Reddit Acquires Alien Blue, the Most Popular Unofficial Reddit App | Hacker News Reader

Reddit Acquires Alien Blue, the Most Popular Unofficial Reddit App

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I moderate a midsize subreddit where many of the 35k daily readers use Alien Blue, and this is a bit of a headache because Alien Blue makes it hard to find the subreddit sidebar, where we list important FAQs and rules. Our sticky post is dedicated to explaining how to find the sidebar in Alien Blue (http://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/2ic349/how_to_see...).

I actually installed a bunch of other iOS Reddit apps to see if I could find one that supported sidebars better, so that I could officially recommend that app to my subreddit instead. The other ones didn't support sidebars at all though!

What I want most is for Alien Blue's tiny arrow buttons that lead to subreddit sidebars - http://i.imgur.com/ygWOV91.png - to be detail disclosure buttons instead, with a tiny "i" (https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userex...). I believe that icon makes more sense and will help readers realize they should tap there for sidebar information.

I'm an intermediate level user of reddit. I use the "reddit is fun" app on android. It took me a long time to discover that the i in a circle at the top of the screen will bring up the sidebar content.

I have a suggestion, though I'm not sure it is a good one: If the sidebar contains a certain number of links, or length of text, and the user hasn't opened it on their mobile app yet, then the app can highlight the button with flashing or a color to recommend that a user reads it.

I find that there are many subreddits where if you start reading posts without the sidebar you are really missing out.

> It took me a long time to discover that the i in a circle at the top of the screen will bring up the sidebar content.

Thanks! I never knew.

But I also only use it to read some random entertaining thread as I get ready to go to bed.

I've mostly ignored the sidebar for almost the entire time I've used reddit. I don't find it to be the case that it affects the experience very often.

To your point: I didn't even know you could pull up the sidebar content on Alien Blue.

You can also view the sidebar by clicking on the blue dot in the top-right corner while browsing the subreddit.

I don't see it. I have message, settings, new post and gallery

you can scroll that view sort of horizontally

You are a genius. I am an idiot. Thanks

Alien Blue is simply the best, there is no replacement for it (so far). I was able to find sidebar rather quickly, when I wanted to look at it. Maybe most of your visitors just doesn't care enough about a sidebar? :-) (Also, such an arrow would be confusing imho, because it would suggest it is for entering the subreddit. Sidebar is reachable from the context menu, and that is sufficient.)

They probably don't care enough about a sidebar because they don't know about it or it doesn't come to mind. How many users are going to go to a subreddit and think "I really need to go check out the sidebar!"? Most of the time it's there to try and improve the posting quality. If using a mobile app is a user's primary method of viewing reddit, how would the sidebar even enter their minds?

The sidebar being reachable from the context menu is nowhere near sufficient, and since this is now an official reddit app, they should care enough to promote a feature that improves the quality of reddit.

It's a cultural thing. You shame them by saying hey low content poster, you should consult the sidebar more often. Sidebar. Sidebar. Sidebar. BOOK DEPOSITORY.

And then hopefully people will get it through their skulls. The sidebar is where useful content is.

Of course this will not affect drive by users and people who have no desire to improve themselves.

One solution would be to show the 'sidebar' at the top of whichever reddit you're browsing. Of course, considering the size of some sidebars, this might necessitate a 'sidebar' targeted specifically at Alien Blue users (which is now quite feasibly, I suppose).

Better yet, have something that looks like this at the top of the subreddit view:

[ Sidebar > ]

When the user clicks it, Alien Blue would show the sidebar. The sidebar view would have this at the top to make it easy to return to the post view:

[ < Posts ]

diode for android does everyhing AB does. hyperbole.

I go through this regularly and wish there were a real solution; I mod a subreddit with >100k subscribers, and we also have subreddit rules link, ongoing consolidated threads, etc. in our sidebar and get the "but I'm on MOBILE! How was I supposed to KNOW that was against the rules" defense all the time.

"But I'm on mobile" should count as an offense; it's not an excuse.

Make that part of the subreddit's culture.

As a user, I also find it cumbersome to pull out the sidebar. I wish there was a setting to at least show it once when coming to a subreddit that I never visited before [0]

Aside from the rules and expected behavior, some subreddit just don't make any sense without prior knowledge of what they are about.

[0] "never visited" could be tough to implement, perhaps instead "not part of the last 1000 non subscribed subreddit visited", or something like that.

+1 I believe this is a pain point across all platforms, not just iOS. Shockingly, I've had trouble bringing up the sidebar on tablet versions as well.

Have you tried Reddit News [1] ? It has a very large button at the bottom of the screen that says "Sidebar" which will show you the subreddit sidebar.

1. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=reddit.news

Maybe when a subreddit is first loaded in Alien Blue, before any links have been clicked, the sidebar could show up as the third panel on the right. It wouldn't fully fit on an iPad screen, but you'd see part of it and be able to slide to the right to view it all. Then when you opened a link, it would replace the sidebar as the third pane.

You can pull up the sidebar in Redditor (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/redditor-perfect-client-for/...). It's my iOS Reddit app of choice since iOS 7 launched.

Interesting, that's not too terrible for sidebar access, but that choice of featured screenshot means I can't officially recommend it. It doesn't matter as much now though; with Reddit's endorsement, Alien Blue is the app we have to support.

Reddit is Fun supports the sidebar as well. I suspect your problem is user apathy not lack of sidebar support.

