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Reddit Client 'Apollo' Updated With Quick Switch Account Feature, Enhanced Subreddit Options, and More

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Former Apple intern Christian Selig has released version 1.4 of Apollo, the popular Reddit client developed with Apple's iOS design guidelines in mind. The latest update introduces a raft of highly requested features, including quick switching accounts and new subreddit preferences to add to its existing plethora of options.

apollo-dark-mode.jpg

For those who like to access multiple Reddit accounts through the Apollo app, the new quick switching feature can be activated by long-pressing the Accounts tab in the bottom tab bar.

Over on the subreddit option front, it's now possible to use specific sorting, where Apollo can remember preferred sorting preferences on a per subreddit basis.

In Selig's example, if users want one subreddit to always be sorted by "New", but another to always be sorted by "Best", now they can. There are also separate options for both subreddit posts and subreddit comments.

In a similar fashion, it's now possible to have Apollo remember post size preferences on a per subreddit basis, so users could have some subreddits in compact mode and others in large mode.

Elsewhere in 1.4, there's support for Reddit Silver, Gold, and Platinum tiered gifting system (Reddit's replacement for the previous Reddit Gold system) for gifting posts and comments.

In addition, support has been added for more browsers including Firefox Focus, Brave, DuckDuckGo, and iCab Mobile, while users can now opt to have all tweets open in Tweetbot, Twitterrific, or the official Twitter app.


Also of note, Apollo now shows if a comment has been edited, there's a new icon designed by David Lanham, and a bug that was preventing some GIFs from playing has been fixed. Lastly, the Ultra $0.99 monthly in-app purchase now includes all the features of the one-time Pro $2.99 IAP automatically, so Ultra subscribers don't ever have to pay out for more features.

Apollo is available for iPhone and iPad on the App Store [Direct Link] as a free download without ads, with optional in-app purchases available to unlock enhanced features such as submitting posts, multiple accounts, a customizable app icon and gestures, Touch ID or Face ID authentication, and GIF scrubbing.

Article Link: Reddit Client 'Apollo' Updated With Quick Switch Account Feature, Enhanced Subreddit Options, and More
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/12/01/reddit-client-apollo-updated-quick-switch-accounts/
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So now we can agree this is the best Reddit client? I haven't tried it yet, only the official app.

The push notification are still a paid upgrade? Is it possible to pay only once for the notifications?
 
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Populus said:
So now we can agree this is the best Reddit client? I haven't tried it yet, only the official app.

The push notification are still a paid upgrade? Is it possible to pay only once for the notifications?
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Yup, it’s the best Reddit client. I paid the lifetime fee for push notifications when ultra launched.

If you’re not sure, download it for free and play around before you pay to upgrade. It took me all of 3 days to decide to move to pro, and then I upgraded to ultra immediately after it was available. The creator of the app is a super cool guy and he listens to the feedback of users.
 
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I’m confused about pricing. I paid the $2.99 back when it first came out. Are there now features I don’t have? And there’s an option to pay monthly? Who in their right mind would do that?
 
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Andronicus said:
I’m confused about pricing. I paid the $2.99 back when it first came out. Are there now features I don’t have? And there’s an option to pay monthly? Who in their right mind would do that?
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I guess someone who gets a ton of value from the app and/or has enough money and goodwill to reward developers for their hard work with $. I understand what’s you’re saying, but there are people who spend hours a day, every day in Reddit. Some will pay for the best possible experience. $1/month is like $0.03 an hour if you use the app a mere an hour a day (and I’m sure many Reddit users do). Now imagine how many people spend $4 on a coffee which lasts 30 minutes.
 
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Andronicus said:
I’m confused about pricing. I paid the $2.99 back when it first came out. Are there now features I don’t have? And there’s an option to pay monthly? Who in their right mind would do that?
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That was back before there were notification support. He is running his own server for notifications which has an ongoing cost associated with it. I paid for the lifetime subscription, its more than worth it to me given the amount of time I'm on reddit. Also unlike the other poster, I don't think it's bait and switch.
 
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T5BRICK said:
Bait and switch implies that one thing was advertised and you ended up getting something else. When you paid for pro you received the pro features. When ultra came out did your pro features go away?
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I'm surprised at how many people try to twist "bait and switch" to include anytime they FEEL they were wronged, even if they weren't actually wronged in any way. Pro Features are there, as they were from the beginning. This new push service is going to have a constant recurring cost for the developer, your $3 ($2.09 after Apple's cut) isn't going to help maintain that server.

Since this app is literally a reddit app, how have the complainers not seen all of the conversations at /r/apolloapp/? Christian literally involved the community at every point along the way, sought advice, and explained the walls and limitations he was hitting on bringing push notifications to the app. He involved the community when Apple pulled the app over notifications, when he was having issues with the number of polls the app was making for images, etc. I could understand this frustration if it was a big company with deep pockets, but this is only one man.
 
