What makes Apollo better than the official app and why is there such a discrepancy? (I haven't used either.) I know the classic take is that the app is made for advertisers and not users, but I'm interested in what the actual difference is.
Whatever right? Pretty typical for an official app. But it’s slower and less efficient than all of the 3rd party apps now as they’ve continued to improve.
But to me the problem is not only all of that, but they’re publicly ridiculing other apps (especially Apollo) for their “inefficient” use of the API when they’re all better than the official app.
It’s all just insulting and tone-deaf and speaks to the narrative that they no longer care about a community and see users as $$$.
1. It loads content significantly more quickly than New Reddit (Reddit has done a lot to improve on this, but for a long time, the New Reddit™ was horrifically slow after scrolling through a few posts.)
2. It doesn't support any of the social media functions that the New Reddit provides, which, for me, is perfect because that's not what I browse Reddit for. (You can turn all of that off in the New Reddit, though.)
3. Way less busy than New Reddit, even if you use "Classic" view inside of "Card" view.
4. You can disable infinite scroll in Apollo, whereas you can't in New Reddit (and it's not even supported in Old Reddit unless you use RES)
5. The Apollo developer was insanely responsive to user feedback and was really, really good about incorporating as much as he could into the app (an iPad-native experience being the biggest exception).