As an iOS-related subreddit, we have few readers using Android devices. There are of course people who don't read the sidebar even when it's very visible (such as in the standard website view), but we also had a real pattern of people saying "Sorry, I didn't see that part of the FAQ/rules, I'm using Alien Blue." (This is better now that Reddit added the sticky feature and we put up an Alien Blue info sticky.)

I haven't played with it but I know you can sticky a self-post as a mod. What about putting your sidebar content up as a sticky self-post if it is that important to your sub?

Might be annoying to see for some but it'll be very visible for Alien Blue users.

Wouldn't be any more annoying than the sticky post that's already there for alien blue users. I agree, just put the sidebar content in the sticky...

A sticky can only be updated by the original poster, while a sidebar can be updated by all of the moderators. For sidebars there's even a diff log so that all of the moderators can understand how it's been updated. Most subreddits have multiple moderators, so putting the sidebar in the sticky isn't practical.

Amrc also supports display of the sidebar. Swipe from right to left and there it is, 4th item under the Subreddit section.

> One thing to note: if you’ve already downloaded the app, you’ll need to download it again — a side effect of them transferring the app from Morrisey’s App Store developer account to reddit’s.

I was under the impression that Apple allowed transferring apps between accounts without wiping out the history…

They're also offering a free upgrade to the paid version for the first week, but you need to get it this week.

From the blogpost on reddit "Current Pro users, please make sure to get the new Pro upgrade now (free for one week). Unfortunately, due to the limits of the app transfer system, we have no other way to verify, credit, or transfer your old Pro account."

They do. I'm very confused as to why Reddit didn't just go through that process to transfer the app. It would have saved a lot of people a lot of trouble.

I'm a hobby iOS developer, could you provide a link explaining how you can do this? I seem to remember reading something about Apple enabling this at one time, but I don't remember the reference now.

I've never had to do it, but I know Apple has an official process for transferring apps, and I believe they've even made it easier to do these days than it used to be. Had I the need to do it, I'd probably go looking through the iTunes Connect documentation.

Doesn't apply to iCloud/IAP

IAP transfers fine - iCloud may be another matter.

Did it about 5 years ago, just had to contact apple, they contacted the developer, Boom! It was all done.

there's a link that says "Transfer App".

One of the reddit admins said that it would have been prohibitively difficult because of something relating to ownership rights: https://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/2jd7wa/the_alien_has_...

There are a couple things that could prevent it. Did Alien Blue maybe use In-App Purchase subscriptions for Pro?

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Langua...

It did, yes.

Subscriptions? Surely not. It wouldn't make any sense to use an IAP Subscription for that. Surely it's just a normal non-consumable IAP.

It was just a normal IAP. (I bought it)

They do.

Here's Reddit's official announcement on their blog...

http://www.redditblog.com/2014/10/the-alien-has-landed.html

...and here's Jase's (the developer's) announcement on /r/alienblue...

http://www.redditblog.com/2014/10/the-alien-has-landed.html

Android version in the works?

http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/2jd7wa/the_alien_has_l...

What about Windows phone?

http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/2jd7wa/the_alien_has_l...

iPad version? Do I pay for it?

http://www.reddit.com/r/AlienBlue/comments/2jdcao/alien_blue...

How to transfer settings to new app.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AlienBlue/comments/2jdcao/alien_blue...

Maybe they'll dial back some of the quirkyness. I use it, but some stuff that should be really easy is messy, like subscribing to reddits. And their iOS 8 update (which was the first update in forever) has all sorts of "unique" interface ideas.

The diagonal post context menu "ribbon" is such an odd design choice to me. I suppose it's for using it left handed given the context toggle at the bottom, but still. Seems like something much simpler would also be much more usable.

I agree whole heartedly. The Ribbon action interface is goofy as hell.

The ribbon makes it really easy to use one handed on a 6+

They should buy the Reddit Enhancement Suite too.

I heard they tried but the dude didn't want to move from wherever, ohio to SF.

You would think the quality of the product already would accommodate a remote scenario, it's a really worthwhile addition even for casual consumers who do not actively participate in discussion.

I'm surprised they haven't implemented many of the features that RES has. I certainly don't use RES to it's full extent, but I find several of the features crucial to my Reddit experience.

I hope hope hope they come out with a feature to hide stuff you've already clicked on. I don't get why you'd still want to see something you've already clicked on. At least offer a toggle.

I think that's too personal a preference to make the default, and people would get confused. Imagine someone wanting to show a friend a funny video he found on reddit, and now it's gone.

They have already implemented something similar with the 'hide' button, which allows you to hide a story.

In prefs, you can hide submissions you've voted on. Turn that on and then start voting.

There's a very configurable script for fading seen/hovered/clicked links and it works on multiple sites including Reddit obviously and HN as well. This is more or less right up your alley:

https://github.com/Farow/userscripts/blob/master/reddit-fade...

I assume because people will often go back and view comment sections on particular submissions multiple times.

There's an inverse feature if you have gold - it marks all the new posts since the last time you visited.

The developer said that there is aspects of RES that the admins don't want to endorse

Then integrate it, with a user preference toggle for keyboard shortcuts. Same with HN and HackerNew[1].

1. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlnd...

That looks very good but I may never be productive again if I could endlessly scroll HN.

I think enabling RES for every user on Reddit would have pretty major implications on the server-side.

And implement syncing of settings, for goodness' sake.

