Going to miss using Apollo. Great design and Christian built it with the user experience first.
this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2023
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Technology
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And now I’m here after 17 years on Reddit. 🤷♂️
15 for me. No ragrats.
You and me both.... I have seen that place through its ups and downs. From the narwhal bacon's at midnight to Jolly Rancher, Zoop and the swamps of drogba.
I finally left my account a few days ago and haven't been back since. The place is a shell of what it used to be and it's been really very refreshing have a scout about somewhere else.
Fuck greed..... It eventually ruins everything!
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It is sad to see an amazing app become rendered useless due to some companies greed. They were not even being reasonable with pricing nor did they really give the dev time to figure out what to do.
I really hope that everyone leaves reddit and comes to the fediverse. Mastodon had a huge boost and it completely replaced twitter for me. I am sure Lemmy can do the same.
I'm hoping Christian ports Apollo to Lemmy. I'm not sure what the feasibility of doing so is but I'd actually pay a monthly subscription for the ability to continue using it
I think he wants the apps to die with its legacy. Maybe he would make another app that does it. I hope he does and I would pay a modest subscription for it.
I hope that on June 30th, when it shuts down, the app doesn't just give an error message but instead displays some kind of farewell message.
Yeah a farewell would be good. In my dream scenario, he would open source it and the community could port it. That might be unlikely though
honestly, me as well
FYI, a lemmy iOS app, Mlem, is in active development, and we hope to be at 1.0 by July 1. It's heavily inspired by Apollo, but, obviously, with changes for lemmy.
Stay tuned and subscribe to c/mlemapp for updates!
Edit: I want to note that, since one of the biggest sticking points with 3rd-party apps has been both accessibility for the blind and deaf and mod tools, they're both on our minds as we design the interface. Getting both right will, of course, take time, but we want everyone to know that we fully intend to make our app usable for everyone.
Been using it for a few days, and it's very nice. Not feature complete, obviously, but what's there is great.
Glad you like it-- there will probably be many changes as soon as it gets updated (we're still figuring out what works and what doesn't). But, and everyone should be aware of this: v1.0's goal is "be functional and stable". Features will get added as we go (hopefully quickly). Apps like Apollo, RIF, etc, are mature, having been developed over years of work and user feedback. And while we can stand on the shoulders of giants like Christian Selig with regard to our direction and goals, we're just getting started.
That said, we're here to serve the community as we are also part of it, so we are doing all we can to build a great app!
i’m already using mlem, and it’s quite nice! yes, it needs some polishing still, however it’s a great alternative to what i’ve been using for 3 years (Apollo).
Good to hear. I'm kinda hoping the Apollo source will become public once it closes. Anything that gets us close to that kind of experience would be great.
I'm the UX designer on the app, so the idea is to get close in terms of usability and style while making the app "our own". So, the app will, ideally, feel a lot like Apollo, but without outright copying it.
We want to take the best of Apollo (minus some things we don't like about it), and make something that's inclusive of how lemmy works and operates.
minus some things we don’t like about it
What don't you like about Apollo? If you don't mind me asking.
well, as a UX designer, there are some decisions he made, years ago, that were based on an older philosophy of iOS interaction design that have since been updated. An overreliance on list display modalities, for example, pull-up menus, and other minor things in the interface which make complex workflows tedious and which can be optimized using more contemporary workflow ideologies. Stuff that, as a solo developer, he didn't have time to address but which, as a new team starting out, we can redesign from the ground up.
We're starting fresh, so we don't have to worry about changing some monolith this that already exists. We have a lot more freedom than Christian does/did. We want to set a foundation based on the best of what we've learned from the greats but with a path for growth for the future for ourselves and our users.
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How do you get to the point where you're accusing Christian of blackmailing you in this situation? You're the 500lb gorilla who's driving all these app developers out of business. Even if you really feel like these app developers have been free riding on your largesse, how do you have so little perspective to be this petty and spiteful?
I listened to the recording, and read the transcript, and I can... I can see it. Not overtly, not intentionally - but the dev did not communicate clearly at all.
Twice the Reddit representative asking him to repeat himself, and still he failed to actually specify his intentions. The wording in the transcript never actually expanded what the dev was saying ('buy out Apollo'). The evasive language made it sound like a shakedown, 'pay me $10mil to make this all go away'.
I linked the dev's own transcript above, but the actual quotes from the dev:
I could make it really easy on you, if you think Apollo is costing you $20 million per year, cut me a check for $10 million and we can both skip off into the sunset. Six months of use. We're good. [Low voice:] That's mostly a joke.
Okay, if Apollo's opportunity cost currently is $20 million dollars. At the 7 billion requests and API volume. If that's your yearly opportunity cost for Apollo, cut that in half, say for 6 months. Bob's your uncle.
