Apollo is dead. Long live Apollo • Hacker News Board

Re: Apollo is dead. Long live Apollo

#71

Post by PestoDiRucola » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 12:54 AM UTC

x86x87 wrote: post #37

ortusdux wrote: post #3

Sync is also dead. They just sent out a push notification: "Sync for reddit had shutdown. Thank you for using Sync. It's been one hell of a ride."

apparently there is going to be a Sync for Lemmy. Hopefully we also get Apollo for Lemmy and get rid of reddit for good.

On that note, does anyone know if there’s any decent lemmy mobile apps? I searched a bit but couldn’t find anything meaningful

Re: Apollo is dead. Long live Apollo

#72

Post by adrr » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 12:55 AM UTC

tayo42 wrote: post #35

I'm curious what happens to reddit now. I'm guessing just auto pilot of low effort content. Don't think it'll truly die as far as numbers go.

Nothing. Apollo was less than 1% of users. It would be interesting to a see a survey to see what population of Reddit was affected by these changes or cared.

Re: Apollo is dead. Long live Apollo

#73

Post by perfect-blue » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 12:55 AM UTC

bredren wrote: post #61

MBCook wrote: post #22

I’ve long used Apollo to hold an alt account. I just downloaded the official app and logged in. In 3 minutes I deleted it. Ignoring design issues, all of a sudden the official app grabbed ALL Reddit links and if I viewed Reddit in Safari there was an unremovable “Open in the app” banner above the Safari content that couldn’t be removed. No way. Deleted. The last year has just destroyed so much of the value I get out…

Apollo had an optional safari extension that caught Reddit URLs and opened them in Apollo instead. It was great.

And it worked flawlessly too. Apollo was really a cut above anything I’ve seen out there. Was holding out hope that Reddit would reverse course, but I suppose not.

Re: Apollo is dead. Long live Apollo

#74

Post by ryandrake » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 12:56 AM UTC

dom96 wrote: post #50

I am still somewhat shocked that they went through with this. I built a Reddit API[1] alternative as a form of protest, they responded by blocking my personal Reddit account. Very sad what Reddit has become. 1 - https://api.reddiw.com

Like a lot of news today, it’s simultaneously shocking and not surprising. It’s tough to keep a positive attitude. Every week it seem like things that, against the odds turned out to be good, are being deliberately torn down so that a few rich people can get slightly richer. Greed is killing everything nice, and nobody has both the power and willingness to stop it.

Re: Apollo is dead. Long live Apollo

#75

Post by MBCook » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 12:56 AM UTC

bredren wrote: post #61

MBCook wrote: post #22

I’ve long used Apollo to hold an alt account. I just downloaded the official app and logged in. In 3 minutes I deleted it. Ignoring design issues, all of a sudden the official app grabbed ALL Reddit links and if I viewed Reddit in Safari there was an unremovable “Open in the app” banner above the Safari content that couldn’t be removed. No way. Deleted. The last year has just destroyed so much of the value I get out…

Apollo had an optional safari extension that caught Reddit URLs and opened them in Apollo instead. It was great.

I kept it tuned off since I used it for my alt account and usually just wanted to use the web version.

I see why it’s useful. But I couldn’t find a way to turn it off so it was messing with my normal workflow.

Re: Apollo is dead. Long live Apollo

#76

Post by altano » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 12:59 AM UTC

I'm one of the first Reddit users, joining in October 2005.

My usage has gone up and down over the years, but for the first time ever for me, Reddit doesn't have a bookmark, a pinned app, or any way for me to get to it other than typing in the URL.

I don't care about all of the API drama beyond the fact that I was paying for a Reddit premium subscription AND Apollo to have a good experience using Reddit and, now that that isn't an option, I am stepping away for the time being.

Reddit will forever have a special place in my heart.

Re: Apollo is dead. Long live Apollo

#77

Post by MBCook » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 1:00 AM UTC

perfect-blue wrote: post #73

bredren wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apollo had an optional safari extension that caught Reddit URLs and opened them in Apollo instead. It was great.

And it worked flawlessly too. Apollo was really a cut above anything I’ve seen out there. Was holding out hope that Reddit would reverse course, but I suppose not.

I don’t blame Christian. Spez, on a whim, decided to basically destroy his livelihood, with basically no notice. Then Spez kept doubling down and accused Christian of extortion, repeating the accusations after it was proven they were false.

I would sell the app even if they reversed course. I wouldn’t trust they wouldn’t do it again. I wouldn’t trust they’d ruin me some other way.

If they had said “we’re doing this in 6 months” and then listened to the community, that’s different. But Spez burnt the bridge to the ground and poured toxic waste on it.

Re: Apollo is dead. Long live Apollo

#78

Post by RheingoldRiver » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 1:04 AM UTC

There will be a spiritual successor though, for kbin/Lemmy, called Artemis: https://kbin.social/m/ArtemisApp

Right now it's in a closed beta, and the size of the closed beta is increasing slowly through the end of the month. The goal is for it to be public around the start of August. That kbin magazine has a link to a signup sheet for the closed beta.

(disclosure? I was an alpha tester for it, and so far it looks AMAZING. The dev is awesome, it's a really friendly community, and the amount of progress in just 2 weeks of development is really impressive.)

Re: Apollo is dead. Long live Apollo

#79

Post by tayo42 » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 1:04 AM UTC

adrr wrote: post #72

tayo42 wrote: post #35

I'm curious what happens to reddit now. I'm guessing just auto pilot of low effort content. Don't think it'll truly die as far as numbers go.

Nothing. Apollo was less than 1% of users. It would be interesting to a see a survey to see what population of Reddit was affected by these changes or cared.

I think it's more important to know how many are content creators and posters that are effected.

Re: Apollo is dead. Long live Apollo

#80

Post by Nas808 » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 1:05 AM UTC

bredren wrote: post #61

MBCook wrote: post #22

I’ve long used Apollo to hold an alt account. I just downloaded the official app and logged in. In 3 minutes I deleted it. Ignoring design issues, all of a sudden the official app grabbed ALL Reddit links and if I viewed Reddit in Safari there was an unremovable “Open in the app” banner above the Safari content that couldn’t be removed. No way. Deleted. The last year has just destroyed so much of the value I get out…

Apollo had an optional safari extension that caught Reddit URLs and opened them in Apollo instead. It was great.

That was a nice feature, but there are other apps that do this without consent and I don't like it. For example, if you have the NY Times app installed and tap on a link in Safari that leads to a NY Times article, it automatically opens it in the NY Times app. iOS has no user controls for this behavior. The only way around it is to long-press on the link and pick "open in new tab", or uninstall the app.