I use Alien Blue on my iPad Mini and it is the best Reddit app for iOS that I've tried. Oddly enough I find the Android Reddit Sync app to be quite a bit better and easier to use. I say oddly enough because it's probably the only category of apps where I've found the Android version to be better than the iOS.

"Reddit is fun" is one of the better Android Reddit apps

Yeah, nothing I've tried feels better than this app.

Also RedReader.

I helped write a comparison of the Android Reddit apps here (http://www.slant.co/topics/1157/~what-are-the-best-reddit-cl...)

I like reddit now on my nexus 5 and alien blue on the ipad

You can upgrade to Alien Blue Pro for free this week:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alien-blue-reddit-official/i...

I just bought ABP about two weeks ago. Ugh.

Guess you'll just have to live with the fact that you spent half a coffee on supporting an independent developer to create something you use every day. You monster.

Hmm, I can see it on computer but I can't seem to bring it up on my phone.

Yep, takes a bit to make it's way to the device from experience. Remember to check it tomorrow ;) And possibly the next day as well.

EDIT: And I should mention, you could download it now and sync it to your device if you really wanted to.

Just open the link on your phone and it will open directly to the app in the itunes store.

Looks like it's not (back) in the US store yet.

Remember when Twitter bought one of the more popular iOS clients, and ever since, people have just known of it as Twitter for iOS?

I think it'll just become Reddit for iOS. The default, official client. The one 90% use.

Funny though that they didn't change the name to "Reddit"

Perhaps they will eventually.

I love when a company acquires a small app or startup in general. Basically because it allows us to dream to build something that a big company can incorporate in some of its famous product or just it will become famous itself.

After an acquisition like that, I ask to myself :

Does Reddit have smart developers to build a mobile app like that?

Why do they need to do an acquisition to get a good app?

The questions seem trivial, Reddit has great developers, but looking forward the last acquisition by Apple( that never done before), I think that in the next future the company employees will be no single person, but startups.

They actually also hired the guy who wrote this app.

I wonder if Reddit can, at this stage, have big hairy ambitions for what they might still become.

Thinking back about 8 or 10 years when "social networks" and online communities were becoming something obviously substantial there were a lot of excited ideas about what they would become. Ning's idea of basically extending forums and creating lots of online communities seemed attractive. When they're first taking on online communities are exciting. But, they seem to age. It's almost like being in the same conversation forever.

What can Reddit still accomplish?

I don't believe Reddit will be the last big social news website but I don't expect them to accomplish much more. They seem afraid of making changes and losing users like what happened to Digg.

It leaves the whole market open to whoever else can do a better job. I doubt anyone is going to leave seemingly overnight like Digg -> Reddit but if someone was to start small and grow.. there's a lot of room to accomplish better things.

I'm working on something like this with a couple of others but it's too early to say whether we'd ever be a viable competitor. There's certainly a possibility though.

It leaves the whole market open to whoever else can do a better job.

I think social news/discussions/etc. is in weird place where it's not entirely clear what the job is. I kind of have a hunch that the deterioration many people feel takes place is a consequence of realizing we're going around in circles. before you've completed your first couple of orbits you feel like its heading somewhere, then when you feel like it's not you're disappointed.

If you're working on this are, what are your thoughts on the the centerpiece of something like Reddit (or HN). I don't think it's a list of links primarily. Do you?

Perhaps job wasn't the best word to use but I think you understood what I meant anyway. As for going round in circles, I think browsing Reddit is like being stuck in the same conversation day in, day out.

Our centerpiece is the discussion system/self posting. We're still working towards a mvp so it doesn't offer much more than what Reddit/HN does at this moment in time.

The site does still revolve around a list of stories, we toyed with the idea of having a grid-like view but ultimately we think that a list is still the most efficient way of finding something you want to read. I'm open to suggestions but I really can't stand are websites that try to be smarter than the user by trying to anticipate what the user would want to read.

This seems to be often done through really basic methods such as a "What are you interested in?" tickbox questionnaire. If the recommendations suck the first time, I'm not going to keep using the site to even begin improving those recommendations.

I believe the real centerpiece would eventually be the community though. Hopefully we'd attract a similar level of interesting and thoughtful users as on HN but cover a wider range of topics.

good luck :)

The next challenge to solve is anti-abuse, and it's much harder than anti-spam.

Just curious, what do you mean by anti-abuse?

Something similar to what Jeff Atwood meant by "civilised discourse": http://blog.codinghorror.com/civilized-discourse-constructio...

There are problems both of the form of abuse within services, and use of services as an organising platform for abuse campaigns.

Reddit is host to some brilliant stuff. Reddit is also host to some terrible stuff. It semi-deliberately makes no delineation between the two beyond a thin figleaf of "NSFW". Some of the stuff behind NSFW is merely porn, some is a useful safe space for sex discussions, and some is well into the "cannot unsee" category. The "randNSFW" button is rather dangerous. Users aren't bounded either, so you have a lot of people with obscene usernames commenting in otherwise sensible subreddits. And posters themselves encourage cross-pollination. The "creepshots" people eventually got banned, but the only thing you really can't post anywhere on reddit is child porn. Racism is widespread.

Twitter is a brilliant platform for both entertainment and protests. However, it has very poor anti-abuse features, so users may be subjected to large volumes of abuse (Caroline Crialdo-Perez, for example) about which they can do little.

