I made a FULLY accessible Reddit app for iOS. It's free, ad-less, and I need beta testers!

By Unregistered User (not verified), 14 October, 2018

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hey all,

In the classic new user fashion, I'm not sure if this is the right section or even right website to post so let me know if I should post it somewhere else. The /r/blind community over on reddit reminded me of AppleVis.

This is a long post so here's a quick too long didn't read: I built a reddit app, it's fully accessible through VoiceOver and supports dynamic type, and it's totally free and always will be. Here's a YouTube demo of me using VoiceOver on AskReddit albeit slowly. I need help beta testing before I go official and launch it. If you want to help, I would appreciate if you signed up over on TestFlight.

Okay, summary over. Long discussion of features and morals to follow.

I LOVE reddit and honestly I don't know where I'd be without it. It's saved my life in ways I don't think I can begin to even talk about here. Anyways, I discovered recently (or more aptly two years ago) that no reddit apps on iOS really support accessibility/voice over well and frankly that's kinda crap. I decided to fix that, so I've built my own reddit app and called it Dystopia.

It's not super pretty but it gets the job done and really that's what matters. The design is kind of draconian and is just lists everywhere (hence the name) but this makes it easy to navigate. In terms of features, however, I think Dystopia has it where it counts.

Special Accessibility Features

  • Properly Voice Over navigable, with custom actions galore. Elements are in a logic, "most important" first order so that you can skim or wait for full details if you care. Any action that's available to sighted users is available over Voice Over
  • Dynamic type (all the way up to the max accessibility font size)
  • Raise suspected transcription comments to the top. With this setting (under the Accessibility settings menu of the app), detected transcriptions will be raised to the top comment automatically. If you aren't familiar with this on reddit, there's a pretty big community effort from /r/transcribersofreddit where volunteers transcribe image posts in the comments so blind, low-vision, or firewalled people can enjoy it.
  • Configurable: you can auto-hide visited posts so you don't have to dig through pages of old content to find new stuff. If you have reddit gold, viewed posts sync between the web and Dystopia.

General features

  • Multi-account. I have like six reddit accounts so this was super important for me.
  • No ads ever. I hate ads with a passion. Absolutely under no circumstance will this app have ads.
  • Configurable: Prompt to open reddit links off the clipboard
  • Play certain video links in the built in iOS player instead of redirecting to the browser. Presently this is just v.reddit.com but in the future I'd like to add YouTube assuming google doesn't smite me.
  • Configurable: Automatically open links in Safari reader mode
  • Configurable: anonymity filter which hides your username everyone the UI. If you’re using screen curtain not exactly useful but it’s nice otherwise if you use the app a lot in public and would rather strangers/friends/family didn’t know your reddit username
  • All the regular reddit stuff you'd expect like voting, posting, commenting, sending PMs, stalking people's profiles, you know the drill.

Beta notes

So this may all sound pretty nifty but I do have to warn you that this is beta software. There will be weird bugs. I'll do my best to fix them so long as you let me know in some form or another.

Still interested? You can sign up to join the beta so long as you have any iOS device running iOS 9 or higher. Sign up here on testflight.

About me

Anyways, if you all care about who I am that's nifty I suppose! I'm seventeen, live out in Colorado, and am a current high school senior who is drowning in the college process. I should be writing college essays right now but I'm doing this beta instead (sorry mom and future me). I've been learning to program since oh god like 2007 but I've only gotten really good in the past four or five years.

I originally got hooked on reddit back in 2011 when rage comics were still cool (really were they ever?) and never left because the community was so great and it really had a sub for everything. Since then it's been my main go to whenever I have programming problems, need some laughs, or have some personal issues I just need to talk about. It's saved me, and I want to make sure that everyone gets the same out of my favorite site that I have. I hope this helps!

Options

Comments

By Daniel Parker on Saturday, October 3, 2020 - 08:00

In reply to by Brad

Thanks Brad. Should be good from here.

