When comparing Relay for reddit vs Today, the Slant community recommends Today for most people. In the question“What are the best Material Design apps?” Today is ranked 3rd while Relay for reddit is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose Today is:
In addition to day, week and agenda views that have improved aesthetics and usability features compared to the stock app, there are also two views that combine agenda and month views in interesting ways. One approach shows a complete, color-coded month with agenda view beneath it and the second shows a complete month that pops up agenda view when clicked on a date.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Easy to flip between content & comments
A great feature of Relay is the UX for swiping between the post and the reddit comments. It's very fast to go back and forth between the views.
Pro Excellent material design UI
Relay uses screen space efficiently and can be navigated quickly. It is mostly designed for viewing a single subreddit at a time and making that experience as pleasurable as possible, with easy access to a subs from a dropdown menu at the top.
Pro Tons of features and functionality
With support for multiple accounts, interface themes, and inline picture previews, Relay for reddit offers a large amount of features for any power reddit user.
There are also many unique functionalities that set Relay apart from the competition.
●It has a 'Remove unread' option to swipe away all read threads. This is especially useful when it's a large and busy subreddit with tons and tons of submissions, to the point where it can get overwhelming. This a convenient option for making your reddit-browsing experience a little easier.
●It offers compatability with the Multi-Window feature which is present on Samsung & L.G phones (soon to be present AndroidOS-wide). This greatly enhances multi-tasking.
●It offers an excellent Spoiler tag support and an AMA mode (conspicuously missing from its biggest competitor).
Pro Allows you to view a parent comment
To keep a better context of the conversation, Relay doesn't hide the parent comment while browsing.
Pro Animations make for more pleasurable usage
The abundant animations make browsing more enjoyable because it transitions so nicely.
Pro Fast GIF loading
GIFs are automatically converted to gfycat format; they therefore load much faster than on other apps.
Pro Clutter-free and well thought-out UI
The moment the user opens Relay for reddit and begins exploring all of its ins and outs, it becomes quite clear how wonderfully designed this app is. There is excellent UX for redditors who prefer discussions and news, rather than pictures, videos, and gifs.
● You can alternate between a cards and a lists UI with a compact list view optional.
● A drop-down menu of all your subreddits is present at the top for quick and easy access. If the user is adequately familiarized with the list, he/she can simply swipe on the banner so to quickly switch between subreddits.
●The comment format option is situated right next to the drop-down menu.
It's an all around wonderful application with many Material Design elements employed.
Pro Automatically loads optimized images based on screen size
The app will automatically load a lower resolution image that is a closer match to your screen size to save bandwidth, with a button to load the original image if you need more detail.
Pro Easily save battery with night time theme
The available night time theme allows the background to be dark with light colored text, which uses less battery on AMOLED screens.
Pro Easily moderate from the app
Moderators on Reddit are allowed more functions over a normal user on Reddit, which is possible to be used in Pro for Relay. With these features included in the app it's possible to approve comments, check modque, and get specifically labelled moderator messages.
Pro Colour coded collapsible comments
Pro Smooth as butter
Opening links, animations, and transitions, as well as scrolling, all work well with no glitches or missed frames. The app feels extremely smooth thanks to the attention to detail in all of its inner workings.
Pro Has improved common views and two great views that combine month and agenda views
In addition to day, week and agenda views that have improved aesthetics and usability features compared to the stock app, there are also two views that combine agenda and month views in interesting ways.
One approach shows a complete, color-coded month with agenda view beneath it and the second shows a complete month that pops up agenda view when clicked on a date.
Pro Polished agenda and month widgets
The app has minimalistic, semi-transparent, good-looking and customizable homescreen widgets for agenda and month views. Attributes that can be customized include choosing between light and dark themes, 12 and 24 hour clock, if the widget header should be displayed as well as adjusting opacity level and date range among other options.
Pro Actionable notifications
On-screen notifications have a shortcuts for map and ability to snooze them.
Pro Clean, good-looking design
Google Calendar has an easy to overview interface, that doesn't overwhelm with options. It's based on Google's stock Calendar application with modifications to user interface and functionality.
Pro Straightforward event creation
To quickly add an event, each view has an option to either click a plus button somewhere on the screen or long-press a date to bring up a form. The long-press form will allow entering only the event name and assume that it's an all day event, while the plus button form allows setting the event duration as well.
Both forms have an edit button for a adding more detailed information. This way in addition to selecting an event name and date, there's an ability to add location, start/end times, guests, description, color-code as well as choosing if it's an all day event, how often it repeats, how many and what kind of reminders are needed and setting your availability and privacy settings.
Pro Color-coding support
The app will color-code different calendars in different colors as well as allow selecting a different color for each event.
Pro Free 2-week trial
It has a 14-day trial and costs $2.99 to use full-time.
Pro Can set on-screen and e-mail reminder notifications
Google calendar allows setting how many reminders are needed with each having the ability to set how long before the event the notification should remind and if it should be done via on-screen or e-mail notification.
Pro Integrates with Google Maps for directions
The app leverages Google Maps when adding location for an event by offering suggestions as well as offers opening Maps to help get directions to an event via shortcut on a reminder notification.
Cons
Con Can not up/downvote comments
Con Can't disable sliding animations
Sliding animations are baked in & can't be disabled, as some don't like animations.
Con Non native image uploading
All images need to be loaded externally when wanting to view full screen, this means another app will need to be loaded, which can be slow and consumes RAM.
Con Poor feedback for network errors
Sometimes comment submission will fail silently and it isn't clear whether it went through.
Con Not open source
Accessing your reddit acount with proprietary software might not be safe.
Con No gallery swipe view
There is no way to swipe through a gallery of posts pics, which means each pic has to be individually clicked on and loaded, which takes time.
Con Sharing link/comment options buried too deep
At present, the sharing menu is buried deep inside: swipe an article > Click More > Swipe again > then Share.