Hacker news prefers to flag "controvertial" topics off the front page, which at least causes arguments to be starved of pageviews and die down. E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458865

I think you touch on an interesting issue. If I look at myself and my life, or at my friends and acquaintances and their lives, there seems to some inherent transience and change in my and their social world. This change can be prompted by entering new stages of life, or moving from one place to another, or simply a result of a changing environment. But it's there. I think for a large amount of people, maybe the majority, social life always changes over time.

This, of course, can pose (and has posed) a problem for companies that have 'social' as their core mechanism. Where companies like Apple can rely to a certain degree on the continuity of lifestyle of an Apple customer (well-off, relatively, for one), 'social companies' have to deal with a constantly shifting landscape.

If such a company aims at a particular demographic, they face the problem that merely being popular among another demographic (previous generation) is a big reason for them to be 'uncool' (snapchat/facebook).

I don't know if there are companies that instead focus on a particular generation, but perhaps that'd be an interesting business model. Grow with your customers.

Is Reddit going to make Jason Morrissey move to SF from Melbourne?

Non-US employees are apparently not required to relocate: https://twitter.com/micheletitolo/status/522531272258621443

Australians are eligible for E3 visas which are relatively easy and quick to get.

It might be more amusing to go for the EB1 "alien of exceptional ability" visa though.

Lol I'd put Alien of Exceptional Ability on my resume.

So you can keep your Reddit job by moving outside of the US vs moving to SF?

I don't think that's really feasible, unless you have family in another country or something. It would be pretty tough to get a work visa so you can remotely work for a company back in the US.

I'm sure you are correct, but thinking about it from the perspective of the host country, it seems like allowing this might actually be in their best interests. They get the income/sales/real estate/etc taxes from the new resident, without the resident taking up a local job that a native might hold instead.

I'm actually surprised that more countries haven't create specific remote worker visas; they get all the benefits of having a new citizen (ie tax revenue) without the work of creating or nurturing local industry to employ that person.

Haven't seen the official word, but it really surprises me - would have thought Reddit would be prime for remote working, even domestically.

I'm probably in the minority, but on mobile I use i.reddit.com

What's the future for that?

I'm speculating, but there seems to be a trend among service providers to provide a native experience for the big 2 (android, iOS) and let the rest use their service over the web. So perhaps they will continue to support i.reddit.com for users outside of the big 2 ecosystem

I'm also probably in the minority, but I just use the desktop site in mobile Safari, despite being a heavy Reddit user. It's an information-dense design, and I can read the small text without a lot of zooming, so it's probably more efficient for me, or at least I never saw a reason to switch. I should test out Alien Blue, though.

Reddit is following the Twitter path, then. I wonder if they'll end up blocking other third party clients some day.

I don't think that's a given. It might be the case, but it's not like one 'bad' example is enough to assume so, or have fears about this.

Reddit is a vital product in my life.

Necessary move by reddit. If someone was going to be able to compete with reddit, and succeed, Alien Blue had a very good shot.

Cool to see reddit making moves since their new round of funding, too.

Semi-related segue: Since this $50mm funding round happened, I've recommended to a couple people that they apply for jobs at reddit. [1]

Reddit has maintained impressive growth since 2005. I'm expecting them to be doing very interesting things over the next 5-6+ years.

[1]: http://www.breakoutlist.com/reddit/

Can you expound on the "vital product in your life" part? I go on reddit every once in a while to read a few silly posts, abd would like to understand how it is vital to some people.

Subreddit communities. Particularly the small to mid-size ones. I honestly think knowing how to use subreddits as a resource is essential to being a functional user of the Internet. It's a crowd-curated feed of all things relevant to any particular topic, presented in a way that is consistent and meaningful.

For example, I'm debating between Android and iPhone for my next upgrade. I really only want to use iOS if it's jailbroken. So what's the latest jailbreak news? There are probably some forums or tech blog primers that could give me the answers I need, but the easiest way to get that info, is to go to r/jailbreak. Chances are, the sidebar will have everything I need.

You want to get your dad a nice shaving kit for father's day? r/wicked_edge. Interested in owning a noisy keyboard? r/mechanicalkeyboards. Why doesn't the guy next to you wash his jeans? r/rawdenim. Just experience your first panic attack? r/anxiety. What are the essential hip-hop albums I should listen to? r/hiphopheads. Classical? r/classicalmusic. Jazz? You guessed it, r/jazz.

There are thousands of medium-sized subreddits that cater specifically to one thing, and the content of those subreddits has all been curated, critiqued, and discussed by an organic, self-motivated user base. I may only be interested in the subject-matter for a short time and narrow purpose, but the community of that subreddit is interested in that subject-matter all the time, and they've done all the leg-work for me. I know the information I get will have undergone more review and rigor than almost any other source on the Internet. As a bonus, the organization of that information is always presented in the same familiar way, so I don't have to learn a new UI or workflow.

And that's just for using subreddits as one-time information repositories. You've also got the power of reddit as a newsfeed. Again, I can follow a subreddit for daily updates on whatever topic I want. This is so incredibly advantageous to those following sports, TV shows, or news events. ESPN is fine if I want general sports news, but what if I only want news about my local NFL team (the Seahawks)? I could follow a Seahawks blog, but then that's just a few people generating content. Instead, I can go to r/seahawks. There I've got all the content distilled, updated, and sorted for me: blogs, Twitter posts, articles from beat journalists, plus all the user discussion in response to this content.

