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 Chuck Winstead on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

Hello,
I'm interested in signing up for this.
I personally think that the Native Reddit app can use some work. Just to post a forum last time I tried was near impossible.
Chuck

By Nicolai Svendsen on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

All I can say is that. I’ve been wanting this for a while, so this is great news for me.

I’m already on my way to signing up for this.

By Hadi on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

Wow can't believe this is happening.
I like reddit. i'm not a pro reddit user, But i have a few sub reddits in my watch list and i read a lot of useful stuff from the site. It is really a great community.
I currently use apollo app but that one has a huge issue, you need to swipe your finger 8 times to go to the next comment imagine if you had to read 35 comments. you do the math.

Also that's amazing. if only more young developers cared for accessibility or at least knew about it at all.

By Earle on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

I heard about this on Twitter. I signed up for this a few days ago. I'm really looking forward to testing this app.

By alex wallis on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

I submitted a form to sign up, though I am not sure if my form got submitted because of the vpn I am on, if the developer is reading this could you have a search to see if my form went through? if you search for my name all one word that's part of my email address so hhopefully that will tell you if I did or didn't submit my form properly.
also, does the client support account creation or must that be done through the redit website? when I used to have an account I remember I had a lot of problems signing up because of captchas I think, and in fact I deleted my account because of horrible accessibility, still I will be interested to give it another look.

By LadyMunch on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

Hi
I am so excited about this project and can’t wait to get my hands on it.
The most accessible Reddit app I know of is BaconReader. It does most things but is a bit fiddly sometimes. I’d love to be more involved with Reddit but haven’t done too much on the site because of the interface. This gives me a lot of hope!! thank you!!

Didn't seem to make it in there, try submitting it again?

Unfortunately I can't do much about the captchas either however I believe Reddit has moved to Google reCaptcha which supports audio captchas.

By alex wallis on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

OK will resubmit, unfortunately audio captchas don't seem to work at all under ios I have no idea why, still hopefully should be able to work around it, annoyingly I lost my user name I had as redit say you can't reuse user names once you delete an account seems stupid but I suppose I can understand why to avoid impersonation etc.

By tunmi13 on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

I have also submitted my entry via Google Forms. I've never used Reddit before, but I've been hearing good things about it.

By Hadi on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

Hype traaain all aboooooard

By LordLuceus on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

The app is pretty cool. What's not cool is that I may now be addicted to Reddit LOL

By Hadi on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

Maybe he is selectively choosing the testers. we should wait and see

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

The beta has not been sent yet to people who signed up here on AppleVis. If you signed up last week on the reddit post in /r/blind you will already have received the invite.

I am currently working through fixing bugs reported from the first beta and after that I will send out a new beta which includes everyone who signed up here. Stay tuned!

By techluver on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

I'm really glad you are doing this for us!

By maxi on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

how can I create an reddit account?

By Karok on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

hi all, as per the last comment you can only sign in to reddit, not actually signup? very strange.

By Hadi on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

Go to:
https://reddit.com
and find the sign up link.
then reddit will ask for your email.

By Leela on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 23:16

Readit has been something I've been wanting to use for a while, but never really did.

By TheBlindDragon on Friday, November 23, 2018 - 23:16

Dystopia has gotten me back on Reddit. I had an account but forgot the log in info plus I had to deal with the horrible accessibility. Now I'm addicted to the /r/DystopiaForRedit subreddit.

By Chris Smart on Sunday, December 23, 2018 - 23:16

I hope you're still accepting beta testers. I filled in and submitted the form.
Thanks for making this app! I think you should charge a small fee, just in principle, but 'm sure you have good reasons for keeping it free.

One question: Why name it Dystopia?

By Ekaj on Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - 23:16

I just accepted my invite and got both TestFlight and the beta version of Dystopia. This will be my first time helping to beta-test something, but so far so good. TestFlight seems to work great with VoiceOver. I will probably not be as active during the beta process due to outside commitments but will do my best. Thanks again and I'm looking forward to testing your app. I wrote down my Reddit log-in details so this shouldn't be a problem.

By Tj on Saturday, March 23, 2019 - 23:16

I submitted the google form and have heard nothing. is this still a project?

By alex wallis on Saturday, March 23, 2019 - 23:16

Yes it definitely is, we recently began using a fourth beta and its working very well, the developer said he hopes its going to be the last beta before the app goes live to the appstore, but he hasn't said when that might be. it works very well, also a suggestion for anyone using the reddit website its worth disabling the new reddit and switching it back to the old reddit website.

