I just downloaded the Mlem TestFlight. The design feels very Apollo-inspired, it’s great so far!
Yeah, I’m using it too, but I find myself using the web more. Functionality is very limited ATM, but I’m excited that it’s in active development.
I can’t fully replace the web version with Mlem just yet, but the app is much smoother and faster for me. Sometimes loading posts take a few seconds on the web version and it’s really annoying if you just want to go in and out real quick
Yeah, I’m currently switching back and forth. I like the direction of the app, though, and the developer is very active — he just pushed an update today. It’s gonna get gud!
Tragically, it only supports iOS 16 so far. thankfully the web versions of lemmy et al work decently enough on my iPhone SE 2016 🧓
Today's update has a lot of nice improvements! The app is already petty good considering the current phase of development.
Ive always been on rif, never even heard of Apollo until this whole API catastrophe. Now I feel like I'm missing out!
It was a labor of love and it showed. I hope to see it return as part of the Fediverse in some capacity, one day. Fingers crossed.
Meh, you weren't. RIF is for us Android Troglodytes. If you are using Android, you are either poor or care how you spend your money. Either way, for RIF was the best $2.99 I ever spent.
Oh Apollo was apple only? Strange it gets so much attention - who uses Apple anymore, what a racket
To be frank, Apollo is the best Reddit has ever been for me, period. Apollo was the Reddit app for iOS. It was even so ubiquitous that it earned praise from the folks high up in the Apple food chain, and getting directly named in their recent event.
The guy behind the whole project was previously an intern at Apple, and wanted to make something that "felt like it was created by Apple," and damn did he succeed. I spent a pretty penny supporting that project when I had an iPhone, and I continued to throw a little money that way once I finally got away from Apple. I'd have bought it all over again if it ever came to Android. To be clear, the app was free and ad-free with optional paid tiers for extra features or just to support the dev. Absolutely incredible work.
When I came to Android, nothing ever quite replaced Apollo. Not that there's anything wrong with the plentiful other third party apps, Apollo was just... That good, IMO. Sad to hear he won't be pivoting toward supporting an alternative, like Lemmy, but I understand why.
I don't entirely agree. I have an iPad with Apollo and an Android with RiF and I've always liked RiF much more. Of course they're both magnitudes better than the official garbage app. Just a matter of personal taste, I guess.
Unfortunately, there isn't really a proper iPad version of Apollo. It was on the dev's to-do list but obviously he's never going to get round to it now, which is a real shame. The scaled-up iPhone version you do get on iPad is still probably the best iPad version of reddit though, not that there's a great deal of competition. It's not the best way to experience Apollo though.
My experience exactly. I’m not an apple fan boy and have used several android reddit apps, but Apollo was another tier.
I intentionally switched to an iPhone this year, haha. Got fed up enough with my Pixel that I said fuck it and moved. It’s not as big a difference as I was expecting it to be.
IIRC, he open sourced the server backend.
Edit: apparently I do not recall correctly. I remember someone saying something about open source, and he posted something to github. I incorrectly linked the two. Thanks to those posted more accurate information below.
I'm not sure if "open sourced" is the right word(s) here. I can't find a license in the repository, so it is not released as open source and the code can't be used without breaching copyright.
Server back end? What does that do? I thought Apollo would just take directly to Reddit's servers?
Iirc it was mostly about storing some user preferences and providing push notifications.
Reddit apparently has no async API for notifications, so 3rd party apps are forced to regular polling.
Mlem looks promising, if it can develop the save functionality that Apollo has then it gets my vote.
It is yes, but there is an (unrelated) Android client called Jerboa if that is the OS you use.
I would very much like the Apollo developer to do this but possibly he's burnt out on social media and would like to work on something else. He has developed a series of other unrelated apps that make him a decent income also.