The Best Reddit App? The One Built By An Ex-Apple Employee…
Forget top 10 guides for the best Reddit app for iPhone, this is the ONLY Reddit app you’ll ever need for at least the next 10 years…
I like Reddit. And I use an iPhone. But the official Reddit app, while perfectly usable, is kind of, well, there’s no nice way of saying this – it’s ugly.
Not that this has been a problem; I’ve been a happy Reddit user for as long as I can remember. I do miss old reddit, but at least there’s a hack for getting old reddit back.
Related: What is Reddit Karma?
And as much as I loved old reddit and its fugly ways, the newer version of reddit wasn’t much better looking.
On my iPhone, this is particularly obvious; the official reddit app just looks so junky compared to my other apps. And this was the reason why one ex-Apple employee decided to do something about it…
Enter, Apollo – AKA The Best Reddit App For iPhone
Unlike Apple’s usual design process, the guy behind Apollo didn’t just create Apollo and expect people to like it. Instead, he conducted hours and hours of surveys, asking tens of thousands of reddit users exactly what they wanted from the platform.
Most of them were iPhone users, and most iPhone users like their apps to look nice. This is why Apollo doesn’t look like your traditional reddit app; it looks more like something that came out of one of Jony Ive’s design labs.
Every inch of Apollo is designed to match and perfectly sync with the aesthetics of your iPhone and iOS. From the text to the menu headings, Apollo is so polished it kind of feels like a native iPhone app – something built by Apple just for its iPhone.
This isn’t actually far from the truth, though, because the creator of Apollo used to work for Apple. Christian Selig began work on Apollo way back in 2015. In fact, Apollo was announced via his personal blog on January 30, 2015.
I’ve been a Reddit user for about four years now, and the site is a constant source of interesting discussion, hilarity and news for me every day. I’ve never been completely happy with the current Reddit apps out there today, so I set out to scratch an itch and build the best Reddit experience on the iPhone that I could. And I’m really proud of the result.
Christian Selig – 2015
The genesis of Apollo is actually a really interesting story. Selig started a subreddit for the express purpose of getting feedback on his beta builds. You can check out the subreddit and suggestions in full here.
But what sets Selig’s vision apart from the rest is his focus on tight design, smooth performance, and easy access to reddit’s best core features – things like the ability to view media quickly and easily or his decision to use a full markdown writing editor.
Apollo Features – Full List
- iOS-Inspired Design – Apollo is designed from the ground-up to blend in perfectly with your iPhone’s iOS software, so much so that, for the most part, or the untrained eye, you could be forgiven for thinking it was a native Apple application.
- Improved Media Experience – Apollo was designed to be a content-first media experience. That basically means, whether you’re watching a video, looking at a picture, or viewing a gif, everything looks and flows optimally – just as it would were you viewing it on a webpage.
- Superior Comment System – reddit is all about commenting on stuff and engaging with people. And with Apollo, you have the slickest commenting system at your disposable with support for inline link previews, customizable gestures and things like swipe to collapse. It’s really amazing.
- Full Markdown Writing Editor – With a full markdown writing editor, which you get with Apollo, you can format text with bold, italics, links, and @ direct from your iPhone keyboard. This alone is worth getting Apollo for, IMHO.
- Fast Jump Bar – With Apollo’s jump bar, you can switch between subreddits at rapid speeds. Just starting typing in the name of a subreddit and it’ll appear, giving you the option to click on it and quickly jump into that subreddit.
- Dark Mode & Light Mode – Apollo supports both light mode and dark mode, so you can switch between them, depending on how you’re feeling.
- Fully iPad Optimized – Got an iPad? Well, Apollo is fully optimized for Apple’s iPads (all models too, including the larger Pro models).
Apollo App Pictures – What It Looks Like
Check out the Apollo app for iPhone here.
Richard Goodwin
Richard Goodwin has been working as a tech journalist for over 10 years. He is the editor and owner of KnowYourMobile.Comments are closed.
