this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Memmy - An iOS client for Lemmy

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Hey everyone! I wanted to give an update on the status of Memmy development since things have been slow recently.

Don't worry, we haven't just abandoned Memmy! There are a few reasons we haven't really had many updates or progress recently. gk and I have both been a little burnt out after doing so much before. We didn't really pace ourselves very well I think, so recently we've been taking a break. I've been addicted to Baldurs Gate 3 and gk is trying to get out of Gold Nova in CSGO 😏. Additionally, there was a lot of drama recently on lemmy that kind of left a sour taste in our mouths and has just led us to not using lemmy as much recently.

But don't worry, we are still developing. We are actually working on a rewrite of the app, since we both were rather new to React Native when starting this, and have learned a lot of do's and don'ts. We're also planning on having Android support in the rewrite.

We appreciate the patience and support, thank you to all our users!

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Funny, I was just browsing the App Store for alternatives. Hated them all. Memmy is still the best imo.

Separately, been holding off on Balder’s because it seems so intimidating but I’m so darn close to giving into the hype.

[–] timespace 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Have you tried Bean? It’s pretty great, especially the group communities feature!

But Bean is way too expensive. I wish the dev would lower the lifetime cost….lemmy is just too new to demand that kind of price, not to mention the app is a baby and spending that amount of money on an unproven app that could be abandoned tomorrow is a huge risk.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Interesting. I saw it but it didn’t interest me. I tried Voyager and Thunder, which I didn’t like. It feels like every app out there tries to recreate Apollo in some way.

Bean looks good. Agreed about the cost. Even Apollo was $10/year and I think $30/lifetime but you had the breadth of Reddit at your fingertips. Lemmy is light on content for now.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As others have said, you should check out Avelon. It’s my favorite Lemmy app after ours

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I love seeing devs support alternatives like this, thank you!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Do it. Give in. It’s great.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago

Burnout hits hard. Glad you’re appreciating life. Great app, from which I’m commenting. Thanks for this.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

Thank you for the update! That’s all totally understandable, and your app in its current form is still the best one out there. My productivity has similarly suffered thanks to Baldur’s Gate…

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lazy devs would rather play video games than give me free shit?!

Where’s our roadmap?!! 😎

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Demoted to Jr Jr Project Manager!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Now I wanna know what drama?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Mostly the stuff with lemmy.world banning the piracy community. (FWIW I think they have every right to ban whatever community they want on their server)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It’s funny, I was relatively active on Lemmy until this happened. It left a sour taste in my mouth, caused me to create a new account or two on other servers, and left my interests feeling fragmented.

So now I check Lemmy every couple days and don’t think to post much. One decision or event can really cause a snowball effect!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This was my question too 🤔

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Hey man whatever you’re doing right now, you deserve it. Just relax and play baldurs gate, we’ll be here eagerly awaiting your updates when you’re ready

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Dang, this just makes me impressed at what you've managed on your first outing with React Native. You've got impressive design sensibilities to get so much right that you're still one of the best apps out there.

Hopeful this rewrite gives you the technical foundation you've been looking for, so that this can continue building into the best app it can be!

[–] Immersive_Matthew 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The app does not need a rewrite…it just needs the pinch and zoom fixed as otherwise it is the best Lemmy app. Glad you are going to pace yourself and glad you are enjoying BG3.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Easier said than done 🥲

[–] Immersive_Matthew 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Cannot say I am too surprised. I find many SDKs and development tools cause developers to have to reinvent the wheel all the time for basic features. Is this one of the reasons you have to rewrite the app?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nah, the image handling is just very difficult. We’re using an animation library to handle the image gestures. It’s insane that there is no good image handling library for React Native. Boggles my mind how many basic things seem to be missing in the RN ecosystem that any app would need.

[–] Immersive_Matthew 2 points 1 year ago

It feel the same way about VR Unity development. Been a decade of VR development, yet any basic things are only half developed and this I am coding the same thing 1000s of other devs are. What a giant waste of time. Thankfully ChatGPT 4+ with the code interpreter is saving me a lot of mundane coding.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Is a fix for default sorting resetting to All upon app refresh a priority? It’s driving me nuts lol, other than that no complaints

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

It’s driving me nuts too. We haven’t been able to figure it out yet, we seriously have no idea. Trust me it’s the number one issue i have as well. Stuff like that is part of the motivation for a rewrite.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I'm enjoying Memmy right now. My only gripe is that I'd love to see in-app orientation lock. It's the one feature of Apollo that made me go for their lifetime purchase. You could easily set portrait mode for reading while lying down (I do this a lot - browsing while prone on the couch or in bed), and it would auto-rotate to landscape for videos, but stick to portrait for everything else (articles). I don't know how Christian finally managed it (it took quite a while before he implemented it), but it worked great. The old Reddit "Antenna" app had it first.

But other than that, great work. I'm really enjoying the 'swipe to navigate' which allows it to feel a lot more like Apolle for now. Thanks for all of your hard work, and I hope you're enjoying a break from it for now.

Cheers.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I was actually wondering why I hadn’t seen any updates recently in TestFlight! Getting sucked into a game is absolutely a legit reason to be afk for a while. Enjoy the time off.

Hoping to get a fix for the instance filters in a future version. They seem to clear when the app refreshes or some other random cause. I’d love to remove entire instances from my feed if possible.

[–] rebelsimile 2 points 1 year ago

I was just wondering about this, but this explanation makes total sense. Take care of yourselves! I really love this app and where it’s going, will be happy to see your updates. Also I don’t know React Native either but I know enough React to be dangerous if you guys need help

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Please take care.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Just got the new version - had to add all my accounts back. Is that normal? Also, I can’t find the compact view for the feed, is that gone?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's good to read update! I submit a PR several days ago and I was aware to have no reaction. Is the refactoring still on going or planned? I'll be very happy to help with my little experience with Expo/RN.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Sorry neither of us have looked at it, haven’t been in the habit of checking recently. I made a note to review it tomorrow

[–] loaf 1 points 1 year ago

I’m still addicted to Baldur’s Gate 3, so I completely understand