Avelon 1.0.6 - community groups, GIF scrubbing, app themes, filtering tools, custom app icons and much more

Hey everyone! For more than a month now I’ve been working hard on the biggest update to Avelon so far. Today I’m really excited to announce that it’s finally out on the App Store! The update includes a whole bunch of cool new features for people who want that little extra and QOL improvements all-around.

Some of the highlights of this update include:

  • Community groups
  • App themes
  • Right-edge swipe-to-go-forward gesture
  • Custom app icons
  • GIF/video scrubbing
  • Advanced filtering tools, including keywords & instances
  • Fixes to a bunch of iOS 17 related issues
  • New markdown editor tools
  • Smart comment jump button
  • Ability to manage and clear app cache
  • Support for Lemmy 0.19RC
  • Lots of bug fixes & improvements all around

I really appreciate everyone who has helped with beta testing during the 1.0.6 cycle, you guys are honestly great!! It’s super motivating to hear so many people enjoying the app, and as always I’m open to suggestions and feedback. I hope you find the Pro-model I’ve landed on a fair/decent way to run the app. I’ve tried my best to consider all factors like affordability, development, as well as the quality & quantity of what Pro offers - and I hope I’ve found a good middle ground.

As for the future: for 1.0.7 I’m thinking I’m gonna focus primarily on performance, stability & bug fixes, but I’ll probably throw in some more QOL features as well. Just let me know if you’re missing anything or if you find any pesky bugs or nuisances. Hope you enjoy the update!

Edit: Seems to be a slight issue with upgrading to pro, working on it 😅

Edit: Fixed!

biffnix, (edited )
@biffnix@discuss.online avatar

Thanks to the dev. It’s by far the most polished Lemmy app for iOS right now , and I’ve tried just about all of them.

The pricing is like, a week of morning coffees, so I’m not really sweating it. And that $14.99 for a year is a great option at $1.25/month if thirty bucks will break you.

I’m happy to have bought pro lifetime, and glad you’ve put the number of hours in developing Avelon. I look forward to seeing how it matures.

Oh, just FYI, I LOVE that Avelon is portrait only while scrolling threads. I browse a LOT with the phone while on the couch, or lying in bed, and currently NO other app stays in portrait when sideways. I don’t know any savages who read in landscape. That’s rightly reserved for videos or wide photos, in my opinion. It took Christian YEARS to figure out a toggle in Apollo where you could lock to portrait while browsing text, and auto-rotate only for videos or landscape-only media. It was why I bought Apollo Pro lifetime, finally! But, here’s your Pro lifetime subscription from me, so thanks for making it the way I like it already… ;)

Cheers

evgiz,

Thank you so much, really appreciate it! I’ve started to look at better full screen landscape support whilst keeping the portrait feeds, but yeah it’s more tricky to do than you’d think. For sure something I’d like to do eventually!

BarterClub,

Can you pin this and get rid of the other pin? Updates should be pined.

evgiz,

Yeah sure, updated now!

Zak8022,

Would it possible to have a demo and/or explanation as to how the Community Groups work? I’d be interested in that, but was sort of burned by my own expectations of Bean’s version of the feature not living up to reality.

Maybe someway for us to see how the Pro features work, to help push us over the edge of buying/subscribing.

evgiz, (edited )

Good idea! I’ll look at adding a free trial or other demo functionality.

Community groups let you add any number og communities (from any instance) into a named group that appears with your subscriptions on the “posts” tab. When you open it the feed works the same as usual, but will contain a mix of posts from the selected communities. The mix is designed to be even, so if one of the communities is much smaller you’ll still see posts from that one too. You can sort as usual, but the mix will try to remain even as long as there are enough posts to pick from.

What was the issue with Bean’s implementation?

Zak8022,

Sweet, a free trial might be enough too!

My issue with Bean’s version is that it takes the different communities, but stacks the posts from each. Basically taking the top 10 posts from community 1, then appends top 10 posts from community 2, and so on. I feel it would be more useful to have all the posts (and even if it’s just 10) from each community and then sort. So they’re mixed together and you don’t have to scroll a lot to see “all” the relevant posts in the group.

