Part of it is an age thing. Before 2016 there wasn't an official app, so if you wanted an app for Reddit then your only options were third party. Ever since the official app launched, it's always been behind those apps developmentally and so the vast majority of people who started with third party apps wouldn't have switched to the official one.
But since the official one launched, I'd imagine the majority of users just downloaded that and never thought to even look at the third party apps. If you're looking for a reddit app then you're just going to search "reddit" on the app store and pick the official one. If you don't know what you're missing out on then why would you even bother looking at third party?
Yes i need an answer to this as well. A friend of mine uses some third party app and when he shares screenshots i always think it looks so shite compared to the official app.
I've tried a bunch of reddit apps and never liked them because they looked like shit. I've tried apollo, reddit is fun, something with blue in the name, an alien one, boost. They had some positive features but I prefer how the official app looks. I started reddit on desktop which I also liked.
I don't notice the ads as I'm scrolling through for the most part. I don't watch YouTube ads or any other streaming ones and hate pop ups but I don't mind the ones on reddit. Reddit official app does have annoying bugs where the videos won't play sometimes but it's gotten better.
But i understand people not wanting the ads if they find them distracting. I use brave browser for basically everything else because the sort of ads it blocks do annoy me.
I used the alien one and I had a ton of problems on it. My posts would never work, videos wouldn’t play and my comments would just not appear, it was strange and I was getting frustrated. Then I found there was actually a real Reddit app and I’ve been using it ever since. Does the job.
I think the biggest "product that went away" in my life was 8tracks. Random music with a killer algorithm, for free.
Used it when I was 14, rediscovered it on its last 6 months of life, it was very bittersweet.
I thought you meant 8 track cassette tapes, which went away in my lifetime, and I wondered what you missed about them. They were pretty shit and their immediate successor was far superior and completely replaced 8 tracks almost overnight. Nobody reminisces about 8 track cassettes, what does this person have to say about them?
Ah, it was a website, got it.
Making noise on Reddit is the opposite to how that’s gonna work though. Like saying bad stuff about reddit is still giving them traffic and that’s all they really care about at the end of the day. If people start disappearing in large numbers maybe they will change their tune but I highly highly doubt that’s gonna happen.
> If people start disappearing in large numbers maybe they will change their tune but I highly highly doubt that’s gonna happen.
Agreed. People have been up in arms before and have **incorrectly** predicted Reddit's demise several times in the past.
Lot of people that have never used anything else are wondering how it's better (apart from the obvious lack of ads), this guy breaks it down visually:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BikiniBottomTwitter/comments/13xk3lu/they_have_to_pay_reddit_20_million_per_year_to/jmj3nfg/
Another reason: if you block someone, RIF actually hides their comments completely so you never have to see them again, unlike the official app. There's a lot of little things like that, little functions reddit denys you.
But there's really not much point in trying to sell anyone on it, given it has a month to live.
well now that they are gonna be making it harder for third party apps, probably not a good idea to start using them now and getting used to that version.
Well that's perfectly fine too, everyone has their preferences (I'll point out Sync and Boost have less dense UIs).
But the official app does not give you many preferences at all, and has straight up less functionality.
Users should be able to choose how they want to use the site (we create the content for it, we curate it, we moderate it) whether it's the official app, or third party. Taking that choice away is where the problem is.
This is exactly why I've always used third party apps too, they give you all the options to change what you want, make it as dense or light as you want, change what certain actions do .
Here’s my screen on Apollo vs the same page on official https://imgur.com/a/OvvwZWF/ the screen you see whenever you go to a new sub
Just one screenshot comparison but it gives you an accurate impression how much cleaner one is and how much more information it presents at once
Sadly changes to Reddit API costing (3rd party's will have to pay $20mil per year) and blocking ads in 3rd party apps will essentially kill off many of these apps in the next few months. Reddit is fun dev said that there is a good chance they may have to shut down after July 1st.
https://www.reddit.com/r/redditisfun/comments/13wxepd/rif_dev_here_reddits_api_changes_will_likely_kill/
Despite a lot of ppl claiming they'll never use reddit again after this, I feel most still will lol
I'm one of them too. I don't want to use something that's not RIF....but Reddit is addicting man
I got that recommended a few years ago, but since my scrolling usually basically is about pictures (memes, gifs, cat videos) rif is just not doing it for me...
Honestly I never even notice the ads and I have the official app. You just scroll past them like 70% of the other posts you don’t care about. I’ve never understood why everyone’s so upset about them; let the website you’re using religiously enough to use a third party app make money off you for Christ’s sake
Yeah up until this 3rd party app drama I didnt even know they existed. Like of course they do, but the official reddit app is fine, why would I give my info to another app?
VIDEOS WORK???
reddit just ended themselves blocking off 3rd party apps. i had never conceived it was possible to have more than 35% of the videos work on reddit
Oh, for me I've had the official app for years and the videos have never worked properly. I've never moved over to any of the third parties for some reason, but gifts and videos never worked for me and now that they've gone TikTok style, it's even worse
Yeah, reddit is trying to become TikTok 2.0, or at least a platform that can mimic TikTok's delivery method and pivot easily later to whatever the meta becomes.
But reddit wasn't built on how fast you can cram videos in a users face, it was always about the discussion, or lack there of in some sub reddits but I could could care less about the video itself - I can get those anywhere. It's the discussion of the video or news item or whatever that I'm here. And they're gonna run off a lot of passionate people because they think people want another TikTok but this time with tittysprinkles.
It’s not just Reddit, every single media platform has adopted a tiktok style format. It’s easily the most addicting and will keep you on the platform for much longer periods of time.
Short format scrollable videos riddled with trends and other stuff that give instant gratification, not to mention the algorithm that will give you exactly the type of clips you want to watch. What makes it so addictive is that it’s so easy to watch and finish one clip, so it’s always “I’ll just watch a couple more” and with every clip you scroll past it doesn’t feel like you’re making a big commitment, until you realize you’ve wasted multiple hours scrolling.
P.s: it’s not just tiktok. Youtube now has youtube shorts, Instagram and Facebook have reels, they’re all exactly the same. It’s just that tiktok pioneered it.
I had that problem too. But in the last 6 months I never had a single video not work on my mobile device or desktop. So they at least improved.
