this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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Arctic

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Arctic is a Lemmy client for iOS built on pure Swift. It currently supports iOS 15+ and Lemmy v0.17+

Get the latest version on TestFlight, or check it out on the AppStore.

If you would like to support Arctic’s development, feel free to Buy Me A Coffee

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Download Arctic on the AppStore!


I am thrilled to announce that Arctic is now available on the AppStore! Looking back, it's amazing to see how much progress Arctic has made in the last six months. Initially, I began working on Arctic as a personal project to fill the void after leaving Reddit during the API fiasco. I had no intention of releasing it publicly. Now, I have a fully-featured Lemmy client, a fantastic group of beta testers on TestFlight, and an official release on the AppStore.

However, the journey isn't over yet. I have many exciting plans for Arctic, and this is just a significant milestone. Going forward, I plan to release more targeted updates on TestFlight and create a public roadmap for AppStore releases.

I would like to thank everyone who was involved with Arctic's TestFlight for all the valuable feedback and suggestions that have helped shape Arctic!


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[–] slin@feddit.de 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Congratulations on the release, and thank you for your work so far!

I'm excited to see what comes next.

I love using Arctic!

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Thank you! It’s been a lot of fun so far, and like you I’m excited for what’s to come. Also, thank you for all the support and feedback along the way!

[–] glowie@h4x0r.host 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Perfect! Thank you. I went to make a donation through the app but forgot it's TestFlight mode so it isn't real. Do you have a buymeacoffee.com or other means? Want to help in order to get widget support (⊃。•́‿•̀。)⊃

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

I do have a buymeacoffee, you can also find it in the sidebar for the Arctic community, or on getarctic.app. I’m not able to add a direct link to other payment options in the app due to AppStore policies.

I’m working on a bug fix, and feature request build right now, but the next release I will add some widgets and other extensions. I know we talked about this a couple of weeks ago.

[–] orangeNgreen@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

Just sent a few coffees your way ☕️

[–] glowie@h4x0r.host 3 points 9 months ago

Perfect. Thanks

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Working on widgets today, I’ll hopefully have a few ready by this evening.

[–] glowie@h4x0r.host 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

٩(◕‿◕。)۶ thank you!

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I didn’t quite get them ready yesterday, but I almost have the first set of post feed widgets ready.

large medium small options

I’ll hopefully have these ready by tomorrow, I still have a bit to do improving the layout and adding variants for the display style. I have a bunch of other ideas for widgets too, but if you have any requests, I’m happy to add them to the list.

[–] glowie@h4x0r.host 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Those look great! My only request is the ability to show from multiple communities from my home feed. Thank you

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I think I have this first set of widgets ready to go. I should hopefully be able to release them tomorrow.

About the multiple communities, do you mean multiple communities in the same widget, or different communities for different widgets?

Right now you can select an account and use your home feed (subscriptions) as the listing type. Or you can choose individual communities for different widgets. If you mean multiple communities in the same widget, this may have to wait until I add support for community groups in Arctic just because the widget settings UI would not allow for configuring multiple communities in a user friendly way.

As for community groups in Arctic, I actually stumbled upon something the other day that resolves one of my key concerns about community groups, so I may be adding support for those very soon.

[–] glowie@h4x0r.host 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh nice, yes if it will already show posts from whichever would show in subscribed home feed then that's perfect. Looking forward to them (っ˘ڡ˘ς)!

Only other request I might have for the app as a whole would be to create an "All" view when viewing a user's profile, which shows both posts/comments in chronological order. Thanks!

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Perfect, I’ll either release the widgets tomorrow morning, or in the evening when I get home.

An all feed is definitely a good idea! I was actually planning to completely rewrite the profile view. So I can surely incorporate that in the process. Actually I’d make that the default feed for the profile rather than comments. Thanks, I hadn’t even really thought about that.

[–] orangeNgreen@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Community groups would be an awesome addition!

