Alternative iOS apps for Lemmy?

Elw@lemmy.sdf.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 20 points –

I’ve been trying to use mlem now for about a week and I just find that it lacks a lot of very basic functionality. Don’t get me wrong, I understand it’s all new and everyone’s scrambling to build and improve, I’m not faulting the mlem devs here. But until things like copy/paste work and notifications exist, the mobile Lemmy site is better but also worse in many respects.

Are there any other iOS apps out there or under development that I should be on the lookout for?

EDIT: I've amended the title of the post to better reflect my intention here. Folks seem to be misunderstanding the intent here. I'm not blaming mlem, memmy or any other project out there for failing to create something "good". All these apps and the ecosystem are new and still rapidly evolving, I get that. I'm just trying to hunt around and see what's available that might not be listed on the official apps page yet.

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I think you have to bear in mind that Lemmy as a whole is still fairly new, and until a month or so ago, no one was crying out for an app for it.

So for now, Mlem and Memmy are the only two app options, and their solo devs are doing their best.

For what it’s worth, over the past week alone, Mlem has gone from barely usable to actually a nice little app.

Totally agree. As I said in my post; I am not blaming the mlem or memmy devs here. I understand it's still new and rapidly evolving. I'm just wondering what the various options are out there so that I can try them and see which one has the features I am looking for. I'm always checking back with mlem after an update to see what's fixed or added.

So far it feels to me like Mlem is heading in the direction of Alien Blue, and Memmy is intentionally in the style of Apollo.

Neither is finished yet, and you’ll need to run the web app as well to accomplish some tasks.

This comment was written from Memmy though :)

Memmy?

This is what I switched to (and what I'm replying through), and I really like it. Definitely still needs more pollish but it's a lot more fleshed out

The devs also seem really responsive. I hope they can keep it up.

Is there somewhere I can see my upvoted posts? I miss that feature from Apollo

Try adding the site to your home screen. It will actually add a progressive web app, which is surprising useful.

I wish notifications worked with the PWA. I’m guessing that’s an Apple restriction 😞

hm, the PWA has asked me for notification permissions on launch. I don't think I get them though.

Oh interesting, it looks like PWA notifications were added in iOS 16.4, I’m not on that yet. So maybe it is a lemmy issue.

Wow! I had no idea this was possible! I’ve done just this and, you’re right! Still about the same experience as in a browser (duh) but nice that it’s not Just Another Tab in your browser to get lost

Yeah the progressive web app is useful enough I wish it were mentioned on the main Lemmy.org page. I don't really feel the need too a separate app with it (which is somewhat ironic because I came here specifically because of third party apps)

I’m currently testing “Mlem” it’s ok so far in beta still.

Really wish they would add in an alert tab to show any replies to posts or comments. I feel like I have to log back in on desktop to see if I should be replying to anyone. Slows down the discussion quite a bit.

Yeah, this is also my impression. It has a lot of potential but it’s not quite there yet. I plan to keep coming back to it after each update but I at least need copy/paste to work.

Also chiming in to suggest Memmy (which it seems like you’ve used already).

Within the last week alone there have been some quite significant QoL updates and I’m happy testing it further.

The issue with notifications is that Lemmy doesn't yet support push notifications itself. There's a ticket open for this, but it hasn't been worked on (iirc).

What are you specifically looking for in an iOS app, if I could ask? Any quality of life features you wish it had? 👀

The two things I need are notifications (not push, just an indication on screen that I have a notification like I get on the web app) and copy/paste. Neither of these things seem present.

I’ve been using Mlem and Memmy. Both have their positives and also issues. They are also both receiving regular updates improvements.

I think you have to bear in mind that Lemmy as a whole is still fairly new, and until a month or so ago, no one was crying out for an app for it.

So for now, Mlem and Memmy are the only two app options, and their solo devs are doing their best.

For what it’s worth, over the past week alone, Mlem has gone from barely usable to actually a nice little app.

I'm still trying out Memmy and Mlem (I prefer the former so far), but I hear the PWA isn't bad, either.