Hey all, I want to give you an update on what is happening with Narwhal. I've been talking with Reddit a lot about the API changes and what it will mean for Narwhal.

Narwhal is not going anywhere on July 1st. It will continue to operate as it has for many years (except it will not have ads anymore). Over the next few months, I am going to be adding subscriptions into Narwhal 2. The subscriptions will be there to cover the cost of using the Reddit API. I am still figuring out what to do for heavy power users, but there may be a base plan which includes X number of API requests/month and you can top up your balance with another purchase. The subscription will likely be in the $4-$7 range to start. It may change based on total usage of the app (either up or down) to cover the costs of using the reddit API.

Yes, this means Narwhal 2 is finally going to see the light of day. Is it perfect? No. Is it as finished as I wanted it to be before I released it? No. But it makes the most sense to put subscriptions in Narwhal 2 instead of the current app.

TLDR; Narwhal is not going anywhere on July 1st. Subscriptions will be coming over the next few months.

Ask me anything in the comments and I'll do my best to answer! Also, let me know if this is something that you actually want me to do. Are you willing to subscribe to continue using Narwhal?

Thank you everyone!

Hey y'all,

I had a call with Reddit yesterday where they went over API pricing with me. Unfortunately, the pricing is exorbitant and I would need to pay somewhere between $1 and $2 million a year to use the Reddit API. In case it isn't obvious, Narwhal does not make anywhere near that amount of money so we cannot come even close to affording this.

So what does this all mean? I'm not really sure. Reddit says they are going to start charging for the API on July 1st. The most likely scenario there is that Reddit will just shut off the narwhal API key and the app will stop working. I wish there was something I could do, but there aren't really any options.

I might still release Narwhal 2 with a $5-10/month subscription for you diehard users out there. I am not trying to make any money there, it would only be to cover costs.

What I personally would want is for Reddit to allow Narwhal to exist for free as long as I commit to not making any money from Narwhal (i.e. taking out advertising). I asked for this from Reddit and have not heard back as of this time.

Feel free to ask my any questions. I'll answer every question below.

As I'm sure many of you have seen today, Apollo, Sync, Reddit is Fun, Relay, ReddPlanet, and more have announced they will be shutting down on June 30th. You may be wondering what will be happening to Narwhal.

It is basically a meme at this point, but I have been working on Narwhal 2 for quite a while now. I would still very much like to release this app to the world so that others can use it. In order to do this though, the app would have to be offered as a paid subscription only, otherwise we couldn't cover the costs of using the Reddit API. Even with a subscription, there are still a couple things I am hoping to work out with Reddit in order to continue Narwhal:

1. Cost of using the Reddit API. We would just like to reduce the rate of the API in order to make it more tenable for you all to pay a monthly subscription. The lower the cost of the API, the lower the subscription will be for all of you to use Narwhal. I am still hoping to work on this point with the Reddit team.

2. Timing. As many of you know, Narwhal has always been a side project for me. I have a day job where I am the CTO of a tech startup. I won't be able to finish Narwhal 2 and put subscriptions in it by July 1st. I would love some more time from the Reddit team to get ready for the transition. I've told them this and I'm still waiting to hear back. I'm optimistic they will work with me on this point.

I hope that answers any questions you may have about Narwhal for the time being. If you have any others, put them in the comments and I'll answer as many as I can.

I appreciate all your support over the years, and if I can work things out with Reddit, I’d love to keep building Narwhal for years to come.

Apple pulled narwhal out of the app store today because reddit contains NSFW content. We are working our hardest to get narwhal back in the app store.

EDIT: It appears other major clients have been pulled from the store too.

EDIT 2: I heard back from reddit that they did not request this. This is solely because of Apple.

EDIT 3: We are back in the app store https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/narwhal-for-reddit/id845422455?mt=8

Hi y'all!

