[Self Promo] I've just made Avelon (a native iOS app for Lemmy) available for download!
[Self Promo] I've just made Avelon (a native iOS app for Lemmy) available for download!
Hi there fellow Apple enthusiasts!
Yesterday I announced that my native iOS app for Lemmy called Avelon is finally ready for testing, and I figured some people here might also be interested in checking it out!
My focus for the app has been performance, design and ease of use. As you can probably tell I got a lot of inspiration from Apollo and other iOS-first apps - but I think I've added my own cool spin on both the design and functionality.
Here's a couple screenshots of the app:
If you wanna try it out I'd greatly appreciate any feedback/suggestions so I know what to focus on next! I think the core experience is pretty solid already, but the app still lacks some important features such as adding new posts.
Avelon is developed in Swift using almost enitrely SwiftUI. For those unfamiliar, SwiftUI is the newest UI library by Apple intended to replace things like UIKit over time. SwiftUI is cross platform, so Avelon also runs on macOS actually, though the UI is not tweaked to fit mac just yet. The tech is really great to work with, and it makes it super easy to fit right into iOS. I posted some more details about the project over on the community page for the app here if you wanna check it out.
Thanks, let me know what you think!
The 3rd party app scene flourishing for Lemmy is the perfect "fuck you".
117really enjoying the app so far, the onboarding process is amazing. I’d love an option to have big thumbnails when using the large post option like this: https://files.catbox.moe/6y6wzl.jpeg
25Oh my God! This is my favorite Lemmy app now. I've been looking for a good native app and this is it! So fluid, fast loading, it's awesome!!!
Keep up the good work, can't wait for new updates.
13Commenting from Avelon. App is very smooth! I don’t know if it’s just me, having that subscriptions on the leftmost side on the nav bar kinda threw me off, was expecting posts there haha
12I’ll check it out. Thanks for your hard work!
7The onboard flow is bar none the best in the Fediverse. UI is great too.
I think the UX, especially the tab choices and arrangement, are sub par. In particular, I would rethink some of the tab drill down. Subscriptions on the left when the default state is to not be logged in, is weird. I think I would hide that entirely until a user is logged in, or find a better way to default to or drill into your subscriptions after logging in.
6I’m quite a fan of voyager (née wefwef), but out of curiosity, I tend to install all lemmy apps and give them a whirl.
I have to say, there is quite a lot to like about your app. I’m very curious to see where it goes next.
6Looks and feels good so far! Would suggest settings for NSFW behavior. For example, As of now, posts are blurred and when clicked upon they are displayed. If you scroll past the image they are still visible if you go back. Avalon for example, "re blurs” it of you scroll past it, an behavior I like.
5Summary of me looking at the app for about 20 minutes:
Having subscriptions as it’s own tab is confusing as hell to me and leads to a weird UX as the UI first needs to switch to the posts tab before triggering the navigation there. This results in a harsh change of the content followed by the pushing of the new screen. Took me a while to realize what was happening as I thought there was a bug that added images to the subscription rows as this happens fast enough to not make you realize you are seeing Posts/All for a split second.
All/local/… does not react to changes in the set post style. Pull to refresh will not help. Only switching via the Navigation Bar menu will update the post layout.
While we are at it. A preview for this setting would be great.Switching to the account tap will always return you to the first screen and not the sunscreen you were on previously. At least that problem does not exists for posts.
Guests instances could really use an explanation about what they do.
The NavigationBar is very not iOS like.
The back button should have a meaningful label and having no title until you scroll feels wrong. I think you are trying to emulate the butchered detail view of the mail app, but without the back button text this just feels empty but adding it might be enough to make it work.Also there is a UI bug when the navigationBar (dis)appears where the back button vanishes first/gets added before the bar appears.
Tapping next to the comments count beneath the post sometimes collapses/expands the post. Sometimes not.
Sorry if I sound a bit harsh. I see a lot of potential in this app. But also a lot of work.
Onboarding is pretty great though.Keep on keeping on!
4Hi @evgiz@lemm.ee, since this is your own app, can you please tag this as
[Self Promo](prepend the post title)? We're tightening up rules regarding self promo and while we're not removing your post, we want to clarify this post.Side note, your app is listed in the pinned post of iOS apps. Please leave a comment there if you want it updated (e.g., new link or AppStore link when it's released).
4The speed and smoothness are amazing! Missing swipe to vote and better link handling.
4Looks nice, will use it for now.
One thing I would like suggest is in the login screen. Why not put a drop-down menu there where users can select the most used servers? Or something autocomplete like while typing the domain.
Thanks for all your effort. Really looking forward for future updates and AppStore release.
3I can’t log into my instance. It gets as far asking for my MFA code, but it’s never correct. (Yes, the code works on other apps/devices.)
EDIT: Actually, I can’t log into Mlem either. It might be my instance. False alarm.
3I'm an Android person. But I wanted to say thank you for your work on that app for the community! You're awesome!
3Really, really slick.
3Would love to have an option to block communities/users. Unless I’m dumb and not seeing the option.
2It looks great! Logging in doesn’t seem to be working though not sure why.
2Downloaded, so far i’m impressed!
2Have you planned to add a way to tune the font settings?
2The app looks really nice and already well polished. This smells really nice for the future.
2Very nice! Loving the Explore tab for finding communities, and the animations feel good!
I have a feature request: dark mode thats more of a dark gray than "amoled black". I find the contrast of white text on pitch black too much.
Edit: ...and iPad support would be awesome!
2is it open source?
2I use Lemmy almost exclusively on iPad (mini), so this doesn’t quite fill my need.
2I love the app but it would be great if it would show a preview of text posts on the home page so I don’t have to click on the post to read it.
2This is what the fediverse needs, nice work
2Wow, thank you. Finally a compact view that is actually compact while still telling me everything I need to know about a post. You know it's good when it takes all of 5 seconds to get used to the layout.
2I like where you are going with this. Looks good so far.
I have one feature request. I really liked the way that Apollo would share pictures and videos. A typical use case for me would be find a funny image. Long press to share, send the shared image to any other app that supported sharing using the built in share sheet. That way I could do all kinds of different things. Save to my NAS, run it through a Shortcut send, or to a friend via whatever app.
Keep up the good work!
2Is it open source?
1Great start. Performance is better for me than with Memmy and Mlem! Looking forward to how it evolves.
Swipe actions I miss most atm.
1Looks good on my 12 Mini. Thanks!!
1Thanks mate
1Unfortunately this requires iOS 16. Not going to lose my jailbreak for it sadly
1This is fantastic. Thank you for posting!
1Excellent job with this app! Like it so far. Will report bugs as discover them. Thanks for sharing!
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