Reddit is, in many ways, a time capsule. The online community has thousands of subreddits to explore, each with passionate posters, but it’s not the most exciting site to use because its design remains fairly basic to allow for customization between individual subreddits.
Whether you’re looking for cute pet pics, a peek into the lives of your favorite celebrities, or a passionate gaming community giving feedback to developers, there’s a little bit of everything on Reddit – and that can make it tricky to navigate, too.
While the official Reddit app does a decent job of highlighting content from users, it’s fair to say that the third-party Apollo app from Christian Skellig is better. This is mainly due to the number of features it offers, alongside a more streamlined design than Reddit's own app.
With this in mind, we've put together a guide to help you get used to Apollo and what it offers.
An ad-free experience
While both Reddit’s official app and Apollo offer many of the same features (you can read posts, comment, upvote, and downvote to your heart’s content), Apollo has a significant ace up its digital sleeve – it’s an ad-free app.
To be able to avoid ads in your mobile Reddit experience on the official app on iOS and Android, you’ll need to spend $5.99 / £5.99 / AU$6.79 per month (or $49.99 / £49.99 / AU$55.99 per year) on a subscription. That also unlocks exclusive avatar options and the deposit of a monthly amount of coins, but for the most part, the removal of ads is the big draw here.
Compare that with Apollo, which keeps the app free from annoying ads during your lengthy scrolling sessions, and that may be enough to have you jumping ship. Although, you’ll still need to pay for Apollo Pro to create posts.
Apollo's power features
Apollo is free to download and try for as long as you’d like, but it does offer opportunities for users to contribute to its development.
That starts with Apollo Pro, which requires a $5 minimum to unlock a bunch of features for a one-off cost. That includes the creation of new posts, complete with image uploads, markdown text editor, and more. It also allows for customizable gesture controls and adding multiple accounts, as well as plenty more.
Apollo Ultra is the next step up, and it’ll set users back $1 per month or $10 for a year. This adds developer-intensive features like push notifications, custom themes, and more.
Navigate Apollo quickly and easily
Apollo is a very good-looking app, even without its additional themes, and easy to navigate. Along the bottom of any screen in the app, you’ll find 'Posts' to take you to posts within the current subreddit, while a second tap will find your subscribed subreddit list. Inbox will take you to direct messages and comments that you can reply to if you've posted anything yourself in certain subreddits.
There's an optional dark mode for Apollo too, that you can switch on manually, or it automatically switches on depending on what your system settings are on your iPhone or Android device.
Images display nicely, with the standard pinch-to-zoom and landscape views. You can also save posts, reply quickly, share, or jump to a user’s profile with the three dots underneath any post.
There’s your profile as well, which collects your submitted posts, and a search button for finding something.
Finally, a settings menu includes everything from custom icons to navigation gestures, and the option to block users, subreddits, or keywords, which is ideal for dodging spoilers from your favorite movies or television series.
Using Apollo's search tool
Forgot to save or share that meme and you're desperate to find it again? Apollo's search function can solve that for you, and it brings some powerful features.
Not only can you jump into a random subreddit or get a look at what’s trending, but your search can cover subreddits, users, and posts – meaning you’re able to get through thousands of options within a few minutes.
It’s also worth noting that Apollo is fast – in our years of using it so far, we've not seen it struggle to find a post, display an attachment, or play a hilarious cat-related gif.
Adding Apollo's widget to your home screen
While there are still plenty of apps on iOS that don’t offer a widget, Apollo continues its streak of fully supporting iOS and iPadOS features by adding plenty to choose from.
Whether you want to see a handful of posts from your favorite subreddit, a random joke or 'shower thought' each day, or a panel of shortcuts to reach your favorite spaces within Reddit, each one is well designed. They're also colorful, which can fit in well with your home screen, regardless of which iPhone or iPad you have.
Using Apollo's media viewer
Reddit is full of images, videos, gifs, and more, and Apollo is a fantastic way to view what your like-minded users are sharing.
That’s in part down to the number of formats the app supports, with sources like YouTube, Imgur, Gfycat, and more services supported within Apollo.
You’re also able to instantly share or comment from within the media viewer, too, which really helps when sharing random Simpson memes or funny videos that you need to share with some subreddits.
