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Reddit for iOS and Android

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Re: Reddit for iOS and Android

#81

Post by j2bax »

ProAm wrote: post #68
compumike wrote: post #63

I believe that if you look at this moment a year from now, it will be a major inflection point, bringing reddit to a much larger audience. We're all tech savvy on this site and may not mind monkeying with the previous third-party apps, but there's a much wider audience that will be willing to use a well-supported first-party app.

The problem is no one really uses apps anymore. Especially to view a website when you already have a mobile app that does that for you (your browser). This feature is 3 years too late in my mind to be a needle mover.

I still use mobile apps. I'm somebody?! Just a short list: Alien Blue, Craigslist+, Google News, NPR News, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. That said, there are quite a few websites/web apps I save to my home screen (like HN) on my iPhone as well for instant access. If there is a well designed mobile app (for a service I enjoy) that takes advantage of the OS's built in features, I typically use it.

Re: Reddit for iOS and Android

#82

Post by shostack »

jbob2000 wrote: post #31
asd wrote: post #25

I think I now know why Reddit was so generous with all of the Gold. The app, although very fast and responsive on iOS, lacks many of the features that Alien Blue had. I could find zero integrations with any third party services. The cool thing about Alien Blue is, if I was a stoplight and didn't have time to read a linked article, I'd just add it to Pinboard and get back to it later. Another major failing - there isn…

They were generous with the gold because they're probably going to shut AlienBlue down. AB doesn't have any ads, they can't make money off those users.

Uh...what are you talking about? AlienBlue has sponsored posts that show up in the feed. It is incredibly annoying too. Unless it is because they screwed up the whole "pay for AlienBlue" thing they did a while back and I wasn't supposed to be seeing ads this whole time despite having paid...

My guess though is that this new version will have more of a focus on ads and monetization for sure.

Re: Reddit for iOS and Android

#83

Post by shostack »

minimaxir wrote: post #12

There's a good checklist of app features, per /r/AlienBlue: https://np.reddit.com/r/AlienBlue/comments/4dqajk/new_reddit... The big feature omission is no iPad support , which I am legitimately curious why they would leave that out. If you are looking for a iOS Reddit client, I strongly recommend Antenna, which is amazing on an iPad as well due to Split View.

How are 3rd party Reddit apps on the security front? If I login through Antenna, is there any way to guarantee that they don't have full access to my Reddit identity and credentials? Or is that the risk of going with them?

Re: Reddit for iOS and Android

#84

Post by izacus »

jbob2000 wrote: post #43
alexcharlie wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries can lean on Google and Apple and say "Get this app out of my country." We are rolling out one by one so that we can stay on top of the content reports. Reddit has a lot of potentially controversial content and countries have various levels of sensitivity to that. It would be counter productive to go global now, get banned in a bunch of places, and then have to fight protracted battles in a bunch of differen…

This doesn't make any sense. If they would ban the app, wouldn't they also ban the website? Secret is a different case, the purpose of the app is to anonymous communication, I can see why Brazil has a problem with it (mass protests recently, protestors probably using secret, amongst other things)

Not to mention other apps are available worldwide.

Re: Reddit for iOS and Android

#85

Post by shostack »

sschueller wrote: post #33

What I don't understand is why is reddit putting so much effort in their own apps now when there are very good 3rd party apps available? Is the end goal to take control of mobile and close down the API so they can shove ads down peoples throats? It didn't work out well for twitter...

Most likely yes. This seems to be the Twitter approach all over again. Although you'd think the failings of that would be pretty obvious from a strategic standpoint, particularly for someone with as much business-savvy as Sam. So odds are they either have an idea for how to do it differently, or they think their platform is so much better and entrenched than Twitter that the same bad strategy could still be successful for them.

Re: Reddit for iOS and Android

#86

Post by ProAm »

sn0v wrote: post #74
ProAm wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is no one really uses apps anymore. Especially to view a website when you already have a mobile app that does that for you (your browser). This feature is 3 years too late in my mind to be a needle mover.

> The problem is no one really uses apps anymore This might be a bit of a generalization. People tend to use apps for websites they visit very frequently (eg more than 2-3x a day). Even more so when the mobile version of the website is rife with bugs and/or limitations. Reddit's mobile site is passable but the third party apps blow it out of the water on both iOS and Android.

Just basing it on research Ive seen [1][2][3] and my own personal use. If the reddit application is feature poor, there isnt a reason to not use the web version, maybe with an extension or two to make it awesome.

[1] http://qz.com/253618/most-smartphone-users-download-zero-app...

[2] http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/mobile/most-people-download-zero...

[3] http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/22/consumers-spend-85-of-time-...

Re: Reddit for iOS and Android

#87

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

In addition to the other problems raised, it's frustrating that while Reddit itself continues to be open source [1] with significant contributions from the open source community [2], neither of these new apps are (and with no signs of that changing).

[1] https://github.com/reddit/reddit

[2] https://github.com/reddit/reddit/graphs/contributors

Re: Reddit for iOS and Android

#88

Post by DDickson »

zeveb wrote: post #53

Would it have hurt them to include a single phone running Android in their announcement? I've no confidence that this won't be some sort of half-assed browser-based app which doesn't follow Android's conventions.

It's not browser based, but they definitely used a loose interpretation of Google's Material Design. What stands out to me most is their Card design and use of icons in the drawer layout.

Re: Reddit for iOS and Android

#89

Post by sigmar »

ProAm wrote: post #68
compumike wrote: post #63

I believe that if you look at this moment a year from now, it will be a major inflection point, bringing reddit to a much larger audience. We're all tech savvy on this site and may not mind monkeying with the previous third-party apps, but there's a much wider audience that will be willing to use a well-supported first-party app.

The problem is no one really uses apps anymore. Especially to view a website when you already have a mobile app that does that for you (your browser). This feature is 3 years too late in my mind to be a needle mover.

>The problem is no one really uses apps anymore.

This is an absurd comment. Even some of the various unofficial reddit apps have 5-10 million of downloads each.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewshu....

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onelouder....

Re: Reddit for iOS and Android

#90

Post by germanier »

chroma wrote: post #49
fwn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's keep in mind that you also didn't release it in much more open countries than the UK or the US. If you worry that countries like Germany or Switzerland might censor you out of the market because of reddit controversities you'd probably overestimated reddits emotional potential.

Their concerns seem grounded in reality, as Germany does censor Reddit[1]. 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChillingEffects/comments/3gw9g1/201...

To make this clear: Nobody in Germany requested a takedown of that subreddit. A German agency (BPJM) sent Reddit a letter with a few questions about that subreddit. Reddit then blocked the site for German IPs but it was not requested to do so.

The BPJM does not have authority to block foreign websites. They do maintain a (non-public) list of websites deemed harmful to the youth which e.g Google uses to not show certain sites to German users. They planned to add that subreddit to this list.

That's quite far from censoring but rather Reddit censoring itself.

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