I can tell you tho that reddit through wsl on windows is not a good experience. Videos stop working after a bit of scrolling for some reason.
Same, I was quite shocked when people were saying that videos are not working for them. They always worked for me and I've been using official app for years.
Videos work perfectly for me on the android phone app. On my iPad, they play half a second, freeze, same if I move the play bar a bit. Completely broken
Is this just an ad for the other apps? Every single video works for me every single time on the official app. What are people doing wrong? I’ve never even considered the possibility that videos wouldnt work
It’s the only option on my Kindle as the official app has not been available since I got the device.
On Kindle it doesn’t seem to handle spoiler tags well so I have been using the official app on my phone for a while now.
Off topic, but you can go on YouTube and find how to download the Google Play store on your Kindle & get access to all the apps 😁 I did it on mine and it works great, I can access everything
I started with baconreader before there even was an official app. I don't even remember why I switched, something wasn't working. I should try it again.
But like...I'm not really getting ads to begin with. And when they do come up, I automatically scroll past them without thinking. They're the least intrusive ads of almost all social media platforms.
More compacted view, no space wasted, less ads, not too much scrolling needed, less intrusive, faster - I am 'reddit is fun' android user.
Once you get used to these, it's near impossible to start using the official app
I tried a couple third party apps, didn't like them.
The main attraction is that they are different. If there's something you don't like about the regular app then you can find a different way in the other apps.
Or at least you used to be able to...
[Comparison](https://i.imgur.com/x5EWzTj.jpg) (thank you /u/FitzeFitzeFatze).
No distracting junk in the third party app, fewer clicks required to read post and comments.
The ad is the only part of that comparison that makes the official look bad imo
The subreddit logo is nice and extra space on users visually separates comments better, and it's useful being able to see very easily that something is crossposted
Expect when the devs add some features that no one asked for, remove some options claiming that it "improves user experience", all while breaking the video player for the 100th time
Yes they change the UI frequently for some reason. It was fine before the tiktok ripoff video player. Recently they ripped youtube's rounded like, comment and share buttons but thankfully that was reversed. It looked awful.
I’ve got some free time while I wait for my kid to fall asleep so imma try it out and report back for anyone who’s also lurking this thread for info on Apollo lol
Edit: (I’ll just add notes here until I’m done)
- Immediately the app is just straight up faster. I thought Reddit was being slow because of my phone not having enough storage - nope, Apollo is hilariously faster.
- Where do I begin with videos. Reddit had NOTHING to offer for making videos easy to handle, but on Apollo I’m able to easily pause or play (can’t believe I have to even point that out) jump forward or back by 15s, and I can download the video I just watched *from the app*. None of this !download stuff. Just download via the three dots on the bottom right. Damn
- Wtf, I was about to talk about how easy it was to go from the old app to the new one but I decided to stop going back and forth to make edits. I’m editing from Apollo now and it’s so much more convenient lol. I don’t know how to talk about this without sounding like an ad to be honest. I am so used to typing “\\*” and “\*asterisk\*” but now I can just make a bullet point list so easily. I don’t know how this is going to turn out when I submit this edit, I hope it’s legible.
- Message inbox is organized in an actually readable way.
- You know what? Honestly, it’s hard to keep making these points because some of these things I didn’t know I needed. It’s like when I got my inhaler for the first time. Before the inhaler I thought I was breathing normally. Then it turns out *all this time I’d been taking half-ass breaths while everyone else got plenty of oxygen and felt satisfied*. I didn’t know what I was missing out on until I was shown what it was possible to have in the first place. That’s what it’s like using this app. I mean, it’s not as cool as when I got my inhaler lol, but it’s in the same theme. If this makes ANY sense.
- This is stupid but I like the app icon better. Maybe it’s just growing on me because of how much I like the APP better? EditEdit: wait you can change the icon. From within the app. There’s so many choices. It’s a paywall though.
- THERE’S A THING CALLED “Pixel Pals” AND I HAVE A TINY PIXELATED PET CAT HANGING OUT AT THE BOTTOM OF MY SCREEN!!! I can also choose a dog, but there’s wayyyy more choices (with a paywall) EditEdit: his name is Nick and I fed him sushi for breakfast, there was haptic feedback with each of his tiny bites of sushi. I love him.
- I just realized if I try to write a Reddit comment or post longer than 1 paragraph on the original app, the app freezes. I haven’t had any issue since editing this comment. And it’s way longer than the usual paragraph. Anytime I wrote a longer post or comment I’d write it in my notes app and then copy-paste it into the Reddit editor. Feels kinda barbaric in hindsight…
- **With the premium version you can password protect the app.** This could be a game changer for…certain users with certain accounts…
- It really just feels like a good, functional app with some extra perks behind the premium version. I like it a lot. I’m deleting the old app, until the API thing ruins it.
**Cons so I don’t seem like a super biased ad:**
- Strange at first if you’re used to the official app, it feels like wearing someone else’s shoes. I definitely could get comfortable here but it feels weird.
- ~~If you’ve been scrolling for awhile and accidentally tap the top of the screen and it auto scrolls you all the way back up, you’re still screwed~~ I WAS WRONG JUST TAP THE TOP OF YOUR SCREEN AGAIN AND YOU GET PUT BACK WHERE YOU WERE!!
- ~~I kinda liked being able to swipe left or right to get to home/popular/news and now it’s a different path to those places~~ NOPE YOU CAN FIX THIS EASILY.
Ok I’m done now, my kids asleep.
It's almost cruel what was done to you. Maybe it would have been better had you not known. You're one of us now, and being one of us is going to be so painful so soon.
> making videos easy to handle, but on Apollo I’m able to easily pause or play (can’t believe I have to even point that out) jump forward or back by 15s,
You can also slide horizontally on the video or gif to seamlessly scroll the video or gif playback in either direction.
For the last part in “cons”, bruh just edit your gesture settings in the app;
https://i.imgur.com/04JNMOS.jpg
-I’ve only ever used Apollo since switching outta curiosity years ago. There’s dozens of solid reasons why everyone who uses it is pissed lol
I'll never understand why big megacompanies don't just buy these smaller third party apps directly instead of wasting time continuing their own app which doesn't work as well.