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This is hands down the best mobile Reddit experience.

I encountered a bug and reported it to the developer. The guy personally responded to be within 24 hours and said it would be fixed in the next update, which it was. If there’s one app I never regretted paying for, its this one.
 
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budselectjr said:
That’s what many of the early adopters including myself thought. It was a bait and switch. I deleted the app.
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It's not a bait and switch. The free version will have notifications that don't use the (not-free-to-run) server; the feature just got bumped to the next version (1.5, maybe?) because some other bugs cropped up that needed fixing sooner. The developer has stated repeatedly that they are coming and yet people like you continue to whine.

Not everything is out to get you and not everything is a scam. You're just acting offended without basis.
 
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I’m begging - someone PLEASE explain to me why this app is so praised. I’ve tried it and I just don’t get it. I get all reddit features for free on the official app and I think the design is better and makes more sense. Why would I pay for an app that I can’t see having any benefits over any other app? I’ve posted this on numerous reddit threads and no one can ever explain to me why they like it over any other reddit app.
 
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Apollo is a decent reddit client, but Narwhal still holds for my preferred reddit client right now.

Apollo is just too expensive and I'm not yet convinced I should spend more money on it. I picked up Pro when it launched as I was interested in seeing where the app goes overall and I frequently ping pong between it and Narwhal to keep a good feel for it. I was hoping once Notifications were added I would get pulled into it the majority of the time, but Notifications came with Ultra and I don't like subscriptions (especially for a Reddit app), but $25 for Ultra Lifetime + $3 for Pro and you're at almost $30 for a Reddit app. Narwhal was $3 total and already has notifications.

$30 just feels like a lot for a Reddit app when compared to the rest which don't have a subscription model.
 
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no matter what app you choose and pay for to unlock Reddit are charging for their premium model to view content without adds popping up distracting your post feed.

When did browsing the free net get so expensive?
 
Hey! I'm the nerd behind Apollo. Appreciate the kind words everyone and thank you so much MacRumors for covering it, seriously.

Andronicus said:
I’m confused about pricing. I paid the $2.99 back when it first came out. Are there now features I don’t have? And there’s an option to pay monthly? Who in their right mind would do that?
Click to expand...
Sorry to confuse. Really appreciate the initial contribution. Long story short, there's a few features like push notifications that require a separate server with ongoing costs for me in order to provide (it's what the notifications are "pushed" from), which meant I unfortunately couldn't just bundle it in with Pro, as well there's ongoing monthly costs associated with servers. What you paid for (Pro) is still alive and well with more features coming, there's just a separate option now to help out with server costs.

LogicalApex said:
Apollo is a decent reddit client, but Narwhal still holds for my preferred reddit client right now.

Apollo is just too expensive and I'm not yet convinced I should spend more money on it. I picked up Pro when it launched as I was interested in seeing where the app goes overall and I frequently ping pong between it and Narwhal to keep a good feel for it. I was hoping once Notifications were added I would get pulled into it the majority of the time, but Notifications came with Ultra and I don't like subscriptions (especially for a Reddit app), but $25 for Ultra Lifetime + $3 for Pro and you're at almost $30 for a Reddit app. Narwhal was $3 total and already has notifications.

$30 just feels like a lot for a Reddit app when compared to the rest which don't have a subscription model.
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Narwhal is a fantastic app, I legitimately completely understand why you'd use it, Apollo's just another option I wanted to offer.

On the pricing front I wanted to clarity your points a bit. Narwhal offers fetch-based notifications based on iOS' Background App Refresh (Apollo will offer these as a free option as well soon). These aren't "true" push notifications, as instead of having a server send out notifications when they arrive, iOS instead periodically wakes the app up to check for notifications (a system called Background App Refresh), and then puts up an alert if there's anything new (Local Notifications). This on-device solution has the downside of affecting battery life (rather than push notifications that are completely on the server) and iOS disables them during Low Power Mode, and other downsides like how sometimes iOS will only wake up the app every few hours, so the notifications will be delayed, and a lot of those fetches and wake ups won't even result in a new notification being found if you're not super active on Reddit, so they're wasted network requests/battery usage.

So long story short those kind of notifications are great in that they have no associated costs as it's done completely on device, but there's a lot of downsides as well. I plan to offer both in Apollo but I wanted to offer "true" push notifications at first, but there's a small fee to cover associated monthly server costs that are required for it to work. And it's not really $25, it's $1/mo but if you want to unlock it for a lifetime it's $25, because you're basically paying for a ton of months of ongoing service up front. It's kinda like how Netflix isn't $6000, it's $10/mo they just don't have a lifetime option that would cost $6000 if they did. :p

Hope that clears it up a bit, I really try to be as reasonable with Apollo as I possibly can.
 