By Hasan Tayem on Saturday, October 3, 2020 - 08:00

Hello. Many thanks for doing this app.
I look forward to testing the app.

By KE7ZUM on Saturday, October 3, 2020 - 08:00

Click the link you are given from the phone on which testflight is installed. If you cannot do this that means the test slots have all been taken.

By KE8UPE on Saturday, October 3, 2020 - 08:00

Hi,
I really hope the developer sees this.

I absolutely love the app, and I am brand new to Reddit.
I just created my account today. I put a feature request In the Dystopia subredit.
I will say my idea here as well, for others to vote on. I would love it if the app could come to the Apple Watch!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the developer for the work he has done, and encourage him to keep it up!

By Chris Harrington on Saturday, October 3, 2020 - 08:00

Hi sal,
I too am also having the same issue with afterglow, it constantly tells me an unknown error has occured.
Thanks for any help!
Chris Harrington

By KE7ZUM on Saturday, October 3, 2020 - 08:00

It works here, it's a bug in test flight. Keep trying. You might need to entr it 4 times. Remember that monthly is 24 hours and yearly is a week, at least for now.

By KE7ZUM on Saturday, October 3, 2020 - 08:00

Yeah it worked here for me every single time. I dunno, maybe you just have the non magic touch. Here is a very small demo As you can see, it workd and I now rehave afterglow.

Good luck.

By Kevan on Wednesday, February 3, 2021 - 08:00

The TestFlight link doesn't have an actual join button to join the beta, just a message saying to open the link on the phone with TestFlight installed followed by a big help page for TestFlight... One problem: Im on the phone with TestFlight installed, and Dystopia isn't available in the iOS appstore.

Any way to get it? Or should I just try another app?

I didn't try hard enough, and then after trying again I found the "open" button to open TestFlight from the webpage and now have Dystopia up and running. It's great! Much easier to use than the regular Reddit app on iOS with VoiceOver. Props to the developer for making a great app!

One question though, when will this app actually be available in the iOS appstore? I cannot find it there.

By Pax on Wednesday, February 3, 2021 - 08:00

Everything is working well.
Keep it up!

By Nut on Wednesday, February 3, 2021 - 08:00

Hi,
The app sounds interesting indeed. I've been using the official Reddit app and it is not completely accessible.
When can we expect a final release of the app on the app store?
Thanks for the hard work!

By Luke on Wednesday, February 3, 2021 - 08:00

It’s been a couple years since this thread was first posted so I’m assuming I can just grab this app in the App Store By now, right?

By Brad on Wednesday, February 3, 2021 - 08:00

The developer is in college I think, so is working slowly on the ap, i'm not acutally sure when it will be releaced to the app store but it should be soon.

By KE7ZUM on Wednesday, February 3, 2021 - 08:00

I'm only guessing, but maybe the developer's job won't let him release the app for what ever reason. he has explained it in the subreddit for this app.

Tc.

By Brad on Wednesday, February 3, 2021 - 08:00

That's interesting. I made a post on the subreddit asking about the release of a game so hopefully I'll hear something back.

By X2 on Wednesday, February 3, 2021 - 08:00

Hello everyone,
I’m sure this question has been asked many times, so I apologize for being repetitive, but is there anyway I can get the app? I know a few have mentioned that it is not available in the App Store. Is there a way I can get it on test flight? If so, where can I find the link?
Thanks

By Squirrel on Wednesday, February 3, 2021 - 08:00

I will be more than happy to be proved wrong, but this project has all the makings of vaporware.

I am sure that the developer had great intentions, but sometimes life just gets in the way.

By KE7ZUM on Wednesday, February 3, 2021 - 08:00

It's not vaperware, I hope. The developer has explained they are not aloud to release any major code due to their internship which is odd, but I guess if you code for a company that code or your outside work must follow rules etc.

By KE8UPE on Monday, July 3, 2023 - 08:00

Is this app still coming?
I’m a beta tester for this app & need something new, now that Apollo is shutting down at the end of this month.