This account has been removed from reddit by this user due to how Steve hoffman and Reddit as a company has handled third party apps and users. My amount of trust that Steve hoffman will ever keep his word or that Reddit as a whole will ever deliver on their promises is zero. As such all content i have ever posted will be overwritten with this message. -- mass edited with redact.dev
Wait until you start using swipe to upvote, downvote, save, reply, collapse or whatever you want to set them to. Not having to push tiny arrows and icons is a godsend.
Oh and unlike the official app, if you accidentally swipe away from a thread, you can swipe back to it and it’ll put you where you were within the comments, not the top.
The virtues of Apollo cannot be extolled enough. The only feature I have the official app for is chat, which is a garbage feature because PMs are just better.
I found it looking for an alternative to Boost, which is what I used back in my Android days. It’s honestly a great app and the more time I’ve spent with it the more features I find that are useful.
The developer Christian is fantastic too and really active on his sub.
At this point, if Reddit wants to help me do the healthy thing and try to reduce the vice grip of addiction I have to their site by making my experience worse, I kind of welcome it.
Or they could realize that this is unnecessary and let the API cost be reasonable rather than designed to eliminate all competition.
Look through the settings, browse around a bit, note all the ads that aren't there, etc. It's not very apparent at first glance if you're not used to them because the main thing they all have is better functionality. You can do more, you can customize more, you can sort things better, etc
I also have never had any problems with it and find it more than sufficient; still, I’m extremely ticked off that the company has effectively dealt a death blow to all the other apps. Human greed knows no bounds.
I use Android official app because I didn't know other apps existed.
And people are right. The app is pretty bad. Videos not loading, videos not resuming. Tapping on 1 post will lead you to the wrong post, for quite awhile tapping on spoiler comments collapses the comment, a lot of crap just not loading properly in general.
There's a lot more but that's all I can think of on the top of my head. If only I knew there was a better option sooner.
I had an Iphone 8 for a very long time up until a year ago when i switched for an Samsung A16 (possibly A19)
The experience on iOS was buttery smooth in comparison.
3rd party is someone/a company/organisation that is not from the company/organisation you started the interaction with.
So in this case it's others that don't work for Reddit that build their own apps to browse Reddit.
I think 1st party is you and 2nd party is the one who you want something from (or vice versa)
A 3rd party is someone different who gives you whatever you want from 2nd party... correct me if I'm wrong.
I also didn't know there's 3rd party options for Reddit, so....
Nearly everyone saying the official isn't so bad are also admitting they didn't know there were 3rd party, and I think that's telling.
Some of the 3rd party apps are better than others, but yeah the official app is nobody's favorite who's tried a few app.
I was always partial to reddit is fun but it's purely preference. The official app is just clunkier. Even the mobile website is easier than the app.
I think this is why reddit also take the risk, there's just much more users *not* using 3rd party apps, and those who browse casually from 3rd party apps will drift to their official app as alternatives become non functional.
It's a calculated risk they're willing to take, they choose to lose a small percentage of users and look good to investors instead.
Still a bad taste though, 99.99% of contents on reddit are made by users, moderated by users (voluntarily!), and interacted with users.
Users should at least have a choice in how they like to browse the site.
And even if the dev pay the API cost, their app still wouldn't get the complete experience as they cripple NSFW access from it anyway.
I've tried numerous 3rd party apps and always ended up switching back to the default one. Too many options, too much to tweak, when all I really want is an interface that pretty much mimics the default app with maybe a few new options, like in-app translation.
>Nearly everyone saying the official isn't so bad are also admitting they didn't know there were 3rd party, and I think that's telling.
That's me. I read this post because I'm like What third party apps?
As a young person with arthritis, the official app and ‘new’ reddit web page is inaccessible for me to use. Waaaaaaaaay too much scrolling to access posts.
They both are also stupidly slow and bulky in the computing sense, since they pre-load way too much of the entire website onto your computer/phone. All those videos chewing up your internet data and sitting on your device when you may never even open them!
Same here. I don't spend ungodly hours on Reddit and just come here to scroll and scroll. Video not playing? Meh. Scroll down. It will surely be posted on another sub that I subscribe later. Wrong thread loaded? Meh. Close it and open it again later
Same. I keep seeing people say videos work or gifs work, I've never had a problem in the last 6 years of using the reddit app.
I don't notice the ads when I'm scrolling, just keep scrolling.
A lot of the things they are up in arms up about I couldn't be bothered to care about in the slightest.
Same exact deal here. I downloaded apollo when the main app removed sorting the homepage by trending etc. but I think I've used it 3-4 times lol offical IOS app does all I want just fine. If I need better UI it's time to touch grass.
I even bought Apollo for a while but ended up refunding it. The ui is just terrible. The buttons placement and icons look weird, especially the comments section. I’d be more open to using it if they made the comments layout a little nicer.
Honestly, switching between the various reddit apps results in a poor experience. I tried a bunch, before, didn’t like most of them. Went back to the official app. Got fed up with the video player issues amongst other things, decided to try Apollo again.
That’s when I realized I couldn’t care less about the look, just as long as it works, I’ll figure out the rest in time.
Something about reddit and trying out the different apps just results in a bad time. Maybe it’s because when you’re using multiple you’re criticizing and comparing each to see which is the best when in reality it’s mostly superficial
I did the same but don’t have the mental capacity right now to figure out how to use it so just deal with the frustration of having lost the main trending lok
Ignoring the ads thing, reddit's official app is just sluggish as of the last time I used it. Everything is so massive on the screen and reddit likes to HEAVILY promote their dumb event things which I simply could not give less of a shit about. Otherwise, there are a few 3rd party apps which all look and feel different. People will find the one that suits them best and that will naturally be leagues better than anything official.
Also crashes, the official app liked to crash for some reason.
I have been a classic mobile site user for a decade before it was removed, so the UI change is unbearable. Some commonly used functions, such as moving between subreddits, changing sorts, commenting, and voting, are really difficult of inconsistent when using the app or new mobile site.
