. I’m very slightly worried a Apollo-clone will discourage Christian from making his own Fediverse/Lemmy app… but primarily it just makes me miss Apollo more :(
That said, I’m super excited for its future
Except for delivering the long promised iPad update haha
When I was still on Android I used to use Slide for Reddit and later Reddit Is Fun (RIF) as the official app was just full of ads and lacks so many customizability options, and later it started pushing content I wasn’t even subscribed to. (I kept an eye on it) also it showed ads in the interface, despite me having reddit gold or premium or whatever they called it.
Then 2 years ago I got a second hand iPhone to play with and found Apollo which, while not like RIF, was a great app to browse reddit with. Speedy, responsive, customizable, a great image viewer and video player and with Apollo Premium, no ads.
I’m guessing part of why Apollo took a spotlight was the dev being very open in how he was trying to negotiate with reddit and how spez tried to smear Apollo with lies about blackmail.
I never used Apollo, but it’s pretty clear the dev loves making it, and is very communicative with it’s community. Which is great.
The official app is hot garbage.
The other piece about why Apollo was so amazing is more the recognition. It FELT like an Apple app. It navigated the way every native iPhone app did and back when it was new especially had a fluidity that just didn’t exist. More importantly Apple recognized this so much that they themselves talked about it frequently at events, showed off devices with it, and even most recently at WWDC mentioned it as the only social media app. It was a high praised app because everyone recognized the hard work and keen eye that developed it.
I know your asking about Apollo but I’m going to be the idiot who chimes in even though I used Reddit is fun. I used RiF because the native app was annoying and slow, I also didn’t want to see full screen images as I scrolled. RiF would give me a clean list of the topics from my favorite subs but not load full screen images so I could scroll through faster looking for the subjects I wanted to read/see at that moment. I just felt like I could find more of the topics I wanted faster than with the native app which also didn’t exist when I started using RiF. I’m using liftoff now and I’m annoyed at the images loading but I imagine there will be something that’s “cleaner” (by my standard) or a way to customize liftoff.
Try swapping on the Compact view in settings. That might be more what you’re looking for
Connect for Lemmy jas both card and list view, and an amoled theme. It’s not 1:1 with RiF, but it’s close enough for me to keep rolling by putting it in my muscle-memory spot.
It just has so many unique features. Like sharing a comment or post as a screenshot including a customisable number of comments above it and the post itself. Very useful for quickly sharing or saving comment chains with context, without fiddling with collapsing comments and cropping. Or categories for your saved posts and comments so you could organise. A reminder function built into the app. A subreddit watcher that alerts you whenever certain keywords were posted in a sub. And many more. Lots of things that required more than just developing an app to access an API and display stuff. Gestures were the best I ever used. UI was clean and useful without fiddling with customisation. I was on Android until last year and tried many apps, Apollo beats them all.
But I think it was at the centre of attention because the developer is very responsive and Apollo is the app for Reddit on iOS. On Android you have users spread out across Sync, Boost, RiF, Joey and many more.
The official app is just featureless in comparison. I’m left-handed and you can’t even move the pictures of the posts to the left in compact view so I can access the picture/link/Video without reaching all the way across my phone. Might sound insignificant, but it’s something very simple that every Reddit app I used had and a deal breaker for me.
This is probably the best answer so far that I’ve recieved and makes me understand the situation of redditors much better.
Go to wefwef.app and try out the PWA clone of Apollo for lemmy 😉
OMG! I did it right now out of curiosity and a bit cautious and it’s a web app that looks and behaves like Apollo!! What’s this magic?? It works incredibly well! Thank you!
It’s the same reasons why many people on Android swore by other third-party apps like Sync, RIF, Joey, Relay, Boost, etc: they’re all better than the official app, running way faster and with far more features and customization options to make browsing Reddit actually a smooth and fun experience.
I could search comments.
What else do you need?
I can’t speak for Apollo but I used RIF and old.Reddit
I work with a bunch of techies with various opinions on this; he said I like “an app that looks like it was from 10 years ago”, which was meant to be an insult, but I think is actually the point: it was text-first, list view, “get out of your way” to enjoy the content.
I don’t like advertising pretending to be content.
I don’t like the integrations that pushed paid crap like their version of Bitcoin.
And I am here because even though Reddit is still active, it’s clear that the ship is being sailed solely by momentum at this point and the company is, well, only going up be able to do so much until they can’t pay what little staff they have. The way the mods and app developers were treated this month was the lowest of the low and sealed my decision.
Haha, “an app from 10 years ago” is so true. I kept using AlienBlue through thick and thin for exactly the reason – it’s heavily text focused and all about the comments. No “cards” design or auto-playing videos or what have you.
You may be surprised to learn that reddit has 2000!!! employees. What the hell 2000 people do at reddit, I have no idea.
I swear this number grows by 100 every time I see it lol.
It wasn’t anything super hard to understand. It just worked well and eliminated a lot of crap while focusing in on the most core parts of the experience. It was also a very pure iOS design, conforming to the iOS app guidelines that help it match the UI expectations of iPhone users. Apple’s design guidelines are stronger and better adhered to so there really isn’t a good analogue for Android, where different manufacturers all do different things.
I think it all boils down to the state of the official reddit app.
I switched to iPhone from Android (regrettably) not long ago, and Apollo honestly wasn’t really better than other third party Android apps I had before, I even liked it less.
I used the official reddit app for years until I tried third party apps and found them better, and when I switched to iPhone I tried the official app first and it was barely usable. Especially that god awful video player that never seemed to work properly, and even when it did it just wasn’t good.
So as soon as you factor in the fact that the vast majority of Americans own iPhones, it all makes perfect sense.
It was great! A simple and beautiful UI, packed to the brim with features for the hardcore user but yet still very easy to use for noobs. It made navigating Reddit a joy and it was constantly updated. You could clearly see it was a labor of love from the developer.
It just worked. You could swipe to vote and to comment. You had the ability to read messages mid thread. It looked good. It was also the spiritual successor of alienblue, an app that was well loved and bought out by Reddit to make their official app which retained very few similarities.
And beyond all that the dev worked hard, communicated with users, and was extremely up front about how Reddit screwed him over with the API change. He’s the one that Huffman accused of threatening Reddit. The other app devs didn’t record their interactions with Reddit.
and I’ve never gotten a proper answer to “why not just use the official app?”
After all the astroturfing on reddit, I can’t assume this post is in good faith after seeing this question
Yeah, how many of us spelled out our issues with the official app over and over and over? Power users disliked it.
