https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/06/09/apollo-work-of-art
Link to: https://mastodon.social/@christianselig/110509739563895220
Apollo has been one of my most used apps the past couple years... it'll be sad saying goodbye.
Apollo is a great app; I think people like it so much because Christian has always been so engaged with the user community and has (mostly) been responsive to people. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it a work of art, and I don’t necessarily agree with all of the monetization limitations that were built in to it, but it is unquestionably one of the apps I’ve used the most over the years and it will be sorely missed.
One of his first big wins in my book was taking donations not for himself, but for his local animal shelter. I sent him $$$ for the kitties and puppies.
It really does just make me so happy when using it. Everything is so slick and beautiful and works exactly like it should. It makes interacting with the huge amounts of content feel manageable. I'm also sad that it'll be gone.
Hopefully the design can be resurrected in a Lemmy client some day...
Definitely. I’m currently using Mlem, and it does channel the vibe of Apollo in some ways. It’s definitely not as feature-rich, but that’s likely just because it’s fairly new (and in beta).
Oh wow you’re not kidding. Just signed up for the iOS TestFlight and it definitely gives strong Apollo vibes. Looking forward the seeing where this goes, and hopefully it’s a good proof of concept at least as far as what a Lemmy app could bring.
Apollo is definitely my favorite app, and Reddit (was) my favorite site. Lemmy seems like it’ll be able to scratch that itch, so here’s hoping it takes off.
Also greatly looking forward to what Christian does next.
Lemmy is rough around the edges but much better than I expected once I learned how to subscribe, sort how I wanted. Using it definitely makes me realize how amazing Apollo was. I miss simple things like being able to hide what I’ve already viewed.
Christian would have an opportunity to use much of the Apollo code and start over as a lemmy client. It’s too bad the sting is so fresh in his mind. He has built a reputation of a great app and would easily be able to start a small purchase charge for the app and then add features behind a small paywall.
I think that would be great! I’m sure it’s more difficult than it seems, though, to port over the entire backend to Lemmy, especially with its decentralized nature. Also I’m sure Christian is a bit burnt out after the Reddit fiasco, so I can’t fault him for taking a breather.
I'd be in favour of adapting Apollo (or it's successor) to use Lemmy instead. I'd move on from Reddit without a care in the world, the lack of a strong mobile client is the only downside to Lemmy right now, I'm enjoying the community here.
Even a super cut-down App that only had options to read/post/comment/moderate would be awesome, but even that is probably months of work away and he no-doubt needs a vacation from the BS right now.
I will miss Apollo so much and I hope in the future Apollo or something similar to it gets released as a Lemmy client.
What did you like about Apollo? I used ReddPlanet instead. I wasn't going to pay for Apollo before I could figure out what I was getting and that I would like it. ReddPlanet had everything I wanted and payment was cosmetic and supporting lupeski.
Apollo is similar! iirc the only "functional" feature locked beyond a paywall is submitting posts (which you could argue is a pretty big feature to lock away). But I think the majority of users rarely submit posts, and the "pro" tier was just a one-time $5 payment. I found Apollo very intuitive to use and very minimalistic; there was very little fluff to distract from posts and comments.
To my recollection making posts was never locked behind a paywall - I used Apollo for most of its lifespan without paying for it, but did get Apollo Ultra eventually for notifications.
I think it was! See Christian’s website for example. I think it’s easy to forget since it’s a one-time payment and fairly cheap.
Apparently I had Pro + Ultra, I don't remember how long I had each for. Oh well. I really hope one of the big 3rd party app developers for Reddit turns an eye to Lemmy (or kbin) - this space has real potential and a well-designed app could smooth over some of the current weirdness about discovering other communities in other servers, but the apps are pretty rough.