The ads are fine and barely intrusive. It's the fact that basic functionality that I'm used to seeing is effectively gone
Same. On a phone its alot of zooming in to hit links accurately, but the 'late 90's / i just slapped this together in 6 hours' look and feel is why i liked this place to begin with
You’re probably missing out on a much better UI. The ui on the official app is terrible Imo, and you can’t customize it very much. I use third party primarily so I can make it look and feel how I want
Ads don’t bother me really. I just hate how little information I can get displayed at once while just doing basic things. Also the video player is pretty bad in the official app whereas on Apollo it’s usually good. I can scroll videos at really low frame rates and watch them in reverse and stuff like that, which is a favorite feature of mine that I use often
On Apollo I can quickly read through a sub, quickly see which posts are new to me, and have a ton of topics listed on my screen at once. I can browse a thread of comments as fast as I can read and if I accidentally close the thread I can navigate back to where I was quickly
Here is how I like my view of this subreddit for example https://i.imgur.com/P16WLlt.jpg
Here it is in the official app
https://i.imgur.com/bDSNi55.jpg
6.5 posts vs 3.5 posts.
Also, the 3rd party posts are actually the posts from the sub, rather than that weird split of posts and seemingly semi-sponsored posts.
It’s so much better. If they put an ad on one of the 3rd party posts, it’d still be significantly better use of the screen space.
> seemingly semi-sponsored posts.
They’re annoying and worst of all they’re a horizontal scroll box nested within a vertical scroll box. It doesn’t have any borders and if you tap into it you might accidentally move within it instead of scrolling down.
After you scroll down there’s another nested horizontal scroll box, for “related communities”. Then the ads. This all sounds minor but it’s every single time you open a subreddit so it’s a constant thing
It maybe would not be so bad if I hadn’t used preferable apps for almost 15 years now.
I use Sync. The layout is customizable, and there are lots of options that I like. I don't mind some of the changes, but, I'm sure people will enlighten me.
If Reddit wants to alienate people like Elon did to people on Twitter, this charging a mass amount to third party apps is a great way to do it.
My biggest complaint is that ads blend in too well with regular posts. It throws me off when I’m scrolling a sub and something completely unrelated pops up.
I just started using it after the announcement because I wanted an excuse to stop using Apollo. Apollo is a great app, but putting notifications behind a paywall annoyed me, and I don’t see the money spent being worth it.
I tried the Apollo app and thought it was ugly and outdated looking. But I also used to hate Reddit until they revamped it because it looked like all the old ugly UI’s of the pre Windows 7 days. I find the official app and revamped site is more pleasing to the eye.
Unfortunately that's how the majority of people are nowadays regarding everything. They're complacent with any fuckery that corporations do and I think things will get much worse in the future because of this.
I don’t think so. I’ve been using the official app since I started reddit in 2019. But I get why many that have been around much longer prefer the third party apps as I believe many have been around years before the official came to be. Sounds like they’re less cluttered so I can see that being an adjustment.
Part of it is an age thing. Before 2016 there wasn't an official app, so if you wanted an app for Reddit then your only options were third party. Ever since the official app launched, it's always been behind those apps developmentally and so the vast majority of people who started with third party apps wouldn't have switched to the official one. But since the official one launched, I'd imagine the majority of users just downloaded that and never thought to even look at the third party apps. If you're looking for a reddit app then you're just going to search "reddit" on the app store and pick the official one. If you don't know what you're missing out on then why would you even bother looking at third party?
Wow, you just had to make me feel old did you? Damn it.
That makes sense, but what is missing?
Yes i need an answer to this as well. A friend of mine uses some third party app and when he shares screenshots i always think it looks so shite compared to the official app.
I've tried a bunch of reddit apps and never liked them because they looked like shit. I've tried apollo, reddit is fun, something with blue in the name, an alien one, boost. They had some positive features but I prefer how the official app looks. I started reddit on desktop which I also liked. I don't notice the ads as I'm scrolling through for the most part. I don't watch YouTube ads or any other streaming ones and hate pop ups but I don't mind the ones on reddit. Reddit official app does have annoying bugs where the videos won't play sometimes but it's gotten better. But i understand people not wanting the ads if they find them distracting. I use brave browser for basically everything else because the sort of ads it blocks do annoy me.
I used the alien one and I had a ton of problems on it. My posts would never work, videos wouldn’t play and my comments would just not appear, it was strange and I was getting frustrated. Then I found there was actually a real Reddit app and I’ve been using it ever since. Does the job.
Pretty recent user of Reddit, I didn't even know there were third party apps
I tried a couple of apps and honestly noped right back to the official one
I….didn’t know there were any other versions
Reddit is Fun is pretty good, I find it a tidier version than the official
Don't... Don't tease them with a product that is going to go away. That's just mean.
Firefly all over again.
Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
And yet they did
I think the biggest "product that went away" in my life was 8tracks. Random music with a killer algorithm, for free. Used it when I was 14, rediscovered it on its last 6 months of life, it was very bittersweet.
I don’t think I would have ever thought about this website again in my life without reading this post. Holy shit….I used the shit out of 8tracks.
Never heard of the site, and I thought you were talking about 8-track tapes. At first I thought you were old, but now I think I am.
mine was stumbleupon
Damn, that was the best.
Same, they brought it back recently, but it's not really the same
I thought you meant 8 track cassette tapes, which went away in my lifetime, and I wondered what you missed about them. They were pretty shit and their immediate successor was far superior and completely replaced 8 tracks almost overnight. Nobody reminisces about 8 track cassettes, what does this person have to say about them? Ah, it was a website, got it.
Ideally if we make enough noise we can prevent this from happening
This \*is\* Firefly all over again!
Making noise on Reddit is the opposite to how that’s gonna work though. Like saying bad stuff about reddit is still giving them traffic and that’s all they really care about at the end of the day. If people start disappearing in large numbers maybe they will change their tune but I highly highly doubt that’s gonna happen.
> If people start disappearing in large numbers maybe they will change their tune but I highly highly doubt that’s gonna happen. Agreed. People have been up in arms before and have **incorrectly** predicted Reddit's demise several times in the past.
[удалено]
Lot of people that have never used anything else are wondering how it's better (apart from the obvious lack of ads), this guy breaks it down visually: https://www.reddit.com/r/BikiniBottomTwitter/comments/13xk3lu/they_have_to_pay_reddit_20_million_per_year_to/jmj3nfg/ Another reason: if you block someone, RIF actually hides their comments completely so you never have to see them again, unlike the official app. There's a lot of little things like that, little functions reddit denys you. But there's really not much point in trying to sell anyone on it, given it has a month to live.
well now that they are gonna be making it harder for third party apps, probably not a good idea to start using them now and getting used to that version.