The thing is though, for every topic I know anything about, the corresponding reddit communities are OK but certainly not the most authoritative place go to ask questions or read the latest news. The most knowledgeable communities still tend to be based around traditional phbBB bulletin boards or other types of conventionally structured forums.

I use reddit a lot for asking questions because it's a really low-friction way to find a community that knows quite a bit about a certain topic. But once you really start researching a topic thoroughly, reddit's structure and voting system doesn't seem well suited for most discussions, and as a result the communities that form always seem to have a certain casual quality to me.

I think reddit offers tremendous value, but more because of the potential for easy discovery of new communities and the potential for community cross-pollination that results.

I think you are right in terms of forum-based communities having more in-depth discussions due to the way that in a forum, new replies bring threads back to the front page, whereas on reddit, after a few days, no one is posting on old threads. For this reason, I think reddit really shines for communities where there is time sensitive discussion around news and for getting a perspective on the latest happenings. So it really just depends on the topic area...

Are you creating new threads asking questions in those niche subs or are you using the search function for old threads?

Neither really. If I do either it's very rare (and if I'm searching I'm probably using Google). Most of the time the information I need can be found quickly through the sidebar.

> I go on reddit every once in a while to read a few silly posts

I don't find reddit "silly" in the slightest, but it probably depends on the sub-reedits you follow. I'm following arduino, raspberry_pi, python, R, Prolog, MachineLearning, Clojure, board gaming, gamedesign ... you get the picture. I find the information posted to be extremely useful and illuminating, but it depends on the sub-reedits you follow.

As an aside, I also follow /r/minecraft and my kids love to look at minecraft screenshots and imagine the things we could do in-game. This is probably my most invaluable use of reddit, identifying and commuting with my children :)

I don't use Reddit because I'm scared of adding another potential timesink. However some of those subreddits might interest me.

Can you compare the board gaming one to say BGG? What's the Prolog one like in general? I have an AI background and use Prolog (less so these days) and wouldn't mind a "what's happening these days" kind of subreddit.

Maybe I should give Reddit a try. In the past I've mostly used irc and specialty forums.

The Prolog subreddit is really not very active, but for someone just learning it (like me) it's worth checking in once in awhile. And the boardgaming subreddit is not quite as useful as BGG, but it's also worth checking out once in awhile. There are some subreddits that are much more active (like /r/machinelearning) that I checkout daily. It depends on the subject of course ;)

As some of the others have said, it's important to note that I select subreddits well.

Reddit is a vital product in two main ways:

- Information on topics that interest me (e.g. fitness, startups - I use it like hacker news, or twitter)

- Information on problems (I treat reddit like the "stack overflow, for life". I often google "xyz reddit", because I seek a reddit page of answers, where I know the users are more similar to me than many other sites, and also where I can see which answers have the most votes. For example - "replacement desert boots laces reddit" Or, "best comedy movies reddit". Both recent google searches of mine)

I follow a bunch of niche interest groups, such as r/nycbike which keep me up to date on major news that may affect my daily commute. Just from that subreddit, I've learned a few better routes to bike, been warned when the police are changing tactics, gotten some tips on winter biking in the city, and kept up to date on the latest injury and accident statistics.

It's the new message board for many people. You can go join subreddits for any hobby you can think of. You can use subreddits to research new interests and meet others that share your interests. Once you get off the front page, there is a lot of great content.

Not op but I had potential legal problems with an health insurance company so I described the situation on a legal subreddit and was told to research ERISA lawyers. I would have never found this important advice buy just googling.

Also was given good advice on determining nosing notes (what I was smelling) for a bottle of The Macallan scotch.

How was Alien Blue a scary competitor or even worth a mention in the same category? They were completely dependent on Reddit's infrastructure/platform and didn't appear to have any plans to make their own. That phrasing doesn't make sense to me.

Awesome for the developer, totally deserving. Alien Blue is pretty unmatched IMO, and I've spent forever looking for anything even close to it for Android. Flow is the closest I've found, but it's not supported any more :( I'd love to see them port Alien Blue, but I don't think the UX would fit very well on Android unfortunately...

Reddit Sync is a fantastic Reddit client for android. I prefer it to the actual website.

Ooh, that is nice. Definitely improved since I checked it out a couple of years back. I wish it had tap to collapse on comments though. Tap and hold is okay though.

When I originally switched to Android a few years ago I definitely had Alien Blue jealousy, but Reddit Sync has come a long way. Now I have Reddit Sync envy on my iPad. Plus, Alien Blue was so dominant that the competition on iOS was quite stagnant in comparison to Android, where there are several high-calibre clients.

you can tap on the bar extending from the poster's username to collapse the comment.

All that does for me is highlight the comment. Maybe it's broken on the L Preview?

Yah the only issue I ever had with Alien blue is the LONG update interval. Hopefully now bug fixes will come much faster.

True. Though hopefully Reddit will avoid making changes that break Alien Blue now that it's the official app, which should cut down on the bugs.

Title misleading. "The most popular unofficial reddit app FOR iOS" (which is 1/5th as used as Android).

Presumably there are more popular unofficial reddit apps out there when you start counting Android.

There are comment chains in random threads of default subs where Alien Blue and Reddit is Fun users announce their sides, and it is definitely overwhelmingly AB. It's about 95% those two.

Just a note to check if there are any like-minded people:

Everytime I approach Reddit, I got a feeling of being overwhelmed by the interface complexity, to the point that a part of me wants to know more and finally get to use it, and another part, simply feels frustrated. The latter has always won so far, even after forcing me to create an account.

