Reddit has launched the first mobile app that was built by the company. The Reddit mobile app is available for both iPhone and Android and is now available in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.
Reddit VP of Consumer Product, Alex Le, posted information about the official Reddit app on Reddit. It explains that the company planned to deliver their first official Android Reddit app and to improve and stabilize Alien Blue (a very popular, but unofficial, third-party Reddit app).
Updating Alien Blue was more difficult a task than expected. In the post, Alex Le wrote:
Revamping Alien Blue is also a pretty obvious thing to do, but what started out as a simple improvement project turned into a much larger effort. We’ve decided to rebuild our iPhone app from the ground up to be faster, more modern, and more usable.
The official Reddit app features inline images, night theme, compact and card views, and simpler navigation. Users can customize their Reddit experience on the mobile app with themes. Just like the Reddit website, the app allows “top content” to rise based on the upvotes of users.
The website for the official Reddit app shows images of phones with photos of a cat and dog being cute together, sushi, a Go game, and a very red watermelon. To me, it feels like the app is being presented in a way that makes Reddit look like it is similar to Instagram or Pinterest – very photo heavy. Cats are mentioned more than once in the app’s description.
Personally, I don’t use Reddit very often. I go there to check out what’s new on /r/Diablo because that’s my favorite video game and people post interesting stuff about the game there. I never post anything myself, I simply read whatever is in there. As such, I’ve never had any problems with Reddit.
That being said, I think everyone is aware that Reddit has developed a bad reputation in the past due to some of the content and discussions that can be described as “unwelcoming” (to put it mildly). The presentation of the official Reddit app makes Reddit look friendly and inviting. Perhaps Reddit is hoping its new mobile app will attract users who have been previously avoiding Reddit.