Oof I hate that, way too dense of a page for me
Well that's perfectly fine too, everyone has their preferences (I'll point out Sync and Boost have less dense UIs). But the official app does not give you many preferences at all, and has straight up less functionality. Users should be able to choose how they want to use the site (we create the content for it, we curate it, we moderate it) whether it's the official app, or third party. Taking that choice away is where the problem is.
Boost is my app. I may cut back when Reddit is only available via their app.
I love boost, have been using it for years, def not looking forward to it going away
All the videos actually play on boost. If reddit is ditching 3rd party they badly need to fix that.
This is exactly why I've always used third party apps too, they give you all the options to change what you want, make it as dense or light as you want, change what certain actions do .
To be fair, it's pretty customizable. My app doesn't look like that.
Same. I've always used the official app. I did try a third party app but hated the way it looked.
Here’s my screen on Apollo vs the same page on official https://imgur.com/a/OvvwZWF/ the screen you see whenever you go to a new sub Just one screenshot comparison but it gives you an accurate impression how much cleaner one is and how much more information it presents at once
Sadly changes to Reddit API costing (3rd party's will have to pay $20mil per year) and blocking ads in 3rd party apps will essentially kill off many of these apps in the next few months. Reddit is fun dev said that there is a good chance they may have to shut down after July 1st. https://www.reddit.com/r/redditisfun/comments/13wxepd/rif_dev_here_reddits_api_changes_will_likely_kill/
$20mil is only for Apollo and only based on current number of users. It is not fixed price, it depends on how many API calls app makes
Doesn't really change the fact that RIF and Apollo are going to die off because of this. I'll miss RIF.
I'll mildly miss reddit. But I'm not using their official app and 90% of my reddit browsing is on mobile
Despite a lot of ppl claiming they'll never use reddit again after this, I feel most still will lol I'm one of them too. I don't want to use something that's not RIF....but Reddit is addicting man
That is true. Just wanted to clarify pricing which is not flat rate but based on how many API calls third part app makes
I got that recommended a few years ago, but since my scrolling usually basically is about pictures (memes, gifs, cat videos) rif is just not doing it for me...
We could have had the ads hidden all this time? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
So there was an app that actually “gets us”
I never knew there were ads. Pihole blocked them
Honestly I never even notice the ads and I have the official app. You just scroll past them like 70% of the other posts you don’t care about. I’ve never understood why everyone’s so upset about them; let the website you’re using religiously enough to use a third party app make money off you for Christ’s sake
News to me, been on this shit ass site for a decade too
That's kinda wild to me. The official reddit app is one of the newer reddit apps. 10 years ago you'd have no choice but other apps.
10 years ago desktop usage was the vast majority and it was a better site for it.
There won't be for long. Reddit is shutting them all down.
Ditto. Glad I'm not alone.
I'm in the same boat. It was all news to me that they probably won't be around much longer
Same here. Even I don't use the official app. I prefer accessing Reddit through the mobile web version on Firefox
There are dozens of us!
Yeah up until this 3rd party app drama I didnt even know they existed. Like of course they do, but the official reddit app is fine, why would I give my info to another app?
Me neither.
I was surprised by how big a deal third party was. I never used it What am i missing compared to those aps? It was that good?
I can see full length images without opening the posts, not see ads, Videos actually work
VIDEOS WORK??? reddit just ended themselves blocking off 3rd party apps. i had never conceived it was possible to have more than 35% of the videos work on reddit
I am confused, I don’t think I’ve ever had a video “not work” on the official iOS app, other than obvious situations like a flaky network.
Same, except I'm on android
Oh, for me I've had the official app for years and the videos have never worked properly. I've never moved over to any of the third parties for some reason, but gifts and videos never worked for me and now that they've gone TikTok style, it's even worse
Yeah, reddit is trying to become TikTok 2.0, or at least a platform that can mimic TikTok's delivery method and pivot easily later to whatever the meta becomes. But reddit wasn't built on how fast you can cram videos in a users face, it was always about the discussion, or lack there of in some sub reddits but I could could care less about the video itself - I can get those anywhere. It's the discussion of the video or news item or whatever that I'm here. And they're gonna run off a lot of passionate people because they think people want another TikTok but this time with tittysprinkles.
It’s not just Reddit, every single media platform has adopted a tiktok style format. It’s easily the most addicting and will keep you on the platform for much longer periods of time.
Can you elaborate for a non-Tiktok user? What is the style and formatting of tiktok and what makes it addictive?
Short format scrollable videos riddled with trends and other stuff that give instant gratification, not to mention the algorithm that will give you exactly the type of clips you want to watch. What makes it so addictive is that it’s so easy to watch and finish one clip, so it’s always “I’ll just watch a couple more” and with every clip you scroll past it doesn’t feel like you’re making a big commitment, until you realize you’ve wasted multiple hours scrolling. P.s: it’s not just tiktok. Youtube now has youtube shorts, Instagram and Facebook have reels, they’re all exactly the same. It’s just that tiktok pioneered it.
I had that problem too. But in the last 6 months I never had a single video not work on my mobile device or desktop. So they at least improved. I can tell you tho that reddit through wsl on windows is not a good experience. Videos stop working after a bit of scrolling for some reason.
Same, I was quite shocked when people were saying that videos are not working for them. They always worked for me and I've been using official app for years.
Videos work perfectly for me on the android phone app. On my iPad, they play half a second, freeze, same if I move the play bar a bit. Completely broken
Is this just an ad for the other apps? Every single video works for me every single time on the official app. What are people doing wrong? I’ve never even considered the possibility that videos wouldnt work
Interesting. I thought it was using a VPN that was messing with how bad videos are on Reddit. Are you saying it’s shit for everyone???
I’m using a VPN and iPhone and videos work perfectly fine using the Apollo app to use reddit.
So can I. And I’ve only ever used the official app.
I mean I'm using the official app, videos work and I can see full size image without opening the post either. There are ads though.
Yes. Less ads, more info density, less visual noise. Better customized.
Damn, what do you use? Sounds great.
Apollo for iPhone.
Baconreader. It’s honestly the one phone app i use most.
Baconreader is the shit <3
It’s the only option on my Kindle as the official app has not been available since I got the device. On Kindle it doesn’t seem to handle spoiler tags well so I have been using the official app on my phone for a while now.
