Most of the content on reddit is created by power users who are more likely to use 3rd party tools. Most people who use the official app only consume content.
The main struggle with reddit apps are the lack of mod tools. Only Alien Blue and Apollo have a simple method for working a queue. I still prefer Alien Blue's tools in this respect, but a lot of content fails to load with it.
It always seems like the current owners and top managers of Reddit doesn't use it. If they were things could be much better for the community and probably the business. Again, the official Reddit app seems done by your high school cousin in a mobile development course.
The third party apps supported two important functions that the official Reddit app sucks at:
1) Reading assistance for people with sight impairment. Reddit has granted a pass for some apps on this basis though.
2) Moderation and Modmail. For people on the move, or, for example, where you're in front of a business PC or laptop all day, with Web restrictions or personal use policies. The mobile apps were extremely useful for moderation.
I did use the Boost app, but have moved to the official Reddit one for mod work; it's buggy and prone to erroring when trying to complete an action so you have to keep repeating things to make them 'stick'.
This is why the mods are up in arms because it's hard work at the best of times.
The two biggest issues I've heard brought up (other than the fact that apps like Apollo just work better than the official app and don't have ads) is that moderation tools are dependent upon third-party apps, and third-party apps are more accessible for people with disabilities than the official reddit app.
I'm a Reddit Mod and no issues with their web and app. It's basically very hard to moderate with third party clients, so there is no choice but to use their official platforms.
Agree on both fronts. Reddit is way improved with an app, but the official app is trash. I prefer relay, but I know that there are many other quality apps out there that folks recommend. Feel free to comment with your favorite.
The Reddit official app only reflect the poor quality of management of Reddit: completely bad designed app, only your competitor could approve this. The web experience is much better. It is the case when you think nobody knows where Reddit is going.
You're right, but a lot of people do use third-party apps on their mobile phones since the official Reddit app is crap. From what I've read, third-party apps are also the only way for moderators to perform while they're away from their desktops since the official app is extremely limited in that regard.
Even on desktop, a lot users and mods use Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES) [0] because the "default" Reddit is crap too, lol. I'm sure other HN users would also be using the "old" version of reddit, old.reddit.com [1] since it still performs better somehow. RES has also mentioned that it should continue working fine, but they're not entirely sure about it either. [2]
It’s obviously not really about the ability to use 3rd party clients. It’s because of the sudden change and the official app being flaming garbage.
This wouldn’t be an issue at all if the official reddit app was even half as good as the worst of the 3rd party clients and reddit actually providing parity in mod tools across their own clients. I have to go to new reddit to do multiple mod actions.
I'd say they're more likely to use the official app, as that is what is advertised when people land on Reddit on mobile browsers.
The unofficial API-based apps also don't have a lot of the "features" of the official app like paid skins/avatars, live streaming and others. The younger gen seems to have adopted these more than the older gen, which consider it a tacked-on thing that doesn't really improve Reddit.
I remember that reddit had no official app for quite a long time, it was from memory only about 6 years ago that they purchased one of the community built apps to use as the official one.
Just to save a lot of time and cut through a lot of BS, apparently organizational rot. If you’re on iOS give Apollo a try (I’m sure there’s an equally good android app), it’s completely possible to build a fantastic Reddit app with the existing apis (most of the downsides come into play from user-hostile API administration). The team sizes and funding have to pale in comparison, and on occasion I wonder why this isn’t seen internally at Reddit as a mortal biz threat and dire signal to clean up the act. And then I remember — organizational rot.
Did you try any other apps? The official Reddit app didn't even come close to their usability. As far as saying that no single dev could build it in a year - well I don't know how long it would've taken for the latest codebases, but to my knowledge RIF and Apollo (perhaps the most popular unofficial apps for Android and Apple, respectively) were developed by single people, and they were widely praised for being far more usable than the official app.
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