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I’ve wanted to incorporate these for a while now, and I’ve just been putting it off primarily for performance reasons while loading multiple feeds concurrently. I finally found a solution that handles this quite well, so I’m definitely excited to incorporate groups.

I’ve been holding out hoping that lemmy would incorporate this in the API, which I believe they have planned, but with the fragmentation of communities on Lemmy, I’d like to add support for this sooner rather than later.

[–] slin@feddit.de 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Would it be possible to group similar posts / crossposts like on the web interface?

That would be a neat feature.

(this is photon web interface (), this is default lemmy web ui), both show crossposts below the original posts, but photon ui is more detailed than lemmy web ui.

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

I’m working on this right now. It will basically embed the original post in the cross-post similar to the web-ui and other clients.

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Alright, I’ve added support for embedded Embedded Crossposts. I should hopefully be pushing out the next update either this evening, or tomorrow.

[–] slin@feddit.de 2 points 9 months ago
[–] glowie@h4x0r.host 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Hey thanks so much for releasing the widgets. Loving them. What are your thoughts on having an option for removing the subheading so the up/downvotes and community can be moved there. This way you might be able to squeeze one more item there. This could be completely optional in case others like the single item view. But here's a screenshot of a Mastodon app that fits two posts in the widget. Thank you!

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

For this I was actually planning to add a separate set of widgets for multi-post layout. I had thought about adding an option to the existing ones, but the settings menu is rather limited, and I did not want to offer the option in the small widget.

I should be adding multi-post and full-size image widgets in the next update. I’d never made any widgets before these, and they are actually quite fun to work on.

[–] glowie@h4x0r.host 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh awesome sounds good! Thanks ヽ(♡‿♡)ノ

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This was a little later than I had initially planned, but l finally added in list style widgets in yesterdays update.

[–] glowie@h4x0r.host 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh hell yea! Looks great. Thank you! My only request here is if it's possible to allow option for true black background like it had before? Thank you so much 😎

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I recently updated Xcode to target iOS 17 devices, and in doing so widgets now have a different background configuration. I’ll do some testing to see why the background is not the proper color. On iOS 15x the background is still black.

[–] glowie@h4x0r.host 1 points 8 months ago

Ok, greatly appreciated if it's possible. Thanks for all the work you've done so far. Legendary

[–] Veedem@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Thank you! I’m super excited about it.

[–] ardi60@reddthat.com 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I wish you add widget support

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is planned. I should have widgets in the TestFlight build by next week.

[–] ardi60@reddthat.com 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Cool, I wish the widget is I can my latest home feeds from widget without opening the app

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

I’m planning to add quite a few widgets. Not all of them will be included right away, but will be added gradually. I’ll definitely add one for the home feed, or feeds for specific communities.

[–] Levsgetso@lemmy.zip 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Congratulations! One of the best lemmy apps out there, so excited it’s finally on the App Store!

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thank you, that means a lot! I’m super excited to have made it this far.

[–] Levsgetso@lemmy.zip 3 points 9 months ago

You’ve made an amazing app, you deserve it ❤️

[–] th3dogcow@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Congratulations. That’s great news! Should we continue to use the test flight version, or switch to the AppStore one?

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thank you! I’m very excited about it.

Should we continue to use the test flight version, or switch to the AppStore one?

It really depends on how you want to use Arctic. Currently the latest TestFlight release is the same as the AppStore version. Going forward, the TestFlight will usually be ahead of the AppStore version, but you may encounter more issues. So if you’d like a more stable experience, go with the AppStore version, or if you want to help test new features, stick with the TestFlight version.

[–] th3dogcow@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Got it! Happy to keep testing.

[–] JaymesRS@literature.cafe 3 points 9 months ago

Nice job. Downloaded it so I could use the tip jar link, but I’ll probably stay on the Test Flight.

[–] micha@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Congratulations on the milestone! It’s a great app already! Looking forward to how it evolves.

[–] CreatureSurvive@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Thank you! I’m very excited for what’s to come!