And I’m not trying to be critical of you or Bean’s dev. Just sharing my opinion.

evgiz,

No worries, feedback is great. Avelon does basically the opposite of that, where it tries to interwine as much as possible (without being too heavy on the servers). Here’s an example:

https://i.imgur.com/hoqbaZG.jpg

Zak8022,

Oh sweet! Thanks for all the prompt replies!

1brokeguy,

Is there anyway to see video and gifs expanded in full screen and/or landscape?

evgiz,

Not at the moment. Adding support for a full screen videoplayer is in my backlog!

micha,

Nice! Thanks!

a_fancy_kiwi,

Feature Request:

  1. Ability to copy text from comments and posts
  2. Ability to edit posts

No rush, the app is definitely usable and I don’t mind switching apps to copy and paste every now and then

avater, (edited )
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

Feedback on 1.06

  • colors of up/downvotes are odd and should be reversed (blue for up…)
  • it would be great to mark notifications as read with a swipe from the right
  • currently if you want to edit a post it sometimes loads an older, outdated version of this post instead of the current one
  • make it possible to blur a nsfw post again after you unblurred it
  • maybe add some padding to titles and content of posts in the feed to create a bigger interaction area, because if it’s includes a link to a site sometimes it’s hard to get to the comments, instead you open the link accidentally.

Otherwise great app and the best one out there. Keep up the good work!

krlombs,

Just went to go purchase premium for the month to try it out, but it said it failed to connect to App Store. Would there be any reason for the app to not be able to connect?

evgiz,

Hope you’ll like it 😎 I misunderstood some stuff in Apple’s review process so the app store item is not available yet. Will hopefully be working within a few hours!

Javish,
@Javish@lemmy.world avatar

Any update to share?

evgiz,

Yeah sorry, forgot to update the post - everything is up now!

avater, (edited )
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

just saw the price tag, 30 bucks for lifetime pro access is a big no no for me. I’m sorry and I maybe tip you a little amount for the app in its current state, but that price for this app and the locked features is way too high.

And just to put it into perspective, Apollo’s Pro unlock (the state of the art app for reddit on ios!) was 5 bucks, so you maybe want to overthink that price tag again…

taxyovio,

Apollo’s lifetime ultra is more comparable.

avater,
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

not really. nearly everything which is included in Avelons Pro upgrade for 30 bucks was in Apollos Pro Upgrade for just 5 bucks (or pay as you want)…

compare it yourself: apolloapp.io/pro-ultra/

taxyovio,

Did Apollo build in one day?

What’s the size of the user base comparing lemmy and Reddit?

If we take these into account, I’d think the dev needs this pricing to just keep developing the app.

taxyovio,

Apollo took many years in testing and more years before releasing their subscription. Its developer could afford to do it because 1. he was a student and it’s his hobby project; 2. Reddit has a HUGE user base so the sales volume is much higher.

But for Avelon, we don’t have the same privileges. The developer could never hope to sell as many copies due to the user base discrepancy. He has to charge higher prices for a niche product to just keep surviving.

Of course this is a competitive market and everyone is free to vote with their wallet.

avater,
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

and I will

evgiz,

Yeah, the size of the user base is basically the #1 reason. I was surprised too when I saw the pricing for other apps, but I’ve realised they were more reasonable than I expected. Unfortunately there’s just not nearly the same number of people using an app like Avelon compared to just about any reddit app.

As much as people might dislike subscriptions they are a very good way to mitigate the risk for devs. I really wanted to provide a one-time purchase too though, and I landed on what I feel is pretty fair if you compare it to other players (Sync is 99$ I believe, Bean is 50$, Avelon 30$). And of course the free version remains just like before - pretty solid imo with more features out of the box than most other iOS apps.

avater, (edited )
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

Sure thing in the end it’s your app. I don’t know where these prices a coming from, but I sure won’t pay anything in that range for any app.

Prking,
@Prking@lemmy.world avatar

Neither will I.

Prking, (edited )
@Prking@lemmy.world avatar

I respectfully disagree, the key point is whether the user thinks the price is fair value. When you put basic safety features like content filtering behind such a big paywall I think this fails the fair value test.

My other point is that just because other apps have set high price points doesn’t mean that many (or enough) people have paid those prices.