It just doesn't click with me. And I don't want to read no freaking 101 guide, because a clearly done interface needs no guide.

Anyone feels like that?

Is there a particular piece that you find confusing? I've never had any trouble, and it never really occurred to me that other people might. Upvote, downvote, click reply to reply to a comment. Scroll down to see more. You can pretty much ignore everything else if you want to.

For first: all those categories at the top of the page: who creates them? Are they the most active or are just random or arbitrarily selected?

I go to https://www.reddit.com/subreddits/ and I see I am automatically subscribed to some sub-reddits and I'm offered the chance to unsubscribe? Why!? When did I subscribe? I don't even have an acocount! What the hell are sub reddits anyway?

Then I look to the right and I see: "multireddit of your subscription" ? (my language)

Ok... I scroll down to half of the page, and among all the headers for news there is one in bold. Just one. It titles "A subreddit for rage comics and other memes with a girly slant." It has 97.597 subscribers. But the item just before it has 234.297 subscribers. And it's not bold. That was the only bold one in the page. Why.

Let's pick a random subreddit (if they are what I think they are) let's click on https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/ Ok is this a subreddit? How do I know ? Does this gather pics from all the sub reddits, or it just that single place where you go posting pics? Is this some sort of chan-like area then? Why can't I find answers to all these questions just by looking at the screen!??

Ok, anyway I notice that now we have an "r" in the URL which stands for? Let's have a guess: Reddit. But it only appears in sub-reddits. Fine. !!!!!!!!!... Ok let's calm down and not be too picky here... Uhm.. let's see.. I might want to post a pic. I look to the right, there is a ridiculous amount of small sized lines of text about posting rules. Ok, well can't you just say "hey anything depicting violence, abuse, blablabla - same old stuff - is not allowed here?" Ok, let's leave it for later, let's just see what people is posting. ...I understand that I am on "popular" selection right now, let's go to "ALL". No wait, that is not a switch for selecting that. What is it then? I click it, I get the same thing, and I am not offered any option to see what I might alternatively get.

Ok let's click one of those categories up above. Let's pick "AskScience". Ok new graphic. Am I still on Reddit? Yes. But.. there are different rules to the right? What the? ..Moderators? Is this a forum?

And.. after it's going on like this for a while a voice starts screaming into my head: "WHY DOES IT NEED TO BE SO COMPLICATED ????" And I usually end up with the feeling that I am browsing a virtual giant mall which tries to make everyone happy at the same time. And then I leave.

If you're logged in, I think the ones at the top are the ones you're subscribed to. If you're not logged in, they might just be randomly selected popular ones? I honestly have no idea, I never look at it.

Everyone is automatically subscribed to the same default subreddits when they make an account. If you weren't subscribed to anything there would be nothing on your front page. The alternative to automatically doing this would be what Twitter does when you create an account, where they show you a bunch of users and ask you to follow a few. I prefer Reddit's approach of just signing you up for stuff that most people seem to like.

I would just ignore multireddits. They aren't particularly useful and you won't see them very much if you don't use them. In fact I've never even visited https://www.reddit.com/subreddits/, and I've had an account for 3 years. I don't even know how you got there from the front page.

No idea why only some are in bold, I guess the mods of each subreddit had the option of including bold text when they wrote the summary, and most decided not to.

Yes, https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/ is a subreddit. It is a single place where you can submit pictures. It is somewhat similar to a chan-like area in that /r/Games is where you go to talk about games, /r/news is where you talk about news, etc. Why can't you find answers by looking at the screen? I mean it says right on the side: "A place to share photographs and pictures." There is an about page (https://www.reddit.com/about) and a help page (https://www.reddit.com/wiki/index) that explains subreddits, but I think most people tend to figure it out on their own.

Yeah, /r/ means a subreddit, /u/ means a user. I don't really know why you're concerned with the URL though, you can get around easily by clicking links and ignoring URLs, like with most websites.

"ALL" is not all posts in /r/pics, it's all posts in all of Reddit. As you can see in the top right: "/r/all displays content from all of reddit, including subreddits you aren't subscribed to. Some subreddits have chosen to exclude themselves from /r/all." It probably looked the same as /r/pics because the most popular Reddit posts are pictures.

Yes, subreddits are forums. I guess there are a lot of rules for posting, but you can easily get a feel for the site without reading any rules by just looking at the content before you post anything.

I think maybe you're focusing too much on trying to understand every detail before you look at the content? When you click on "AskScience" don't read through all the rules, just look at the page. Oh look, a question about how schizophrenia drugs work, that's interesting, I'll click on that. And there's a bunch of comments discussing it. You click on "pics", oh cool, a picture of a protest in Hungary, I'll click on the comments to see what people have to say about it.

Wikipedia has a million rules about editing and maintaining and vandalizing and whatnot, but you don't have to read a single one to enjoy the content. Just look at the front page and click on stuff that is interesting. If you find that the front page has too many funny pictures and not enough science articles for your tastes, then start using subreddits. Unsubscribe from /r/funny and subscribe to /r/chemistry and /r/biology or something. If you're just in the mood for history, go to /r/history and look at that front page. Same as with a news site, if you just want to read world news then you click on the world section. If you want all news then you stay on the front page.