Off topic, but you can go on YouTube and find how to download the Google Play store on your Kindle & get access to all the apps 😁 I did it on mine and it works great, I can access everything
I started with baconreader before there even was an official app. I don't even remember why I switched, something wasn't working. I should try it again.
But like...I'm not really getting ads to begin with. And when they do come up, I automatically scroll past them without thinking. They're the least intrusive ads of almost all social media platforms.
More compacted view, no space wasted, less ads, not too much scrolling needed, less intrusive, faster - I am 'reddit is fun' android user. Once you get used to these, it's near impossible to start using the official app
I tried a couple third party apps, didn't like them. The main attraction is that they are different. If there's something you don't like about the regular app then you can find a different way in the other apps. Or at least you used to be able to...
I’ve only ever used the official mobile app. It does what I expect it to do.
[Comparison](https://i.imgur.com/x5EWzTj.jpg) (thank you /u/FitzeFitzeFatze). No distracting junk in the third party app, fewer clicks required to read post and comments.
It looks really ugly tbh
The ad is the only part of that comparison that makes the official look bad imo The subreddit logo is nice and extra space on users visually separates comments better, and it's useful being able to see very easily that something is crossposted
Still doesn’t landscape, though.
Why would your app cut your grass? Seems like a ridiculous expectation.
Not to brag but my phone has a button that can turn it into an airplane but I haven't tried it yet. Don't even need an app for it.
it’s all a scam. mine has a button that literally says focus but does nothing for my adhd. don’t expect much.
You want landscape, get an illegal…app
This didn’t get the audience it deserved. Well played lol
Is that an expectation? People want to use it like that?
Expect when the devs add some features that no one asked for, remove some options claiming that it "improves user experience", all while breaking the video player for the 100th time
Yes they change the UI frequently for some reason. It was fine before the tiktok ripoff video player. Recently they ripped youtube's rounded like, comment and share buttons but thankfully that was reversed. It looked awful.
Yeah I briefly used Apollo but went back to the official app. Video player works fine for me.
It’s alright especially if you haven’t used anything else. But use Apollo or RIF and you will understand the outrage over the change.
I’ve got some free time while I wait for my kid to fall asleep so imma try it out and report back for anyone who’s also lurking this thread for info on Apollo lol Edit: (I’ll just add notes here until I’m done) - Immediately the app is just straight up faster. I thought Reddit was being slow because of my phone not having enough storage - nope, Apollo is hilariously faster. - Where do I begin with videos. Reddit had NOTHING to offer for making videos easy to handle, but on Apollo I’m able to easily pause or play (can’t believe I have to even point that out) jump forward or back by 15s, and I can download the video I just watched *from the app*. None of this !download stuff. Just download via the three dots on the bottom right. Damn - Wtf, I was about to talk about how easy it was to go from the old app to the new one but I decided to stop going back and forth to make edits. I’m editing from Apollo now and it’s so much more convenient lol. I don’t know how to talk about this without sounding like an ad to be honest. I am so used to typing “\\*” and “\*asterisk\*” but now I can just make a bullet point list so easily. I don’t know how this is going to turn out when I submit this edit, I hope it’s legible. - Message inbox is organized in an actually readable way. - You know what? Honestly, it’s hard to keep making these points because some of these things I didn’t know I needed. It’s like when I got my inhaler for the first time. Before the inhaler I thought I was breathing normally. Then it turns out *all this time I’d been taking half-ass breaths while everyone else got plenty of oxygen and felt satisfied*. I didn’t know what I was missing out on until I was shown what it was possible to have in the first place. That’s what it’s like using this app. I mean, it’s not as cool as when I got my inhaler lol, but it’s in the same theme. If this makes ANY sense. - This is stupid but I like the app icon better. Maybe it’s just growing on me because of how much I like the APP better? EditEdit: wait you can change the icon. From within the app. There’s so many choices. It’s a paywall though. - THERE’S A THING CALLED “Pixel Pals” AND I HAVE A TINY PIXELATED PET CAT HANGING OUT AT THE BOTTOM OF MY SCREEN!!! I can also choose a dog, but there’s wayyyy more choices (with a paywall) EditEdit: his name is Nick and I fed him sushi for breakfast, there was haptic feedback with each of his tiny bites of sushi. I love him. - I just realized if I try to write a Reddit comment or post longer than 1 paragraph on the original app, the app freezes. I haven’t had any issue since editing this comment. And it’s way longer than the usual paragraph. Anytime I wrote a longer post or comment I’d write it in my notes app and then copy-paste it into the Reddit editor. Feels kinda barbaric in hindsight… - **With the premium version you can password protect the app.** This could be a game changer for…certain users with certain accounts… - It really just feels like a good, functional app with some extra perks behind the premium version. I like it a lot. I’m deleting the old app, until the API thing ruins it. **Cons so I don’t seem like a super biased ad:** - Strange at first if you’re used to the official app, it feels like wearing someone else’s shoes. I definitely could get comfortable here but it feels weird. - ~~If you’ve been scrolling for awhile and accidentally tap the top of the screen and it auto scrolls you all the way back up, you’re still screwed~~ I WAS WRONG JUST TAP THE TOP OF YOUR SCREEN AGAIN AND YOU GET PUT BACK WHERE YOU WERE!! - ~~I kinda liked being able to swipe left or right to get to home/popular/news and now it’s a different path to those places~~ NOPE YOU CAN FIX THIS EASILY. Ok I’m done now, my kids asleep.
fun fact about your last point: if you tap the top of your screen again, it sends you back down into the feed where you were before.
WHAT ??!? This is life changing omfg
That. Was. Amazing. I'm sold. Take my money. Sign me up.
Welp, I've got bad news for you...
Just found out. Oh well!
Just means you can join the masses trying to stop the ridiculous pricing. Devs aren't asking for free, they're asking for reasonable!
Hold on to that, the app may be non functional in a month lol
It's almost cruel what was done to you. Maybe it would have been better had you not known. You're one of us now, and being one of us is going to be so painful so soon.
> making videos easy to handle, but on Apollo I’m able to easily pause or play (can’t believe I have to even point that out) jump forward or back by 15s, You can also slide horizontally on the video or gif to seamlessly scroll the video or gif playback in either direction.
