Reddit, as you know, is a social news and entertainment aggregation website that is ranked among some of the most popular in the world. Unfortunately, its official client for iOS leaves a lot to be desired, as it hasn’t been updated since 2011.
But luckily, the folks of Morrissey Exchange are committed to providing a proper mobile Reddit experience with Alien Blue. The app is considered by many to be the goto client for the popular website, and it just got a whole lot better…
This week’s update for Alien Blue — Reddit Client brings the app to version 2.7.0 and features a number of additions and improvements including new Moderator tools, touch gestures and tons of bug fixes. Here’s the massive change log:
Improvements:
- Drag from screen edges, toolbar or navigation bar to easily navigate back (and forward) without reaching
- Clipboard detection for Reddit links
- Optimal article view now uses a hybrid readability engine to render articles to match your Alien Blue color/font settings
- Optimal switch now remembers your preference based on content type (gifs, videos, articles etc.)
- Ability to choose Instapaper Mobilizer, Readability, or Alien Blue’s native layout for reformatting articles
- Ability to order search results by number of comments
- Improved handling of image centric / comic websites in optimal
- Improved scroll performance for comments
Moderator Tools:
- Ability to approve/remove posts
- Template-based messages & comments to notify posters of moderation activity
- iCloud backup & sync of moderator templates across iOS devices
- Access to Mod Queue, Removed and Reported posts
- Subject line is now available in Mod Mail
- Tapping on a Mod-mail notification will now take you straight to your Mod inbox
- (Comment moderation is coming soon)
UI Improvements:
- Revised posts view improves density of visible posts per screen
- UI improvements to comments header bar
- Revised UI for switching post order
- Revised UI for searching posts
- Minor UI improvements to Inbox screen (major revisions coming soon)
New Gestures:
- Screen edges (and navigation bar) can be dragged to navigate back or forward
- Drag beyond an article to switch to its comments. Same for switching from comments to an article.
- Dragging any browser content downward will quickly toggle between it’s optimal and original view.
- Long press on back button to skip directly to any previous screen
- Triple tap on navigation bar to switch between day/night theme
Fixes:
- Critical: Canvas not handling revised Imgur links
- Fixed: Some GIFs freeze the application for a few seconds
- Fixed: Photos/GIF occasionally causing optimal switch to rapidly move backward and forward
- Fixed: Switching themes causes artifacts near the navigation bar
- Fixed: Texture distortion on additional options drawer for posts and comments
- Fixed: Texture distortion behind posts table
- Fixed: YouTube videos stuck in portrait when “Allow Rotation” is off
- Fixed: Some imgur albums appearing out of sequence
- Fixed: Occasional crashes when manually clearing cache
- Fixed: Image cache not routinely clearing
- Fixed: Crash from incorrectly encoded gif images
- Fixed: “More” button is hard to trigger while tilt-scrolling is enabled
- Fixed: Entering and exiting fullscreen slightly snaps the content out of place
While I like the UI enhancements, I think my favorite part about the update is the fixed GIF support. For some reason, GIFs used to take forever to load up in the app, if they did at all. But now they seem to appear instantly and run smoothly.
Another interesting thing I noticed with 2.7.0 is that you must now be signed in to Reddit to view anything marked ‘NSFW.’ I don’t have a Reddit account, as I just like skimming the Front Page from time to time, so this was kind of a bummer.
I’m thinking it must have something to do with Apple’s recent crackdown on apps that offer access to adult content. A few weeks ago 500px was pulled from the App Store over nude photos, and Vine was just forced to move up to a 17+ age rating.
At any rate, this Alien Blue update is a solid one, and I recommend grabbing it. If you don’t already have the app, you can find it in the App Store for free. Well, it’s free on the iPhone with a handful of limitations. The Pro version costs $1.99.