In my opinion Apollo retains the biggest flaw of the reddit redesign, which is sad:

By making the post body, and especially pictures, the first class citizen you incentivize all the wrong things:

* It is inviting to mindlessly scroll

* Attracting karma is paramount: The game is "upvote this in the 2 seconds I am spending scrolling past it or not"

* This in turn incentivizes shallow posts, strong, polarizing messages with no depth

At the same time, the mechanisms why I use(d) reddit over all the other escapism-in-a-bottle platforms are all discouraged:

* Reading comments, engaging in discussion. You don't even have to open the comment section anymore, so why would you? And if, you will only ever read one or two top comments, inviting the same lowest common denominator battle as with posts themselves.

* Building community, in-depth analysis, being exposed to alternating view points. Well, no place for that in the framework of rapid swiping and shouting in the void.

Good job on the Apollo team to at least include what they call "compact mode" (showcased about a second in the promo video), but the problem with these effects is that they are negatively affecting quality overall, whether or not you as a individual choose to sidestep them.

I hope a new community aggregator like the old reddit will arise soon...