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Reddit Acquires Popular Reddit-Browsing App 'Alien Blue', Makes it Temporarily Free

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Reddit today acquired Alien Blue, the popular iPhone and iPad app that many iOS users use to browse Reddit on their mobile devices, reports TechCrunch. According to Ellen Pao, Reddit's head of strategic partnerships, the company will keep the "Alien Blue" name and the app's developer, Jase Morrissey, will be joining the Reddit team.
"Our whole philosphy has been to give our users choice. We've got the reddit AMA app, and alienblue coming out... but we really want users to use whatever they want." says Ellen Pao, reddit's head of Strategic Partnerships. "We think Alienblue is great, and it's the most popular reddit app on iOS. We wanted to be able to offer it as a reddit app, and we wanted to help Jase with additional resources to do everything he wanted to do with it."
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The app will, however, be gaining a new icon, and while Reddit focuses on merging the iPhone and iPad versions of the app into a single universal app, both versions are free. The iPad app normally costs $4 while the iPhone app is free with a $2 "Pro" in-app purchase.

Reddit has plans to get rid of the iPad app, so it is permanently free while work continues on a universal version, but the iPhone's "Pro" features will also be made available for free for the next week, as all Alien Blue users need to re-download the apps.
To celebrate and ease the move to reddit, everyone can get the Alien Blue Pro upgrade free for one week. The iPad app will also be free until we integrate it with the iPhone app and the two become one universal app.
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The "Pro" features in the iPhone version of the app will extend to the iPad when it is transformed into a universal app, so all Alien Blue users should download the new version immediately while the upgraded features are available at no cost.

Reddit's new official Alien Blue app for the iPhone can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

The Alien Blue app for the iPad can also be downloaded from the App Store for free until a universal version is available. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Reddit Acquires Popular Reddit-Browsing App 'Alien Blue', Makes it Temporarily Free
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/15/reddit-acquires-alien-blue-now-free/
Awesome. Now fix the UI. The new charm/belt/ribbon menu is so backwards and unintuitive. Flashy for the sake of flashy.

In fact most of the app's UI is questionable and unfriendly.
 
timshundo said:
Awesome. Now fix the UI. The new charm/belt/ribbon menu is so backwards and unintuitive. Flashy for the sake of flashy.

In fact most of the app's UI is questionable and unfriendly.
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The only thing I don't like about the new UI is I have to go into another menu to up vote/downvote.
 
timshundo said:
Awesome. Now fix the UI. The new charm/belt/ribbon menu is so backwards and unintuitive. Flashy for the sake of flashy.

In fact most of the app's UI is questionable and unfriendly.
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You do realize classic mode brings the old UI back, right?
 
997.2 said:
who cares? quit complaining.

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Pro feature is not free. Macrumors lied to us
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It may not be propagated yet. Reddit's official post says it's free: http://www.redditblog.com/2014/10/the-alien-has-landed.html

Official comments say the same thing:
http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/2jd7wa/the_alien_has_landed/

"All future updates will be in the new version only, and if you download now, you can get your pro upgrade in the new app."

Edit: I just downloaded the app. The Pro features cost "$0.00" in the app, so it is free.
 
Meanwhile, 8 years later, the search function is still the most useless piece of crap ever and the main site's frontpage looks like it was designed in 1999.

Oh, and there is also this.
 
room237 said:
The version with ads is "temporarily" free?
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The iPhone app is free (as always) and the in-app upgrade that normally costs $1.99 is also available for free.

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cariacou said:
did it disappeared from the app store?
can't find it on my iphone
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The old versions of the app were removed from the App Store so reddit could add the apps to its own developer account. New links are in the post above.
 
Wow, this is really unexpected. Please, reddit, please don't ruin it.

Then again, AlienBlue hasn't gotten frequent updates in a long time. The newest version is pretty crappy if you don't have the 'Classic UI' option turned on. And it doesn't sync well with your subscribed subreddits. You have to subscribe to the subreddit on AlienBlue for it to sync both on reddit's servers and AlienBlue which I thought was asinine.

AlienBlue did have some great features though, I like the touch to preview feature added in the newest version, that is so innovative! And I actually liked the fact it was iOS only so the dev could focus on one version rather than having to support Android, Mac or Windows too. But now that reddit has bought it, they can support more versions, hopefully with the same level of detail on the app's design and general workflow.
 
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