Asklemmy @lemmy.ml

1y ago

iPhone users, what app do you use to browse Lemmy and what is the main reason you like it over others?

76 comments

Voyager, mostly because it’s similar to Apollo, a very popular app for Reddit, in many ways. As I was an Apollo user, it is nice to have some of the features replicated.
- I’m also on Voyager! I tried all the other apps too but this one had most or all the features I missed from Apollo!
- Still have it on my phone as wefwef. Voyager is the best.
- Voyager is amazing. If I wasn't already in love with Sync I would have stayed with it happily.
- Great interface.

Mlem. There isn't really a main reason. I like it because:
It's native SwiftUI, so it feels super snappy and "Apple-y" the same way Apollo used to
It's FOSS (though that's sort of table stakes around here)
The widget customizer thingy on the beta build is absolutely fantastic
It's not ugly. There are a bunch of apps that just sorta aped the Apollo UI without any of the attention to detail
I have a ton of faith in the stability of the dev team. There was a bunch of drama early in its development and I was pretty sure the project was going to die, but it didn't and it's been (as far as I can tell) smooth ever since
My only gripes are that the scrolling is still sometimes funky on the beta build and development isn't the fastest, but once all the apps are in their fully-built stable state I think Mlem is absolutely going to stand out among the crowd.
- Does it have the ability to block entire instances? That’s one thing I miss with Sync
  
  I'm one of the Mlem devs. We don't have it yet, but it's on our roadmap--its planned to be implemented within the next couple of weeks.
- Just installed it based on your comment, and am giving it a shot. Seems nice thus far!

I settled on Memmy early on as the least buggy app, but I like Voyager quite a bit as well. I might switch if they let me change the color of upvote/downvote arrows to what my brain expects.
- Memmy is pretty buggy. I was regularly bug finding to help out but unfortunately development seems to have dropped off a cliff now.
  I’m not even sure the devs are using Lemmy at all anymore.
  I mostly use Avelon and Voyager. Lemma has a great video player.
  
  Yeah I see pictures that extend over the next post sometimes which is annoying. They’re always blurred nsfw pics in an album. The refresh doesn’t work when photos won’t initially load. Plus you can’t side scroll through albums so you can only look at the first 2.
  So yeah, I think it’s time for something else for me. I appreciate this post
- There are five color theme options which is more than some other apps provide. Can't customize it down to the hex value, but it's good enough for me.

Avelon. A native iOS app with a decently active developer. Has all features i would expect from a Lemmy app at this point.
I also tried Voyager, but it seemed a bit off to me.
- I’ve also been very happy with Avelon.
- I second this one, voyager is okay, but I want something at least a little new. Using essentially all of Apollo’s designs is kinda bleh
- Was gonna say...

Here is a shameless plug for my own Lemmy app Arctic. It’s a fully native pure Swift based app built with performance and content presentation in mind. It’s packed full of features, and more are being added all the time.
More information is available over at !arctic@lemmy.world
- I like arctic a lot but I feel like its difficult to tell things apart. the posts in the feed don’t have enough breathing space. So its hard to open a thread by clicking under the article. The title and text are the same color when you’ve read the thread. The comments don’t have different color bars to easily notice whats replying to what like Apollo had. The community and user and the text under it are all the same grey.
  Other than that I just newd a skip to next comment button that can be placed in the center and I’ll switch from Avelon.
  Will arctic be open source?
  
  This is great feedback. Honestly I’ve been primarily focused on integrating features so far. In the next couple of releases I plan to go through and focus on refining the UI making it more readable, reactive, and customizable.
  I hadn’t really considered adding a jump button, but I can absolutely look into that as an option. I might even see if I can fit that in the next release, as it should be quite simple to implement.
  As for open sourcing, I have not decided just yet. I would prefer open source, but I need to put some more thought into it before I make a decision.
- Since you're a dev, I have a question: does participating in FlightTests deanonymize and make infividual users identifiable to the devs (something, something, UUID...).
  Been very interested and slightly concerned I haven't really been thinking ahead :/
  
  Great question! No information is provided by TestFlight to the developer by joining a test group. When submitting feedback such as crash reports, or screenshots, then only anonymous device information is provided such as iOS version, device type, connection type, time zone, battery level, free disk space, and screen size. Optionally users can also provide their email address when submitting feedback so the developer can contact them, but this is not required.
  There are also private TestFlight groups where you need to share your email with the developer so they can specifically add you to the test group, but that is the only difference between private and public groups.
  So you can rest easy, you’ve not been sharing any information just by joining a public TestFlight.
- Looks great! Any ideas when it will be released in the App Store?
  
  Thank you! I don’t have a firm release date just yet, though I am pushing for a release date sometime at the end of October. This is largely dependent on how much I can get done in that timeframe, so this could change.
- Are you FOSS?
  