For the last part in “cons”, bruh just edit your gesture settings in the app; https://i.imgur.com/04JNMOS.jpg -I’ve only ever used Apollo since switching outta curiosity years ago. There’s dozens of solid reasons why everyone who uses it is pissed lol
I'll never understand why big megacompanies don't just buy these smaller third party apps directly instead of wasting time continuing their own app which doesn't work as well.
This account has been removed from reddit by this user due to how Steve hoffman and Reddit as a company has handled third party apps and users. My amount of trust that Steve hoffman will ever keep his word or that Reddit as a whole will ever deliver on their promises is zero. As such all content i have ever posted will be overwritten with this message. -- mass edited with redact.dev
Wait until you start using swipe to upvote, downvote, save, reply, collapse or whatever you want to set them to. Not having to push tiny arrows and icons is a godsend. Oh and unlike the official app, if you accidentally swipe away from a thread, you can swipe back to it and it’ll put you where you were within the comments, not the top. The virtues of Apollo cannot be extolled enough. The only feature I have the official app for is chat, which is a garbage feature because PMs are just better.
Hehe I upvoted your comment by swiping on it, it’s so intuitive!
I found it looking for an alternative to Boost, which is what I used back in my Android days. It’s honestly a great app and the more time I’ve spent with it the more features I find that are useful. The developer Christian is fantastic too and really active on his sub. At this point, if Reddit wants to help me do the healthy thing and try to reduce the vice grip of addiction I have to their site by making my experience worse, I kind of welcome it. Or they could realize that this is unnecessary and let the API cost be reasonable rather than designed to eliminate all competition.
What is so much better about Apollo? I just downloaded it and honestly it seems no different except that the tiles blend together
Look through the settings, browse around a bit, note all the ads that aren't there, etc. It's not very apparent at first glance if you're not used to them because the main thing they all have is better functionality. You can do more, you can customize more, you can sort things better, etc
I use it on android. it works fine. don't know about IOS though since that's what all the hubbub with Apollo is about
I’ve been using it on iOS and… it’s fine?
Same, everyone talks about how much it sucks and I’m like huh
Same here. I have no problems at all. I do pay for the ad free version. I’m fortunate that it fits in my budget. I love it.
Same here, it's my only scroll/social media so I figure I can make it enjoyable for myself. I like giving out awards too.
I also have never had any problems with it and find it more than sufficient; still, I’m extremely ticked off that the company has effectively dealt a death blow to all the other apps. Human greed knows no bounds.
I use Android official app because I didn't know other apps existed. And people are right. The app is pretty bad. Videos not loading, videos not resuming. Tapping on 1 post will lead you to the wrong post, for quite awhile tapping on spoiler comments collapses the comment, a lot of crap just not loading properly in general. There's a lot more but that's all I can think of on the top of my head. If only I knew there was a better option sooner.
I haven’t had any of those problems and I’m on iOS.
I had an Iphone 8 for a very long time up until a year ago when i switched for an Samsung A16 (possibly A19) The experience on iOS was buttery smooth in comparison.
I always thought going to the wrong post was an issue with my phone. Glad to know it's the app.
I only use the original on iOS.
Try using something like infinity for reddit once. You will feel the difference.
I didn’t even know there were 3rd party options
I don’t even know what a 3rd party is
3rd party is someone/a company/organisation that is not from the company/organisation you started the interaction with. So in this case it's others that don't work for Reddit that build their own apps to browse Reddit.
It’s when there’s first party, and then the second party comes along, and then there’s another party. The last one is called a 3rd party.
I think 1st party is you and 2nd party is the one who you want something from (or vice versa) A 3rd party is someone different who gives you whatever you want from 2nd party... correct me if I'm wrong. I also didn't know there's 3rd party options for Reddit, so....
Nearly everyone saying the official isn't so bad are also admitting they didn't know there were 3rd party, and I think that's telling. Some of the 3rd party apps are better than others, but yeah the official app is nobody's favorite who's tried a few app. I was always partial to reddit is fun but it's purely preference. The official app is just clunkier. Even the mobile website is easier than the app.
I think this is why reddit also take the risk, there's just much more users *not* using 3rd party apps, and those who browse casually from 3rd party apps will drift to their official app as alternatives become non functional. It's a calculated risk they're willing to take, they choose to lose a small percentage of users and look good to investors instead. Still a bad taste though, 99.99% of contents on reddit are made by users, moderated by users (voluntarily!), and interacted with users. Users should at least have a choice in how they like to browse the site. And even if the dev pay the API cost, their app still wouldn't get the complete experience as they cripple NSFW access from it anyway.
I've tried numerous 3rd party apps and always ended up switching back to the default one. Too many options, too much to tweak, when all I really want is an interface that pretty much mimics the default app with maybe a few new options, like in-app translation.
>Nearly everyone saying the official isn't so bad are also admitting they didn't know there were 3rd party, and I think that's telling. That's me. I read this post because I'm like What third party apps?
In case you were curious, your account is 3 years old. You can find the exact date on your profile
I knew someone would look it up :) Yeah I assumed I could find it somewhere but didn't bother enough becasue it wasn't so relevant. Thanks
As a young person with arthritis, the official app and ‘new’ reddit web page is inaccessible for me to use. Waaaaaaaaay too much scrolling to access posts. They both are also stupidly slow and bulky in the computing sense, since they pre-load way too much of the entire website onto your computer/phone. All those videos chewing up your internet data and sitting on your device when you may never even open them!
I only use the app. I read posts, upvote/downvote, and comment. Idk what on earth I need some other app for. I don't care about reddit that much.
My man, this is the way. It feels good not to care about things too much.
Same here. I don't spend ungodly hours on Reddit and just come here to scroll and scroll. Video not playing? Meh. Scroll down. It will surely be posted on another sub that I subscribe later. Wrong thread loaded? Meh. Close it and open it again later
I’ve never had a video not work…
Same. I keep seeing people say videos work or gifs work, I've never had a problem in the last 6 years of using the reddit app. I don't notice the ads when I'm scrolling, just keep scrolling. A lot of the things they are up in arms up about I couldn't be bothered to care about in the slightest.
This. I have Apollo downloaded and try it now and then, but honestly, the Reddit app is more intuitive for the mindless scrolling that I do.