I was just saying if the opportunity cost of Apollo is currently $20 million a year. And that's a yearly, apparently ongoing cost to you folks. If you want to rip that band-aid off once. And have Apollo quiet down, you know, six months. Beautiful deal. Again this is mostly a joke, I'm just saying if the opportunity cost is that high, and if that is something that could make it easier on you guys, that could happen too. As is, it's quite difficult.
Now, we know that what the dev is doing is essentially offering to outright sell Apollo to end the demand it represents to Reddit. He doesn't expect them to take it, but a lot of users asked if it were possible, and he's suggesting it anyway.
But the wording of all of this never specifies 'buying Apollo'. It sounds like he wants Reddit to like... pay him his 'protection fee'. I'm sure he means 'go quiet' as in like, 'go quietly into that good night' (shut down) or 'stop being so demanding' (be retooled), in fact he later clarifies he means the latter and the Reddit representative apologises profusely.
But man, that was worded so poorly, and he was given two opportunities to clarify, and he just... didn't. Only when the Reddit stand-in asked if he was suggesting Reddit buy his silence and compliance did he clarify that wasn't at all what he was saying.
It was completely unintentional, no doubt. But it was miscommunication of the highest order, and it damaged the lines of communication so irrevocably it probably incentivised Reddit to cease negotiations completely.
The problem is this, from the transcript:
Me: I said "If you want Apollo to go quiet". Like in terms of- I would say it's quite loud in terms of its API usage.
Reddit: Oh, go quiet as in that. Okay, got it. Got it. Sorry.
Me: Like it's a very-
Reddit: Yeah, that's a complete misinterpretation on my end.
Me: Yeah. No, no, it's all good.
Reddit: I apologize. I apologize immediately.
The "threat" part was resolved right there. Steve just wanted to retcon the conversation as a way to dog Christian. He didn't anticipate Christian was gonna roll in with receipts.
Yeah, I found that interesting. I generally don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence, and I imagine either (or both) of these is likely:
- The 'evasive' language made everything feel implied, that when pressed to outright admit his intentions he falls back. He was evasive, evasive, evasive, pressed, fell back. Still he did not clarify he was selling Apollo, only that 'go quiet' meant 'pay me off and Apollo stops making calls'. It's possible Spez did not believe him and was trying to deescalate.
- Internally discussing the outcome of the call with other members on staff, they may have felt (1) was true, or Spez accepted the explanation but other staff didn't; they discussed the implications of each possible intention; and they collectively decided they should probably treat it as a threat since it remained ambiguous. It's possible Spez did want to believe him but other staff didn't.
The conclusion doesn't have to be that Spez believed him, then personally as an individual decided "oh, actually, fuck it" and decided to lie about it anyway. In fact I'd say that of the three possibilities, that's the least likely.
I listened to the recording and it was .. messy. Christian wasn't clear at all and it seems his intention of making what he described as a lighthearted jest fell like a lead balloon at the Reddit guys feet. To my mind it would have been a very important conversation and therefore if I was Christian I would have kept it business-like and clear. It still doesn't excuse Reddit for weaponizing the conversation and screaming blackmail which makes the CEO come across as a man-baby throwing a fit.
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I'm still not clear what the alleged threat was, that the app would... make API calls? earning reddit money? That Christian would say unfriendly things about the company that screwed him? What threat is an app developer to a corporation? It's just patently absurd.
Weaponizing the community can be pretty powerful.
I love that Christsin had recordings. Can't wait to see how spez's AMA goes.
That AMA is immediately going to turn into ‘The Roast of Spez’ and I’m honestly quite looking forward to it. It won’t change anything since Reddit’s already too far round the ‘enshittification’ U-bend but it might be the last funny thing that’s ever posted there.
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This is a big reason why I'm here as of today. I just can't in good conscience support what Reddit is doing. I've been an Apollo user since it launched out of beta. I jumped at the chance to have paid Christian twice for both the original premium upgrade. And then the Ultra one later down the road. I just adore the app. When I switched to Android I still found myself missing it terribly. Since switching back to iOS. I've averaged 15-20 hours per week just using Apollo.
End of an era :(
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Wow, the fact Reddit is claiming he's blackmailing them for 10 million dollars is insane.
The fact the dev recorded it and posted it online for people to listen to themselves is great. God I love living in Ontario Canada where it's a single party consent to record others on the phone.
I live in South Korea where it's also legal to record only with single party consent. It's not that long ago that I found out that it's not a universal thing. It should be.
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original post by Apollo's dev: https://tedd.it/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/_/
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Sad news. I use Boost which I love. But won't be using Reddit anymore once 3rd party apps are cut off.
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If you're here and you have the technical skills, please consider running your own instance. Beehaw and lemmy.ml are getting slammed.
As an addition, this list can be interesting for potential new joiners looking for a smaller instance to register https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances
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Haha I literally just came from that post! I left the app, downloaded lemmy, made an account, and apparently get to pick up right where I started.
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