I appreciate the time you took to write this. Of course I could figure out every single feature if I spent a T time on it. And of course sometimes I've just used the focus-on-content-only approach. But, my point is that when I look at it, it just seems too much over-engineered. Maybe UI-wise only? Maybe feature wise too? I don't know! And if I had to know, it meant that I had to go through it, which is exactly what I don't want to be required to when getting accustomed with an environment!

Ask yourself, if you were to implement a new Reddit, would you make it like it is now? I would simplify it a lot.

Maybe it's not the perfect example but for a complexity-wise comparison, consider StackOverflow. It is complex and it covers a lot of tiny details. Sometimes I'm just really amazed at how well every little single feature is designed. But it never gets in your way. Every "hey-you-should-know-this" only comes up when really necessary, making a new user's familiarization process a very progressive experience.

If both those sites were Swiss Army knives, to me Reddit would present itself with all of its non-standard weird mini-tools opened up, to the point where while I'd be looking for the one I need, I would be asking myself "why I'm being told that I need this or that ?", while StackOverflow would show up with all tools closed, and would still impress me at letting me find exactly what I need when I need it, and sometimes would even surprise me, showing up a pleasantly and unexpected augmentated version of that...

I go for the second type :)

And I hadn't visited settings page yet.

I just subscribed to a subreddit and now I am told that I can show my "flair" on that subreddit.

What is a flair? Then, a row below, I'm shown "what it does look like". What I see? My username.

Way to go.

Also, it's not a language problem. I am looking at my country's localized version of Reddit and that word has intentionally not been translated.

Use reddit enhancement suite (RES). Create an account and unsubscribe from everything that you don't like. Then visit directly the subs you are interested in (google for list of great subreddits) or be meta and search reddit for the best subreddits. The askreddit one has some good lists of subreddits, here: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1b1qv6/what_are_s... http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1lbqu0/what_are_t... http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1mrq70/what_is_yo... http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/y2o3y/today_i_stu... http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/16m7hu/whats_your... http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1d9vsr/what_is_yo...

I don't see how Reddit's interface is any more complicated than Hacker News, except maybe for the "expando" buttons to display images in-page.

Could part of the problem be that each subreddit can set its own CSS? You can disable this (once you have an account) by unticking Preferences > allow subreddits to show me custom styles

Reddit launched their own first app just last month. I wonder if they'll be closing down AMA now that they've negotiated this deal. http://www.redditblog.com/2014/09/announcing-official-reddit...

It seems that their AMA app is targeted at non-Reddit users and will coexist with this new one.

Indeed, it has a completely different target. In fact, it was built as an experiment to see what could be built using reddit data without being Yet Another reddit Browser.

Any word on whether it will be open sourced? I'm satisfied with my current app I use with reddit https://github.com/QuantumBadger/RedReader which is open source

https://github.com/alienblue/alienblue

...hasn't been updated in over four years. It's effectively closed-source.

Oh, you're right, I didn't even look at the dates :x

My hope's that it gets open sourced, but I haven't heard anything in either direction about it.

I'm reminded of the time when Twitter bought Tweetie and its developer to make it its official iOS app. Sure hope it won't follow similar paths.

What happened ?

Reddit is complete garbage , filled with heavy moderation from all sides , your mods , your admins , your mod bots , and the community of reddit , and finally the shadow bans designed to waste your time for a LOL.

It's the absolute worst place to post anything you want to say. I don't know why people keep using it.

Reddit also likes to spam top youtube videos with solicitation attempts to get people to go to reddit.

Great. I use Alient Blue day and night on iPad and without any doubt it's an awesome Reddit Client.

Congratulations to the developer.

Congrats to Alien Blue,their app is great!

Now Jase can make it even more awesome.

Flow is a really good Android reader.

how much was it acquired for? Undisclosed figure of Reddit Gold.

http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html

They should buy http://www.bubblereader.com/ too!

this is cool, thanks for sharing!

Ugh! Ok, I shouldn't complain, but I originally chose the iAlien app only to run into the scam that that developer put on by claiming a takedown based on the name by Alien Blue (IIRC, I'll try and provide a source if someone requests it) requiring users to buy the new app. I was really happy with iAlien, but I wasn't going to pay the extortion for the "new" app.

Only about 6 months ago I bought Alien Blue + Pro, now I have to do it again.

It appears that if I get it this week I will probably be able to save $4, so that's good, but I feel a bit scammed by the iAlien developer that I don't trust some of these apps anymore. I do trust that reddit is a good thing, so I'm probably set from here on out.

And, in the end, I know it's only $8, but I hate being scammed, it's the principle.

Alien Blue is a good app so I'm happy for Jase the developer and I forget why I originally chose iAlien over Alien Blue now, but hopefully we get some good advancements in the mobile interface which is my primary means of accessing reddit.

EDIT: Adding links to controversy here as well:

http://www.reddit.com/r/AlienBlue/comments/1wk2n3/the_ialien...

http://www.reddit.com/r/ialien/comments/1wbtqe/ialien_has_be...

iAlien has nothing to do w/ Reddit, they just use the API...

Yes, I know that and that wasn't my point. And neither does Alien Blue for that matter. My point was that I didn't want to pay for iAlien's "new app" which was anything but a new app. I am happy to pay for new features, but there weren't any new features and the iAlien developer was claiming he had to re-submit the app (and require everyone to re-buy the Pro features) due to (IIRC) Alien Blue claiming naming issues which seemed pretty suspicious to me.