Edit: I’ve noticed that other safety features like indicating bot accounts are behind the paywall. But traditional Pro features, like extra app icons or themes, are in basic. Please could you consider a rethink. We all want Avelon to succeed but this seems a mid-step.

ohto,

I agree. I bought Apollo instantly because the value was there. At $30 I’m going to hang back and see how the app fleshes out, but if I’m not getting features like GIF scrubbing in the meantime, I’m probably going to find an alternative. At $10 I would have hit the buy button immediately.

Oh, and I hate subscriptions. I’m never going to subscribe to an app. Just tell me what it costs and I’ll buy it if it’s worth it.

avater,
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

Same for me. 10 bucks would have been an instant buy

clearedtoland,

Having an issue with the upgrade on iOS. I’m seeing the button but no pricing, and when I click the button it says it can’t connect to the App Store.

Interestingly, in the App Store it only shows the tip jar as in-app purchases.

Let me also say, great work! Avelon single-handedly kept me engaged and interested in the Fediverse.

fry,
@fry@fry.gs avatar

I’m also seeing the same thing. Also tried uninstalling and reinstalling and it didn’t fix the issue.

taxyovio,

Looking forward to a fix

Kerandir,

Same here, probably we need to wait an ios store update?

Jeff,

Same woes here.

Javish,
@Javish@lemmy.world avatar

Same here.

evgiz,

Working now! Forgot to submit it with the app, but it’s up now since yesterday!

clearedtoland,

You’ve got yourself a subscriber! Thanks.

princessnorah,
@princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I totally support y’all having a pro mode, so I don’t want this to come across as me trashing on that in general. But I’m really disappointed to see the Content Filtering options behind a paywall. There are obviously a lot of people who are just going to use that to tailor things more to their preferences. But there’s also a lot of people who would use it to filter out posts that are harmful for them. I think you should reconsider making that a free option.

evgiz,

Hmm, good point. I’ve tried to focus the update on more “power user” stuff that’s not strictly neccessary, but you’re right that this could be the case. I’ll think about it

mateomaui,

What are the prices for the upgrade options? I’m assuming they’re displayed when you choose an option, but since there’s an issue there I’m still in the dark.

Also, how do you attach images to replies?

nix,
@nix@merv.news avatar

Only thing missing imo is the ability to have the comment jump button in the middle instead of the sides

evgiz,

Snapping to the sides was actually harder to implement than just anywhere lol, I’ll throw in a toggle to allow placement anywhere in 1.0.7

0oWow,

Hey, is it possible to swipe to hide post in pro mode? I only see option to hide above posts on swipe, in free version, but I’m looking for hiding that specific post. Otherwise, nice app!

nanu2,

I second this one. The same functionality (swipe to hide) is also on Voyager. Once you’re used to it, you’ll really miss it if it’s not there.

evgiz,

Not sure I understand what you mean, should the posts be hidden permanently or just disappear once? For permanent hiding you could use hide read posts + swipe to mark as read

0oWow,

Many apps, like Apollo, offer the ability to “hide” the post by swiping it away. It would be a permanent hide and instant, without any other refresh.

I really don’t see the point of having to do two steps instead of one, which is what you’re suggesting do. It’s what I’m doing now, but it requires that we refresh the feed for them to go away (the second step), which is not ideal.

You already have swipe to “hide all above”, but not simply “hide”, which to be honest is kind of odd, and that is why I asked about pro.

We1chy,

Don’t know if it’s intended behavior or not, but when clicking on a post there’s no smooth animation, but when swiping back out of a post there’s an animation.

evgiz,

Nope, not intentional. Mind sharing your device/iOS version? I’ll look into it!

We1chy,

iPhone 13 Pro Max on iOS 17.1 beta, could be because of the beta, not sure if it happened before the beta or not.

video for reference

slin,

I have this issue too. No animation when opening anything (posts, settings, …)

iOS 17.1.1 Avelon 1.0.8.4 (TF)

TornadoRex,
@TornadoRex@lemmy.world avatar

I’m seeing an animation both ways. 15 pro max on 17.0.3

gromdroid,

The swipe to go forward works amazingly, congrats on the release! 🥳

evgiz,

Thank you! 😁

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