Hi there! So there’s been a ton of work by a bunch of developers that are really frustrated with Apollo going away end of month.
That’s why I created (yet another) Apollo-like Lemmy client called wefwef - https://wefwef.app.
Right now it’s targetting iOS - you can still use it on Android phones, but it’s untested. An Android theme is in the works!
So, why wefwef?
- Progressive web app — It’s easy to try, and works cross platform. Get the same experience on your phone, tablet and computer. If you like it, add to home screen for a like-native experience.
- Open source! Self hosting and hacking is totally doable
There’s a TON of work to be done, but the basics are there (browsing, commenting and voting). More to come soon! Let me know what you think.
If this becomes a native iOS app, it would be a game-changer!
It doesn’t need to be native.
If that’s the case, apps may as well not exist. But apps still get made, because the world doesn’t work that way.
What would make it game changer compared to what it is as PWA?. Both iOS and Android users can enjoy being PWA without app stores.
By “game-changer”, I meant in the sense of having the most functional lemmy client with the best UI in the App Store so soon after what happened to Apollo. PWAs are cool (good for small startups, less cost, faster update deployment, cross-platform thru web-browser engine), but they can’t or don’t leverage the strengths of the hardware/platform they run on to achieve that without a wrapper or native code. Spotify is a PWA, for example. I just logged into mobile Spotify and most of the core functionality is there, but the experience is better using the native app from the App Store. (I can’t even view my Library with mobile Spotify) Scrolling is buttery smooth, animations for transitions instead of sudden “pop-ins” and “pop-outs” or loading a page (like a web browser). Same with Twitter, or a majority of sites/services with an already established app. There’s a reason they all push you to use the native app instead of the web-browser version. It’s just better, and wefwef can only benefit from it. As a PWA, it’s a good solution until it’s mature enough to be native.