Hey everyone! I’m thrilled to announce Lemma, yet another Lemmy client for iOS!

As a longtime fan of Christian’s work with Apollo, like many others in the Lemmy community, I embarked on developing Lemma when Apollo closed its doors. My goal was to create a native feeling iOS experience that captured the essence of Lemmy.

What began as a personal project to challenge my technical skills has now evolved into something remarkable. I’m delighted to share Lemma with the world, even though it’s still in its beta phase. I’m continuously working on adding more features every day. At the moment, the focus is on optimizing the viewing experience and discovering new communities. Soon, I’ll be incorporating features like submitting new posts and responding to existing posts and comments.

Key Features:

  • Super-Charged Media Viewer
    • From videos and GIFs to (Imgur) albums, Lemma supports it all.
    • Lemma goes the extra mile by parsing the body of posts to find even more media than most other apps. For example, it can collect all images inside a markdown post, displaying them in a neat image album overview.
  • Powerful Search
    • Lemma seamlessly integrates with Lemmyverse.net, making it easier than ever to discover new communities.
  • Fully Customizable
    • Personalize your experience with 16 themes (both dark and light mode), 6 comment color themes, and a compact post viewing mode.
  • Swipe Gestures
    • Upvoting, downvoting, or saving a post? With Lemma, it’s just a swipe away.
  • Share as Image
    • Sometimes, a picture says more than a thousand words.
  • Safari Extension
    • Effortlessly open Lemmy content in Lemma using the built-in Safari Extension.
  • Cross-Post Support
    • Stay updated with cross-posts in your feed.
  • Multiple Accounts

TestFlight

In the coming days, I’ll be launching Lemma on TestFlight for a closed beta. If you’d like to be part of Lemma’s development, sign up using the form below:

https://forms.gle/38YK7Merm1MzzcP89

Join the Lemma Community:

Excited about Lemma? Want to connect with other users, share feedback, and stay up-to-date on the latest developments? Join our community at lemmy.world and be a part of shaping the future of Lemma!

!lemma@lemmy.world

    • gromdroid@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      37
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I get it, right now it’s not perfect, but I’m starting with a closed beta to work out the kinks first. Once we’ve got that sorted, anyone can hop in and join the beta with a simple link (:

      Edit: It is indeed like @mrmoj0rising said a way for me to invite people to the group in TestFlight. I’m pretty new to publishing apps on TestFlight too, so I’m still learning as I go but I figured this was the best way to start.

    • mrmoj0rising@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      He says it’s a closed beta, so I assume it’s so you can be contacted with the TestFlight link, and then perhaps to cross reference your Apple ID/iCloud in TestFlight to verify the right people have accessed the Beta?

      I don’t know, I’m just guessing. Hopefully OP will clarify.

  • Nero Recursive@jlai.lu
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    27
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Yes, an email linked to an Apple account is mandatory for TestFlight. Nothing surprising here

  • eoddc5@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    Was this built off of memmys open source build? It looks incredibly similar.

    Icons. Icon placement. Layouts. Bottom bar. Theme drawer.

    • gromdroid@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      22
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      I can see where you’re coming from, since I have a separate page on my homescreen with all the iOS Lemmy apps as well, but I built this UI myself. However, I must admit that my design has been greatly influenced by Apollo (like a lot of other Lemmy iOS apps). In fact, I have a folder filled with Apollo screenshots that I captured before it went offline, using them as a source of inspiration. While I genuinely believe that Memmy is an exceptional app with a lot of features that I haven’t even built yet, my main objective was to challenge myself into building an app that has the same native iOS feeling like Apollo.

      • eoddc5@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        22
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I’m curious why the layout is identical though. It’s not some random “it’s all inspired by the same thing”

        Your icons are the same. Layout is the same. It’s a little odd.

        • fer0n
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          38
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          The icons aren’t original to memmy, they’re icons that Apple provides and they encourage/make it easy to use them

        • slin@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          You realize that Memmy looks like Apollo? That’s not “Memmy’s look”, that’s Apollo’s look that every iOS app tries to copy (including web app like voyager).

            • gromdroid@lemmy.worldOP
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              20
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              It’s not some random “it’s all inspired by the same thing”

              But it is? I think Apollo has a special place in the hearts of most iOS Reddit users, so it’s only natural that we use this as inspiration. For example these are screenshots of Apollo that I used:

              For the icons I’m using Apple’s SF Symbols, which is probably the same as Memmy uses.

    • fer0n
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think they both look similar to Apollo and use default iOS icons/UI. I believe them when they’re saying they take Apollo as an inspiration, why wouldn’t they?

  • scytale@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    If it can embed and play gifs and videos within the app instead of opening an in-app browser, it will definitely put it in front of the race between other apps currently available. I’ll wait for the open beta so I don’t need to sign up with an email.

    • armrods@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Wait what, no other iOS app is doing that? I’m glad I’m using Sync on Android (bet others app do it too)

  • eoddc5@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    20
    arrow-down
    11
    ·
    1 year ago

    It looks nice but there’s absolutely no reason you need to collect anyone’s personal information for this

    Pre release of a Lemmy app you’re asking people to give you their first and last names and personal emails.

    No thanks man.

    • fer0n
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Would’ve been better to release the TestFlight link, but that shares your email with them anyways. So I get where you’re coming from, but it actually doesn’t make a difference. And it makes sense to have a way for people to sign up for when it releases.

      Edit: TestFlight doesn’t share email addresses with developers, I misremembered

      • eoddc5@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’d rather give that info to Apple thats connected to an intentional test flight app and agreement than to a Google form that doesn’t necessarily do anything but build a database of our personal info

        • fer0n
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          My bad, I thought the user’s email addresses are visible in App Store Connect, but I misremembered. They’re actually hidden, so you‘re right.

          I started using “hide my email” everywhere anyways, so whoever wants one of these throwaway addresses can have them.

  • ChrisLicht
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    1 year ago

    Are you concerned that there is already an app called Lemma in the iOS App Store?

  • L1C4U5E@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Looks really nice from the screen shots! The more options the better. I went ahead and signed up to hopefully get in the closed beta.

  • haroldstork
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Looks really good! Excited to give it a shot when the TestFlight is public. Keep up the amazing work :))

  • mrgoodc4t@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    @gromdroid do you think you’ll add the finger scrubbing of gifs/vids in the future? It was one of my favorite Apollo features and one I haven’t found replicated on a lemmy app yet. The first one that can do that like Apollo did, has my use for life

    • gromdroid@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      That’s definitely on my list! Together with Share as Image, those two were my absolute favorite features of Apollo