And now I just went to the app store to check on iAlien and it appears to be available again as iAlien and has been updated. Maybe whatever the problem was was resolved and it wasn't actually a problem in the first place? I wish someone who knew what was going on could explain, would be enlightening ;)

EDIT: Nope, there was definitely some controversy:

http://www.reddit.com/r/AlienBlue/comments/1wk2n3/the_ialien...

http://www.reddit.com/r/ialien/comments/1wbtqe/ialien_has_be...

Apparently some iAlien lovers with their head in the sand are harassing me here ;)

You are being downvoted because iAlien and their (alleged scam) has nothing to do with the discussion of the topic, which is Alien blue getting acquired.

Well, my point was about trying to choose a good reddit client, making the (wrong) choice of iAlien (and why that choice ended up being wrong), ending up with Blue Alien and being happy with it in the end only to find out that I need to be on high alert to ensure I'm not charged (again) to get the same functionality that I've paid for twice.

I understand that the scam that was iAlien isn't really anything to do with Alien Blue (I've mentioned numerous times that I'm now happy with Alien Blue), but that the quote:

"Our whole philosphy has been to give our users choice. We’ve got the reddit AMA app, and alienblue coming out… but we really want users to use whatever they want."

means that it is hard to find the right client for iOS. The point being that I'm someone who seeks an informed opinion, not making a reddit client (or any other client) decision lightly, but still got burned. I get the "freedom to choose", but the fact that iAlien was a scam means that more visibility on the "bad" actors here would be useful for users.

Apparently I wasn't 100% clear on the issue I was trying to present, and instead of starting a positive dialog, it turned into "downvote the anti-choice guy". I just wish that a downvote would require a reason for the downvote instead of just a "shut that guy down."

I don't know anything about the scam, but I find iAlien crashes all the bloody time on my iPad. The nagging "leave a review" notification has never endeared me to it either.

I'd be curious to hear more about the scam, if you have a source on hand.

Ok, I've been looking for a link but I'm not finding one. I'll continue to look, but I'll explain my experience in the mean time. Probably at the cost of some karma without explanation ;) But here goes anyway.

Originally I was looking for a reddit mobile app and tried Alien Blue and iAlien, not the "pro" version of either, but I chose iAlien, used the trial for a bit, then bought the pro version.

At some point there was an "upgrade" link inside the app that pointed to a new, renamed app with an explanation that "someone" had asked Apple to pull the original iAlien app (based on the name? going from memory here) so the developer released the app under a new name, but, of course, anyone who had purchased iAlien pro would have to re-buy the new app.

A comment either under the original iAlien or under the new name claimed that the developer had pulled this before. So I was reluctant to buy the new app thinking that this might be an endless cycle.

Instead, I purchased Alien Blue pro and have been happy since with it. So happy that I can't remember why I originally chose iAlien in the first place. I could have been more features in the trial for all I know at this point.

I'll try and see if I can reconstruct what I originally went through with links, but if anyone disputes what I'm saying, you can down vote me, but please explain or clarify, I'd really appreciate it and it will probably spur an interesting dialog.

EDIT: here are a couple links that I remember reading and changing my mind about iAlien and switching to Alien Blue:

http://www.reddit.com/r/AlienBlue/comments/1wk2n3/the_ialien...

http://www.reddit.com/r/ialien/comments/1wbtqe/ialien_has_be...

Could someone explain the down votes please? I'd love the education ;) I really thought that posting my experience might spur some interesting dialog.

What does some other app have anything to do with this?

Sorry, to clarify, I just bought Alien Blue in the last six months and I'm worried that I might have to buy it again after having already bought the pro version of another reddit app only to find that it had been removed. Hopefully, as a semi-official app, this will be the last time I'll have to buy a reddit client (and it had occurred to me that I might develop my own app to meet my needs and provide better support and service).

Maybe my comment could provide reddit with feedback that:

1. They could have done this much earlier with an official app that I would have been happy to purchase

2. According to the article "Our whole philosphy has been to give our users choice. We’ve got the reddit AMA app, and alienblue coming out… but we really want users to use whatever they want" ... This bit me, so take that as feedback.

I like Alien Blue and I feel that this move is a positive, someone is finally providing a means for someone to develop and maintain a stable mobile interface to reddit.

So, if you disagree, please respond instead of just down voting.

But you don't have to buy anything? You can just download alien blue and get the pro upgrade for free. And you're not being downvoted by people who love iAlien, just by people who don't think you're adding much to the conversation.

> But you don't have to buy anything? You can just download alien blue and get the pro upgrade for free.

Yes, it's a good thing I pay attention to HN to make sure I get that free "upgrade", right? What about everyone else who doesn't pay attention to HN or tech crunch? That isn't necessarily an issue for reddit as much as it's an issue for Apple, but does everyone realize that?

> And you're not being downvoted by people who love iAlien, just by people who don't think you're adding much to the conversation.

Oh really? This is a quote from my original comment:

> Alien Blue is a good app so I'm happy for Jase the developer and I forget why I originally chose iAlien over Alien Blue now, but hopefully we get some good advancements in the mobile interface which is my primary means of accessing reddit.

I mean, my previous experience with reddit mobile sucked (the experience I shared) and I'm admitting that this is acquisition is a good thing. But somehow my anecdote about how it sucked before and this seems to be a step in the right direction (admittedly I didn't frame it explicitly that way, I did have a minimal expectation that it would be accepted that way) and is a good thing.

But somehow me trying to start a discussion prompts downvotes while superficial "rah rah" comments get upvotes is more positive than my message. Welcome to /.

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