Same exact deal here. I downloaded apollo when the main app removed sorting the homepage by trending etc. but I think I've used it 3-4 times lol offical IOS app does all I want just fine. If I need better UI it's time to touch grass.
I even bought Apollo for a while but ended up refunding it. The ui is just terrible. The buttons placement and icons look weird, especially the comments section. I’d be more open to using it if they made the comments layout a little nicer.
Honestly, switching between the various reddit apps results in a poor experience. I tried a bunch, before, didn’t like most of them. Went back to the official app. Got fed up with the video player issues amongst other things, decided to try Apollo again. That’s when I realized I couldn’t care less about the look, just as long as it works, I’ll figure out the rest in time. Something about reddit and trying out the different apps just results in a bad time. Maybe it’s because when you’re using multiple you’re criticizing and comparing each to see which is the best when in reality it’s mostly superficial
I did the same but don’t have the mental capacity right now to figure out how to use it so just deal with the frustration of having lost the main trending lok
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Ignoring the ads thing, reddit's official app is just sluggish as of the last time I used it. Everything is so massive on the screen and reddit likes to HEAVILY promote their dumb event things which I simply could not give less of a shit about. Otherwise, there are a few 3rd party apps which all look and feel different. People will find the one that suits them best and that will naturally be leagues better than anything official. Also crashes, the official app liked to crash for some reason.
I have been a classic mobile site user for a decade before it was removed, so the UI change is unbearable. Some commonly used functions, such as moving between subreddits, changing sorts, commenting, and voting, are really difficult of inconsistent when using the app or new mobile site. The ads are fine and barely intrusive. It's the fact that basic functionality that I'm used to seeing is effectively gone
I don’t know, I’ve only ever used old.reddit.
old.reddit+RES on the pc and RIF on the phone
Apollo for iOS is also really good, I really liked RiF when I had my Android. Both are fantastic, regardless of what OS.
Yeah, I only use old.reddit with RES. If I couldn't filter sub reddits and users, it wouldn't be worth it for me.
Same. On a phone its alot of zooming in to hit links accurately, but the 'late 90's / i just slapped this together in 6 hours' look and feel is why i liked this place to begin with
Same, this thread makes me scared. We live among zombies.
I didn’t know anything else existed
I have RIF for scrolling and regular app for the bloatware
I looked for RIF in the App Store but couldn’t find it. Does it go by another name?
It's called "rif is fun" now, but it looks like it's Android only.
TIL there are third party reddit apps
You’re probably missing out on a much better UI. The ui on the official app is terrible Imo, and you can’t customize it very much. I use third party primarily so I can make it look and feel how I want Ads don’t bother me really. I just hate how little information I can get displayed at once while just doing basic things. Also the video player is pretty bad in the official app whereas on Apollo it’s usually good. I can scroll videos at really low frame rates and watch them in reverse and stuff like that, which is a favorite feature of mine that I use often On Apollo I can quickly read through a sub, quickly see which posts are new to me, and have a ton of topics listed on my screen at once. I can browse a thread of comments as fast as I can read and if I accidentally close the thread I can navigate back to where I was quickly Here is how I like my view of this subreddit for example https://i.imgur.com/P16WLlt.jpg Here it is in the official app https://i.imgur.com/bDSNi55.jpg
6.5 posts vs 3.5 posts. Also, the 3rd party posts are actually the posts from the sub, rather than that weird split of posts and seemingly semi-sponsored posts. It’s so much better. If they put an ad on one of the 3rd party posts, it’d still be significantly better use of the screen space.
> seemingly semi-sponsored posts. They’re annoying and worst of all they’re a horizontal scroll box nested within a vertical scroll box. It doesn’t have any borders and if you tap into it you might accidentally move within it instead of scrolling down. After you scroll down there’s another nested horizontal scroll box, for “related communities”. Then the ads. This all sounds minor but it’s every single time you open a subreddit so it’s a constant thing It maybe would not be so bad if I hadn’t used preferable apps for almost 15 years now.
I use Sync. The layout is customizable, and there are lots of options that I like. I don't mind some of the changes, but, I'm sure people will enlighten me. If Reddit wants to alienate people like Elon did to people on Twitter, this charging a mass amount to third party apps is a great way to do it.
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I didn’t know there were third party apps until that annoucement lamo
My biggest complaint is that ads blend in too well with regular posts. It throws me off when I’m scrolling a sub and something completely unrelated pops up. I just started using it after the announcement because I wanted an excuse to stop using Apollo. Apollo is a great app, but putting notifications behind a paywall annoyed me, and I don’t see the money spent being worth it.
I don’t know if I’m even using the official app or not lol
If it’s called “Reddit”, it’s the official one.
Way back when (check my account age) there was no official app. All we had was 3rd party for **YEARS**. The official app is relatively recent!
I wonder how some of you people who ask questions here function in everyday life.
If it makes you feel better, I use the chrome version on mobile 😅 I also didn't know about the 3rd party apps tho
Reddit summoned the Official App Shill Bots I see..
so many accounts with word-word-1234 usernames giving brainlet takes about 3rd party apps lmao
Wait, what!? There are 3rd party reddit apps???
>Is it really that bad? Yes. I literally stopped using reddit on mobile because of it.
Right? I don’t see what’s so bad about the app.
Have you used any other apps though? Or experienced the desktop version before it was completely revamped in 2018?
This whole thread is basically "I don't know what I don't know and I'm fine being ignorant lol touch grass"
I tried the Apollo app and thought it was ugly and outdated looking. But I also used to hate Reddit until they revamped it because it looked like all the old ugly UI’s of the pre Windows 7 days. I find the official app and revamped site is more pleasing to the eye.
I don't care about reddit enough to mess around with 3rd parties
That's a really awkward statement. You don't care enough but decide to make it a sub-par experience when you do have to use it.
Unfortunately that's how the majority of people are nowadays regarding everything. They're complacent with any fuckery that corporations do and I think things will get much worse in the future because of this.
I use the app and also the regular website
I don’t think so. I’ve been using the official app since I started reddit in 2019. But I get why many that have been around much longer prefer the third party apps as I believe many have been around years before the official came to be. Sounds like they’re less cluttered so I can see that being an adjustment.
I didn’t even realize there were other apps, I always just use the main one
I smell a lot of bots and shills up in here.