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Reddit Launches Official iOS App With Free Gold for Early Adopters

Thursday April 7, 2016 6:06 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Reddit today released an official iOS app for browsing, searching, commenting, and upvoting within subreddits on iPhone or iPod touch.

Reddit-iOS-1
Reddit for iOS replaces Alien Blue, which has now been removed from the App Store, as the website's official mobile app for Apple users.

Alien Blue previously served as Reddit's official iOS app after the company acquired it from developer Jase Morrissey in 2014. Alien Blue Pro users recently received four years of Reddit gold for free to help bridge the transition.

The new app is split into four tabbed sections:

- Timeline: Browse and comment on the latest stories from the front page and subreddits that you are subscribed to. Photos appear in line, while videos and external links open in a new window when tapped. There are also upvote and downvote buttons and options to share or hide posts. Tap on the three dots in the top-right corner to choose between compact or card view, or sort posts based on Hot, New, Top, or Controversial. Tap on the pencil icon in the top-left corner to submit a text, image, or link post. Swipe down to refresh.

Reddit-iOS-2
- Subscriptions: A list of subreddits that you are subscribed to, along with a Discover option to find new subreddits based on a number of topics: animals, art and design, ask, books and writing, business, comics and hobbies, DIY and crafts, driving and vehicles, entertainment, fashion and style, food and drink, funny, gaming, health and fitness, interesting, life and advice, local, meta, military and survival, music, news and politics, philosophy, pics and GIFs, relationships, science, shopping, sports, stories, technology, trades, travel and outdoors, videos, and more.

- Inbox: View your private messages, comment replies, post replies, and mentions. Tap on the pencil icon on the top-left corner to compose a private message to another user. Swipe down to refresh.

Reddit-iOS_3
- Profile: View your user profile, including an overview of your account karma and creation date, browsing history, saved posts, personal posts and comments, upvoted posts, friends, hidden topics, and image uploads. Tap on the settings icon in the top-right corner for account management, customizable themes, a safe for work browsing toggle, option to clear local history, and quick links to Reddit's content policy, privacy policy, user agreement, help FAQ, and bug reporting.

Reddit is automatically gifting users that download and sign into the new app with a free three-month Reddit gold subscription during its launch week.

Reddit gold provides perks such as turning off ads, custom themes, custom avatars, new comment highlighting, subreddit filtering, saved posts and comments categorization, and more. A subscription normally costs $3.99/month or $29.99/year, or you can mail Reddit a postcard to receive a one-month subscription for free.

Reddit for iOS [Direct Link] is free on the App Store for iPhone and iPod touch. The app does not have universal iPad support, and availability appears to be limited to the U.S., U.K., Canada, and select other countries upon launch.

Tag: Reddit
[ 77 comments ]


Top Rated Comments

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zorinlynx
39 months ago
I'm wondering why they even bothered to acquire Alien Blue if they weren't going to continue to support and improve it? Instead they scrap it and build a whole new app, which (granted I only used it for five minutes) doesn't seem even 30% as capable as AlienBlue AND on top of that has no iPad support.

What the hell are they thinking?
Rating: 11 Votes
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zzLZHzz
39 months ago
the world is US only again...
Rating: 7 Votes
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Steeley
39 months ago
Looks good but is it really that much more effort to make it work on iPad?
Rating: 7 Votes
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AbSoluTc
39 months ago
New app looks sweet. Got 3 months of gold for signing in, on top of my free 4 years of gold from the prior app. How do I feel right now? This is how I feel....

[MEDIA=youtube]CjWYbcbpiWA[/MEDIA]
Rating: 6 Votes
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sparky1499
39 months ago
Not a universal app then?
Rating: 4 Votes
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Oblivious.Robot
39 months ago
I always yearned for scoring a reddit gold!
Rating: 4 Votes
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ipodlover77
39 months ago
Geez. Free four years and then add another 3 months? At this rate, I would be surprised if there are any actual paying reddit iphone users.
Rating: 3 Votes
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Fynd
39 months ago
Anyone that uses Reddit but doesn't use the app Narwhal is crazy, IMO. The dev supports everything for iOS (Universal app, multi tasking on iPad, 3D touch, Safari View, PiP on iPad) and it looks great and runs great. All the essential features of a good Reddit app are there as well. It's seriously fantastic.
Rating: 2 Votes
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soloer
38 months ago

I'm not on Reddit, although I've long heard about it. But what makes it so special? What would make me more inclined to post in that "forum" than say here? I don't understand its appeal.


It's a great time waster. I've found in some cases it's better than following people/companies on Twitter to get info/updates on things. Also, if you're a fan of forums in general, you'll likely find some areas of reddit to play around in.
Rating: 2 Votes
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gk4
39 months ago
What is everyone liking about this over Alien Blue?

From a quick run through I can only see things that I dislike.

* There is no easy way to preview videos and images (long press in alien blue).
* Even when going to the page, all of optimized content views are gone.
* There is no more gallery view
* The comment editor doesn't give you any way to preview formatting
* Voting arrows are inline. They take up room and increase the chance of accidentally downvoting stuff as you're just scrolling.

it seems super basic at this point and I can't really see the advantage over just using the redesigned mobile site.
Rating: 2 Votes

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