  Free, yes. Open Source, not as of now. I just haven’t decided yet if I’ll be open sourcing the project or not.
- Looks really good at first glance! I might have to make this my main driver for a bit! Any chance you’ll support more themes in the future?
  For reference I’ve been using Memmy and Voyager and this has a feel somewhere between them. The native support is definitely a plus!
  
  That’s great, glad your liking it so far! I definitely plan on adding a lot more customization options going forward. Right now there is not much in terms of customization, I’ve primarily been focusing on making sure all the core features of Lemmy are supported before transitioning to appearance settings.
  Arctic is at a point now where virtually everything except for Admin tools are supported, so I am planning to start adding more customization options, and detail adjustments in the next couple of releases. I try to push at least one update a week with new features and fixes.
  I’m always open to suggestions so if you have any feedback, don’t hesitate to ask.

Wefwef
- Same. Was the first usable I came across, and I stuck to it. I believe they renamed it into something generic I can’t remember.
  i call this move debranding.
  
  Voyager is an infinitely less stupid (albeit forgettable) name than wefwef.
  
  Only downside is that it doesn't have different icons, which Memmy and Mlem do. But eh.
- Same
  Feels just like Apollo did.

Voyager. Looks like Apollo.

Voyager, I like that I can have an app to browse Lemmy that’s the same on Android & iOS

Thunder. Unique design that stands out among a sea of Apollo clones. Special mention to Arctic because it can embed and scrub videos/gifs without opening the in-app browser.

I use the firefox web browser app because I refuse to download more apps. I have the ones I have. I’m not getting more.
- Based

I’ve tried about 5-6 different ones and they all try to replicate Apollo. Memmy is probably the best of them in my opinion but none of them are as good as narwhal was for Reddit. I don’t understand the fascination for Apollo. Why we need 6 different Lemmy apps that are all very similar doesn’t make sense to me.
- If you think Memmy is the best, try Avelon. It wipes the floor with Memmy (which hasn’t been actively developed for more than two months now).
  
  I’ll have to give it another go. When I tried it before I didn’t think it was any better than Memmy

I use Voyager because it is very similar to Apollo. Also, you can self host it.

Bean. I just like the way it looks. Thunder is a close second.

wefwef is good enough for my casual browsing.

Avelon for a very simple reason, it’s compact mode is slightly more compact than the others I’ve tried

I use Memmy, but I don't really like it. I might try Voyager looking at people's comments.
- Give Avelon a try too. It’s native swift unlike Voyager.
- I was all in on Memmy, but the lack of inbox notifications led me to voyager.

Initially I used Mlem, but I found the scrolling to be not smooth, and I didn’t really like the design. Then I had Avelon for a while, which I would’ve still kept if it wasn’t for the fact you couldn’t off-load it and it took up a lot of data on my phone (2-3GB). Now I use Voyager and I really like it, I think I’ll stick with it for a while. You can customise it a bit, it looks like Apollo, it’s smooth, I’m able to off-load it. It’s great!
- Please elaborate on this “offloading” concept and why you use it. Thanks in advance.
  
  If you go to your iPhone settings > General > Storage you have the option to either delete an app or offload it (which clears up space on your phone from the app’s cache). Avelon didn’t have this option and it took up a lot of space for me. Hence why I switched.
- If you like the Apollo-esque UI, you could try !arctic@lemmy.world it’s native Swift instead of a web app.
  It’s still in TestFlight but awesome and really smooth.
  
  I actually did try it out a few hours ago for a short bit! I’m waiting for more customisation options, so once the app has developed more I will give it a more proper try. It did look very nice upon installing it. :)

I used wefwef / Voyager in the beginning, but I found that it crashed/reset too often for my liking. I’m now using Mlem which I’m pretty satisfied with.

Pros cons Voyager vs Avelon? Anyone? And is Avelon open source?

I was using browser but recently found Memmy. So far, so good. It reminds me of older R apps, which suits me.
- Try Avelon. I deleted Memmy (which is actually react native) once I found it. Avelon is a swift native app that bests Memmy in every way.
  
  Thanks mate, I’ll give that a go.

Safari

I still haven’t moved away from memmy, it’s a bit buggy at the moment because it hasn’t been updated for a couple of months but the swipe gestures don’t feel right on any of the alternatives I’ve tried. They’re either slightly laggy, or seem hard to trigger without also vertical scrolling
- Try Avelon. It is very objectively better.

Sync for Lemmy. Because I was used to Sync since the old days at the old social network.
- Isn’t Sync only on Android?

Switching between Sync and Boost right now. Both are excellent.

Boost was my reddit app of choice for many years, and they finally released their Lemmy app (like 2 days ago), so I've uninstalled all the other Lemmy apps I've been trying.
Edit: I'm a moron and replied in a thread about iOS apps with a recommendation for an android app

Boost for Lemmy gang rise up!
- It's good but it's not on iOS
  
  Yeah sadly some of the best apps get locked behind either only being on Android or iOS.

76 comments