Progress is going very well. I'm putting all the finishing touches on the messages section of the app this weekend. Compose messages, respond, view comment replies, etc. It truly is becoming a joy to use everyday, and when I go to use narwhal 1 as a comparison, I find myself immediately going back :)

Everyone is always asking why we don't share more information. The main reason behind that is many of narwhal's best features were copied by other apps and devs. That is why we want to wait to share all of our best ideas until we are ready. When the beta comes out, it will be 100% feature complete and we will only want help with bug testing (and future feature requests of course).

The big news with this post is that I am going to be taking a 6 month leave of absence from my job. I saved up some money so that I can afford to do this (took me a while), and I will be dedicating all of my time to getting narwhal 2 to the finish line. I am really excited to be able to work on it everyday and finally show everyone the finished product when it is ready.

Cheers!

det0ur

Edit: fixed when I updated this morning!

gfycat links won’t open in the app, but work just fine when I use “Open in Chrome” or “Open in Safari”.

Anyone else having this issue?

Once “new” Reddit started on desktop and old.reddit kept redirecting to the new one, I exclusively used narwhal and narwhal only. At this point everything else feels like a completely different experience.

Hello all!

For those of you who don't already know, we are working on an entirely new version & re-write of narwhal. We are modernizing the design, adding features, and making what we think will be the best reddit client out there.

Lots of you have been asking us to share updates, screenshots, timelines, etc. and unfortunately we don't have anything to share yet. You only get one first impression and we are perfectionists :) We want the beta of narwhal 2 to be a fully functional reddit app that is already better than narwhal today.

We hope that you all can bare with us as we continue to work many nights and weekends towards the release of narwhal 2. Trust us, it will be worth it :)

I'm happy to answer any questions here. Cheers!

With the announcement of Apollo shutting down, can we expect the same for Narwhal?

If so, it was a great run. Thanks for making this fantastic app!

https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/

Obligatory fuck u/spez

Hi, all!

Like so many, I am going to be migrating from Apollo to Narwhal. I would like to use this thread to collect information from other users who have used both platforms to help ease the transition. Some guiding questions I came up with include:

• what things/differences are going to trip me up?

• what settings are going to let me do x, y, z like I can do on Apollo?

• what differences am I just going to have to live with?

• what differences are going to make me say, “Oh, I didn’t even KNOW I wanted to be able to do that!”?

Thanks a lot!

We really got slammed with bad reviews because of the pop up ads that we hate just as much as y'all. If you can review 2.11 it will really help us regain our position in search results. Also, please let us know if you see any weird ads. We are working hard to get rid of them 100%

• Adds alternate app icons to advanced settings (iOS 10.3+ only)

• Re-order your subscribed subreddits in the menu customization advanced settings

• Tap menu headers to collapse that section

• Customize which menu sections are shown or hidden in the menu customization advanced settings

• Re-order menu sections in the menu customization advanced settings

• Updates youtube code to minimize video load errors

• Falls back to web view if a video can not be loaded for some reason

• Fixes issue where safari view (links in comments) would show a blank white screen

• Fixes issue where you would accidentally reply to yourself in a message thread

• Fixes links in comments to /r/all and /r/popular

• Fixes issue sharing links that contain #

• Fixes issue where passcode is not erased after re-installation

Let us know what you’d like to see in the next version!

Hi All!

It's time for another update on narwhal 2. Before we get started, I just want to clarify a few things:

• Narwhal 2 will have a one-time purchase to remove ads.

• The Narwhal 1 purchase will carry over

• We may offer a subscription service for people who WANT to support us in that manner

• Narwhal 2 will be the best reddit app out there.

With that cleared out of the way, lets keep this thread focused on the app itself and not the ad purchase :)

Progress so far is going great. I am personally using narwhal 2 everyday as my main reddit app (as opposed to narwhal 1). It is faster, and frankly more fun to use. While we don't have anything to show you yet, we promise you that there are some awesome new features that will excite you. When the beta drops, it will be a fully functional app that just needs to be bug tested :)

In this thread, we want to hear about what excites you about narwhal 2 and what features you want to see the most! Do you have any ideas that you've wanted to see in narwhal for a long time? Let me know and I can make it happen!

