Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, you’ve probably heard about theongoing drama happening at Reddit. Some unpopular changes to the company’s API are set to go into effect at the end of the month, and under the new pricing structure, the vast majority of popular Reddit apps areunable to continue functioning(withsome potentially lucky survivors). This led to a massive subreddit blackout at the start of this week, and although many of the nearly 8,000 subreddits that went dark have since come back online, some major players remain locked.
It’s a complicated drama, and I’d suggest anyone unfamiliar with what’s going on check outour excellent coverageby my colleague Manuel Vonau. But regardless of whatReddit CEO Steve Huffman might claim, Reddit has always had a close association with third-party apps. One of the most famous Android clients, RIF, started life as “Reddit is fun,” complete with a licensing deal with the social network that ended after Huffman took the reins. Another third-party client, Alien Blue, was actually purchased in 2014 by Reddit itself, becoming the building blocks of the current mobile application you know and tolerate today.
With many ofour favorite Reddit apps on Androidabout to shutter their doors, I’m curious how many of our readers this actually affects. Personally, the vast majority of my time on Reddit is spent through Sync (on whatever smartphone I’m using at the time) or Apollo (on my personal iPad). Sure, I use the desktop site while I’m working, but that’s just a small portion of my time spent on my various communities of choice.
But what about you? Are you currently using a third-party client — and, therefore, likely looking at being forced to swap soon — or do you stick with the official app? Maybe you don’t browse Reddit enough, and the mobile site is good enough for those few occasions in which you do log on. Either way, let us know below. As a bonus, shout out your favorite client in the comments — I’d love to check out some worthy third-party apps before they disappear at the end of the month.