By kool_turk on Saturday, March 23, 2019 - 23:16

I've been using the new reddit since joining last year and haven't had any problems with it.

With that said, you'll have to get use to it eventually, or use the app once it's released.

Somehow I doubt they'll keep the old design once everything's working on the new one.

By alex wallis on Saturday, March 23, 2019 - 23:16

I found using the new reddit layout difficult as I couldn't click on a lot of links, but actually I pretty much never use the website now that dystopia is under development.

By Erick on Saturday, March 23, 2019 - 23:16

Hi, I added a response, very excited. I love how you are making this accessible, and also inclusive for everyone! Thanks! I'll be giving you loads of feedback!

By maxi on Saturday, March 23, 2019 - 23:16

how do i create an account?

By Daniel Parker on Saturday, March 23, 2019 - 23:16

Hi Sal, I'm looking for an accessible Reddit app and just stumbled across this. I'm very interested. Is this project still happening in some form or other?

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Saturday, March 23, 2019 - 23:16

Still going strong! I'm getting ready to push the fourth beta, I've added quite a lot of features since October as well. I forgot to switch out the Google Form link but it's now a simple link that you can just click to join the beta instead of needing to wait for me to add each person individually.

By brandon armstrong on Saturday, March 23, 2019 - 23:16

hi their i just came across this post and signed up via testflight and love this app. thankyou so much for creating a readit app for IOS, I've always had a hard time navigating that site with a mac because some of the posts are not labeled properly.

By haley s on Thursday, April 23, 2020 - 23:16

what is the redeem key for distopia?

By WellF on Thursday, April 23, 2020 - 23:16

I've logged out from everything except distopia. It's way better than the desktop and mobile site.

By Ekim on Thursday, April 23, 2020 - 23:16

Hi Sal, so glad I came across this thread. I’ve been thinking about making apps that aren’t just accessible but usable for blind people. Looking forward to giving it a test run. Thanks.

By Patrick Bouchard on Saturday, May 23, 2020 - 23:16

This app is fantastic. I use it almost exclusively when on Reddit; so much better than the website that scrolls and moves screen reader focus all over the place! It hardly even feels like a beta.

I do have one feature request though, for something another client has that is very tempting. Apollo has an option in its pro upgrade to automatically collapse all children of level 1 comments. I would love for Distopia to have something like this. Distopia's gestures are a lot better and more convenient, but having to collapse the children of every comment so I don't have to swipe through ones I don't care about can get annoying. Of course if there's another way to skip these that I don't know about, I'd be happy to hear of it.

By Brad on Saturday, May 23, 2020 - 23:16

I'm sure you know you can collapse the comment and threads, although collapsing other level 2 comments as an option might be nice.

i'd recommend posting in the r/distopia subreddit.

By Kate on Tuesday, June 23, 2020 - 23:16

Hi,
I'd love to be part of testing this. I have Flight test on my phone, but can't see a link anywhere to download Dystopia. Do you need to send me an email or something?
Thanks, and great you're doing this!

By TornadicSupercell on Thursday, July 23, 2020 - 23:16

Hello,

Holy hell, I've never been in accessibility paradise up until I started using Dystopia. Reading through the AskReddit posts is easy and efficient and I can quickly find what I want to lmao about. Thanks for the great app!

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, July 23, 2020 - 23:16

Agreed. I'm still in the beta testing group with probably most of you. I hope this thing gets released soon as I will be subscribing probably to the afterglow. I really love the app, except it is missing somethings.

  1. The ability to follow people
  2. The ability to make multi Reddit's.
  3. The ability to cross post from the share sheet. Right now I need to copy the name of the reddit to the clipboard and do it that way. This is a but cumbersome.

Over all, those are the only 3 things this thign is missing.

By Troy on Thursday, July 23, 2020 - 23:16

Just signed up, this app is awesome and sure makes it so much easier to use reddit! the native app itself is horrible.
Thanks for your hard work with this app!

By Blind angel 444 on Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - 23:16

I have the Test Flight app and I want to help. What else do I need for testing? I have never used Reddit and I need some help please.

By Daniel Parker on Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - 23:16

Hi Sal,

I commented last year but didn't see your reply until now. I'm still interested in this app. I installed TestFlight but don't see anywhere to sign up or any forms. Am I missing something?