TLDR; Narwhal 2 is going well. It will have a one time purchase to remove ads. Lets keep this thread focused to the app itself and not about the ad purchase.

Hello everyone!

I've had a pretty insane start to 2020. I don't want to get into it too much because a lot of it is personal. Unfortunately, I was in a bad car accident and there were some other major unfortunate things that happened in my life around the same time. The good news is that my life is just now getting back to normal and I will be spending much of my nights and weekends on narwhal 2!

As you all know, progress has been slow but steady. Our ambitions for narwhal 2 are extremely high, which is why it's taking so long. We are truly trying to create the very best reddit client out there from day 1! Sometimes we have to scrap entire things we've poured dozens of hours into. But, when it's the right call, we do it in order to make the best app.

I am still using narwhal 2 as my personal reddit app everyday. With that said though, I do not use nearly as many features as many of you, which is why I'm not ready to share anything yet. I may start dropping some partial teaser screenshots here and there, but we simultaneously want to be protective of the cool features we have dreamed up and are working on!

This may not be the update you were hoping for, but the main takeaway is that I am going to start picking up the speed again here. Please remember that I do have a full-time job and I only have my nights and weekends to work on narwhal.

I can't wait for the day when I can drop the beta :)

Cheers, det0ur

Hey y'all. 2.12 is out and ready for iOS 11. I'm gonna be shameless as always and tell ya that 5 star reviews really help us with app store rankings and search. If you wouldn't mind giving us a review, we'd really appreciate it :D

Here are the release notes:

• Updates app and fixes bugs for iOS 11

• Adds support for reddit videos (v.redd.it links)

• Adds recently viewed links under "explore" in the menu

• Adds advanced setting to collapse stickied comments

• Fixes issue where comments would take a long time to finish closing

• Removes background audio advanced setting and sets audio to always mix with background audio. This will fix the bug where videos stop having sound

• Temporarily removes share to unlock because iOS 11 removed sharing options. It will be back!

• Fixes issue with links being copied twice on sharing

• Fixes other issues with sharing where links would not show up at all

• Fixes a crash when subreddits are loading their links

• Fixes issue where web links would continue playing audio after going back

• Fixes issue where saving GIFs takes up disk space

I’ve been browsing Reddit for apparently 8 years now, and of those 8 years, I’d say 7 of them have been on Narwhal.

I love Narwhal. I downloaded multiple alternatives, including Apollo, some Reddit Alien shit, but always came back to Narwhal.

At some point I paid like $5 for the ads to go away - the app was amazing, and it was a small price to pay to avoid the random “intrusive fat man vid” that plagued the app at some point (I hope some of you know what I’m talking about).

Narwhal has been my bottom-right home screen app on my iPhone for as long as I can remember now. Even after I couldn’t see all the new “awards”, or avatars, or all the comments in a chain just said “gif”, I still loved my Narwhal.

But Reddit is now a shell of what it was when I first started using it, and as absolutely AMAZING Narwhal 2.0 is, I just can’t justify paying for Reddit, no matter how awesome the platform. Hell, if I knew my money was going to the Narwhal devs I wouldn’t have a problem, but this whole API monetization scheme is just too much.

That said: goddamn do I wish the Narwhal dev team all the best going forward - you are all amazing, truly amazing, and I thank you, sincerely, for all the hard work you’ve done over the years.

Not sure how many days I have left on the “free” version, but boy am I gonna enjoy every second of this sleek-ass UI until I get locked out :)

Hey y’all! 2.10 is out in the App Store this afternoon. As always, reviews get wiped with each version and reviews really help us out! Please leave a review if you have a minute :) Here are the goods:

• Adds hide read/hide all/mark read buttons at the bottom of each page of links

• Adds /r/popular next to frontpage and all in the menu

• Fixes issue with a lot of Youtube videos not loading

• Fixes issue where GIFs would cause background audio to lower volume

• Adds custom volume indicator when adjusting volume

• Adds passcode lock option in advanced settings

• Usernames and subreddits are tappable in message lists.