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ChristianSelig said:
Hey! I'm the nerd behind Apollo. Appreciate the kind words everyone and thank you so much MacRumors for covering it, seriously.

Sorry to confuse. Really appreciate the initial contribution. Long story short, there's a few features like push notifications that require a separate server with ongoing costs for me in order to provide (it's what the notifications are "pushed" from), which meant I unfortunately couldn't just bundle it in with Pro, as well there's ongoing monthly costs associated with servers. What you paid for (Pro) is still alive and well with more features coming, there's just a separate option now to help out with server costs.


Narwhal is a fantastic app, I legitimately completely understand why you'd use it, Apollo's just another option I wanted to offer.

On the pricing front I wanted to clarity your points a bit. Narwhal offers fetch-based notifications based on iOS' Background App Refresh (Apollo will offer these as a free option as well soon). These aren't "true" push notifications, as instead of having a server send out notifications when they arrive, iOS instead periodically wakes the app up to check for notifications (a system called Background App Refresh), and then puts up an alert if there's anything new (Local Notifications). This on-device solution has the downside of affecting battery life (rather than push notifications that are completely on the server) and iOS disables them during Low Power Mode, and other downsides like how sometimes iOS will only wake up the app every few hours, so the notifications will be delayed, and a lot of those fetches and wake ups won't even result in a new notification being found if you're not super active on Reddit, so they're wasted network requests/battery usage.

So long story short those kind of notifications are great in that they have no associated costs as it's done completely on device, but there's a lot of downsides as well. I plan to offer both in Apollo but I wanted to offer "true" push notifications at first, but there's a small fee to cover associated monthly server costs that are required for it to work. And it's not really $25, it's $1/mo but if you want to unlock it for a lifetime it's $25, because you're basically paying for a ton of months of ongoing service up front. It's kinda like how Netflix isn't $6000, it's $10/mo they just don't have a lifetime option that would cost $6000 if they did. :p

Hope that clears it up a bit, I really try to be as reasonable with Apollo as I possibly can.
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Thanks for making this app and your hard work. Overall, I like it better than the official client, but I've had to switch back to it for one reason. Whenever my hand happens to rest on a post a menu pops up. Every single time. It is incredible distracting and gets in the way. I've rage quitted more than once over it. With so many custimization options, is it possible to disable this behavior? The functionality is already duplicated elsewhere. I want to use the app, but this drives me nuts. I suppose I could hold my phone differently, but it is easier just to go back to the official client. I know I'm not the only one who experiences this. Other than this, it is a great app. I know"simple" features can be deceptively difficult to implement, so I understand if it is the feasible.

Also, thank you for taking the time to respond to the comments. This is a great project that I'm more than. Happy to support/buy.
 
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Kshalm said:
Thanks for making this app and your hard work. Overall, I like it better than the official client, but I've had to switch back to it for one reason. Whenever my hand happens to rest on a post a menu pops up. Every single time. It is incredible distracting and gets in the way. I've rage quitted more than once over it. With so many custimization options, is it possible to disable this behavior? The functionality is already duplicated elsewhere. I want to use the app, but this drives me nuts. I suppose I could hold my phone differently, but it is easier just to go back to the official client. I know I'm not the only one who experiences this. Other than this, it is a great app. I know"simple" features can be deceptively difficult to implement, so I understand if it is the feasible.

Also, thank you for taking the time to respond to the comments. This is a great project that I'm more than. Happy to support/buy.
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To be clear you rest your finger on the screen and don't want anything to happen? Hope that doesn't sound sarcastic legitimately just want to make sure I understand. I can look into disabling the long-press options as an option but I honestly haven't heard this issue prior to this.
 
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ChristianSelig said:
To be clear you rest your finger on the screen and don't want anything to happen? Hope that doesn't sound sarcastic legitimately just want to make sure I understand. I can look into disabling the long-press options as an option but I honestly haven't heard this issue prior to this.
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Yes. If I'm about to scroll, but pause for a moment before starting, then the menu pops up. I think there was a Reddit thread with other people discussing the awhile back. My finger will also sometimes rest on the screen while I'm reading and this triggers it. I think this behavior is part in due to having a larger phone now where it is more comfortable for me to rest my thumb on the screen when holding it. If I'm the only one with the problem, then it probably is the worth updating over.
 
Kshalm said:
Yes. If I'm about to scroll, but pause for a moment before starting, then the menu pops up. I think there was a Reddit thread with other people discussing the awhile back. My finger will also sometimes rest on the screen while I'm reading and this triggers it. I think this behavior is part in due to having a larger phone now where it is more comfortable for me to rest my thumb on the screen when holding it. If I'm the only one with the problem, then it probably is the worth updating over.
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Hmm okay, fair enough. I shall look into it.
 
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