this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023

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131

Developing a new Lemmy mobile client! (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by jesusrp98 to c/apple_enthusiast

41 comments fedilink hide all child comments

After using Apollo for years, yesterday I decided to completely stop using Reddit for obvious reasons.

I found Lemmy to be a very competent alternative, but the only catch is the mobile situation: it seems that there aren't many good mobile clients for Lemmy.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands and develop a new mobile client for Lemmy.

After a couple hours, I have a good looking and working subscription feed; super glad to see that the API is easy to use :)

What do you think about the look of the app? Any suggestions?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

I personally don’t like Material design in general, and if I had a choice I’d pick something with Apple’s design principles.

With that said, the more the merrier so I’m definitely rooting for the app. Don’t mean to sound discouraging. It’s just a preference, but I would definitely try it out at least.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Woah… that was fast. You did this in a few hours? That’s impressive. Nice work!

You know mlem is in heavy development and supposed to be released July 1, right? You can install it via TestFlight.

Also for android jerboa is the lemmy client.

https://hakbox.social/comment/26744

[–] jesusrp98 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Didnt know about mlem, but it looks good! In the end, more options more better for the end user :)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Absolutely! Eager to see yours if/when it becomes available on TestFlight or you release it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If I can scroll and lurk from a mobile device, I'm all in. Especially if it feels good on iOS. Add everything else later :)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Not to detract from OP’s achievement and work, but there already are mobile clients for both iOS and android. While you wait for OPs to become available you can check these out.

Links in this comment because I’m lazy. 😊

https://hakbox.social/comment/26744

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

This is indeed the most pressing issue. Mlem looks promising as well. Maybe you could pool your efforts. On the other hand: Having 2 different clients to choose from, is not a bad thing either.

I'm definitely up for testing the app.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

@jesusrp98 I would LOVE for the ability to somehow connect/log in with my Mastodon account so I can comment on posts with it. Even if the subscriptions are managed by the main Lemmy account, the ability to comment via Masto is pretty crucial for me

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Looks nice, but I wonder if the upvote and comment icons aren’t a bit too small/compact for touch.

Also a question: what do you intend to do differently than the Mlem app?

[–] jesusrp98 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think mainly design, this app will feature Material design, rather than the look of iOS. Going to implement certain features so that it feels right and home in an iPhone.

However if you prefer the regular iOS theme, there should be other alternatives, like mlem.

In the end, it's just personal choice, and having multiple options is great for all of us :)

[–] feifei 6 points 1 year ago

An iOS app without adhering to iOS design guidelines and looking like android wont be popular with iOS users 😉.

I personally must have iOS design and all bells and whistles. Else it won’t feel at home.

[–] PeterGintz 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Looks great so far! Great work.

A few things I would like to see:

Easily select specific subscribed feeds to view
Ability to search and find other feeds across Lemmy (and subscribe to if applicable)

[–] jesusrp98 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Exactly, one feature I'd like to incorporate is 'multireddits' (don't know if that feature is available on lemmy by default).
Yep, you would be able to search across the fediverse, if your instance allows it :)

[–] PeterGintz 6 points 1 year ago

I forgot about multireddits! +1 for that idea.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

This looks quite nice. The current mobile website looks quite messy, so something like this would be a huge improvement!

[–] j4k3 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No apple devices here, but still...

AMOLED friendly black theme
easily accessed donation for the instance host and lemmy devs, maybe even include the option to monitor individual user load on the various server instances the user has posted on
integrate, suggest, and/or streamline 3rd party image hosting options. Maybe set a target file size and quality with a jpeg converter to get any images posted as small as useful by default, even prompting a cropping tool initially as a path of least resistance for optimization.
build in a converter for MP4 to GIF to WEBP with a small size and maximum size optimization/compression. Like, for technical utility it can be important to show video, but mp4/gifs are not currently supported but animated webp is and can be uploaded directly/embedded in posts
mod sub activity monitoring separate from other feeds with options to notify by new posts, comments, reports, user, etc.

[–] jesusrp98 8 points 1 year ago

Great suggestions there (AMOLED fan here, it will happen).

A feature that I think it's very important is the ability to donate super easily to lemmy instances. I wouldn't be able to write this comment if not for the support of the rest of the community ❤️

[–] Graphine 4 points 1 year ago

Apple user here! This looks great! What is the minimum iOS version you're building for? I have a ton of devices on iOS 14 and 15 for jailbreaking purposes and would love to use this app on them :)

[–] Shrinra 3 points 1 year ago

While I usually prefer something that follows Apple's design language, this looks very, very nice! I'm very impressed at far you got after just a few hours.

If you are entertaining feature requests, one thing I'd like to see from third-party Reddit clients like Apollo, Slide, and Narwhal is Haptic Touch throughout. Haptic Touch link previews, post previews, parent comments when you long press a comment, etc. This has always been one of my favorite features, and far too many apps don't incorporate this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you also plan to develop an Android client? If not, that's totally fine :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you tried Jerboa? I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of options out there, but I think I, as a developer, am probably going to work on improving Jerboa.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yup, that's what Im currently using, though I wouldn't mind seeing some alternatives/competition as well

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It looks very good! Although, I am curious how your app and / or mlem is going to approach iPad support. That was the one thing that I always found somewhat disappointing on Apollo and I hope a better option exists for Lemmy.

[–] muddybulldog 2 points 1 year ago

Awesome start. Need compact mode.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where is it? How do we get it? TestFlight beta?

[–] Thekingoflorda 3 points 1 year ago

They just started a few hours ago, i think they haven't released it yet.

[–] TeddE 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not an Apple user, but I think it looks good! Does it have the ability to collapse/hide comments and threads?

[–] jesusrp98 4 points 1 year ago

At this very moment, the only feature it has is the ability to display your subscription feed (started like 2h ago), but adding a feature-rich comments section is planned :)

[–] yankeebobo 2 points 1 year ago

Certainly looks good by the screen. Definitely will be interested to run it through test flight

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Since you mentioned Apollo I have to say that the app looks a lot more like Boost. I will probably end up using this. Apollo was meant to be what reddit would look like if Apple themselves designed it and that worked really well!

[–] grimer 2 points 1 year ago

Great! I look forward to using it and expanding my use of Lemmy and this will help a lot!

[–] crshbndct 2 points 1 year ago

have an option not to show the pictures large like that and it looks good.

[–] trinex 1 points 1 year ago

Once you have an alpha or a beta I would love to try it out!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This looks awesome! Would it be possible for users on different clients to log in as well, i.e. kbin?

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