• Adds support for reddit spoiler post tags

• Adds advanced setting to choose what should happen to background audio while watching a video

• Adds upvote ratios to posts

• Puts add shortcut button in subreddit options menu.

• Increases the tap size of the comments button in post lists

• Adds advanced setting to not show hide read/hide all buttons

• Adds advanced setting to always expand post titles

• Adds help section to advanced settings (Thanks /u/celsiusnarhwal!)

• Fixes bug where single comments were not able to be tapped

• Fixes bug where the last line would not have markdown formatting applied

• Fixes bug where white screen would show when clicking a message link

• Fixes bug with media view autoplaying after rotation.

• Fixes issue where scroll to top stops working in self posts

• Fixes issue with UI freeze after pausing or finishing a video

Let us know what you’d like to see in the next version!

So over the last few days I've seen more than a few posts from people who request features and bash on the app and why it doesn't have this or that.

I understand that this app is a change from what you're used to and it's different and it doesn't have some features right now which may be useful, but some posts literally straight up had people saying the app sucks or had a list of things 'why isn't this like this, why isn't this like that', which would pretty much make it an Apollo clone.

If you don't like it, don't use it, it just feels like people are frustrated because their app is gone and now they want Narwhal to turn into their old app.

It’s big update time! Thank you for all your great feedback that helped us get to this point. We appreciate it a lot!

If you like what we've been up to and want to show us some love by leaving a review, it would be a huge yuge help! Even resubmitting your previous review is really helpful because all reviews get wiped out with each new version. Thanks! (and sorry for the nagging) Now, onto the good stuff:

• New reddit markdown formatting support! Including...

• Spoilers!

• Strikethrough!

• Superscript! Oh my?

• Completely new markdown editor and compose screen for creating posts, messages, and comments

• You can now pull down on the new comment screen to see and copy what you’re replying to

• A very much needed quick access lenny button

• Image uploading! Including album and caption creation for posts

Plus these many highly requested features and bug fixes:

• Expands link tap area in comments

• Adds gilded icon for posts and comments

• Adds more font options for larger text

• Adds plus button on links for quick access to add a comment

• Adds reset cookies option to preferences

• Adds hidden to menu customization

• Adds advanced setting to not load web links by default

• Adds advanced setting to start the app in /r/all

• Adds advanced setting to mark posts as read in 3d touch

• Adds preference to always load images in links

• Adds preference to always load links in 3d touch

• Fixes issue with app store links not working

• Fixes faded buttons in Safari when in night mode

• Fixes issue with weird characters showing up while editing comments/posts

• Fixes bug with "0 years" in user profiles

• Fixes issue with disappearing edit buttons on advanced setting screens

• Fixes issue with share urls being invalid

• Fixes issue with meta links not being read (ex: /r/bestof)

• Fixes issue with web view links not responding to tap

• Fixes issue with oddly spaced / empty rows in subreddits

• Fixes a ton of different crashes that you reported

And last but most importantly…

• There is a new arnie loading indicator on some subreddits! Let us know if you find it ;)

Just a friendly reminder that in version 2.2 we had to remove the settings around NSFW content in order to comply with Apple's review guidelines. We will now obey the settings from your desktop reddit.com preferences, so make sure those are set to your liking.

As always, if you ever have any issues or feedback please contact us anytime at /r/getnarwhal or at [email protected]. We're here to help. We read all of your feedback as well and we're constantly adding new things to our todo list based on it. Come hang!

PS: We’re going to be improving the GIF and image viewing experience in the next update. Stay tuned!

Also, the App Store takes some time to update so it might not be out for you yet, but it will sometime today!