Narwhal 2 for Reddit Reviews

by Pjmaster78

I love using Narwhal2. It feels much cleaner and streamlined than the main Reddit app, and feels more like old reddit than anything else.

My biggest concern, and why Narwhal2 is 3 stars rather than 4, is that recently ads have become much more invasive. I don’t mind the banner ads that are occasionally at the bottom, or ads occasionally between posts while scrolling. What has become invasive is that there are now auto-play video ads that randomly take over the screen. They also sometimes open a browser and redirect to an ad page without being clicked. This is unacceptable and has caused me to research using another third party app or even switching to the native Reddit app.

More minor issues I have:

- lack of support for reading wikis and sidebars through Narwhal2 instead of in-app browser.

- lack of ability to add flair to posts or view user flairs as icons in comments

by AvvieAn

I used this a few years ago but stopped because the video player had a lot of issues and I think some other things. It runs much smoother and better now. The only problem I have is with the “hide all”/“hide read”/“mark all as read”. If you hide everything with or w/o marking as read, and refresh, everything you just hid is now unbidden. So hours of scrolling through things and then hiding all of that simply so it doesn’t show up yet again, only for *all* of it to show up again. It happens if you leave Narwhal2 for awhile and come back as well.

Thank you thank you THANK YOU for giving the ability to filter subs. I get so sick of seeing the exact same ones over and over on r/all and ones that I have no understanding of (like fandoms I’m not a part of).

EDIT**** now I remember why I deleted Narwhal. The “hide all” feature doesn’t work either as intended or as expected. It’s *so* frustrating when 100s of posts you specifically didn’t want to see again show up AGAIN AND AGAIN. I don’t mean to be harsh, it’s a great app. It’s just that one thing that ruins it for me.

by Dnsjfbf

I've been using Narwhal2 heavily for a few years now. Lately, Narwhal2 has been plagued by bugs which are making me consider alternatives. The most common issue I have is unresponsiveness, or freezing entirely, primarily when playing videos. I find myself having to force close Narwhal2 and reboot it several times a day, always related to watching videos. This makes for a currently awful UX as your place in Reddit is lost and you need to locate to your previous location which is sometimes near impossible.

Please fix these issues as this is by far my favorite Reddit app and I would hate to relearn the muscle memory.

by Rmt0058

i loved Narwhal2 for years and used it religiously, but lately it’s become too difficult. gifs with audio should be pretty standard by now but narhwal doesn’t play them in-app. the video player is constantly breaking and glitching out, right now it won’t play any audio with videos. the version history shows only occasional bug fix updates, but Narwhal2 desperately needs a rebuild (as was teased 2 years ago) and new feature set in order to stay relevant to what’s actually happening on reddit. i would love to come back if a true new version ever ends up releasing but until then, i’m switching to Apollo.

by Xocadaverox

I don't really browse on my phone all too much anymore. Some of the "features" laid around over lap each other and can be difficult to use. Like down voting can lead to upvoting or constantly opening the subreddit menu. The god awful sideways feature kicks in all the time like all other bad apps for the iPhone. I'm still on iOS 9.3.2, and that's not changing anytime soon, so I have to thank the people behind Narwhal2 for at least for keeping it optimized for my end, unlike the actual Reddit app. Last complaint, I hate ads, but I have Reddit gold!..but narwhal doesn't care. Overall I'd like to give it 3.5/5 bc it actually still works

by Zack Wall

This would be a 5 star review if their search function wasn’t absolutely horrid. You can’t look up an individual subreddit without having to dig through a bunch of other subs that aren’t relevant to your search. Give us the ability to look up a specific sub we want to join and this is an easy 5 star review.

Besides that, it’s got the best upvote/downvote swipes and being able to click on a post and read the comments while checking out the post is amazing.

Please just improve the search function.

by Ubelsteiner

I think Narwhal2 is one of the best ways of browsing reddit on my iPad. However, there is one complain I have: The left sidebar, where you scroll through the list of posts in a sub, is just too narrow.

There is the <-> icon at the top of the screen, but, from what I can tell, it can only be used to make the comments section on the right even bigger, but there is no way to make the topic section on the left any bigger than a narrow bar. Since every post title takes up multiple vertical lines, you can see fewer of them on the screen at once, and it takes a lot more scrolling to get through a sub than it would if there was a way to make the list wider (so that each topic takes up only one).

I would like to see:

- An option to at least split the screen 30/70, 50/50, or 70/30, between the topics list and comments view. This could be done by simply adding a couple more buttons at the top, near the existing one.

- And/or I think it would be nice to be able to use a horizontal 2 finger swipe gesture to slide the divider back and forth (essentially doing what the <-> is doing, only adding the ability to 2-finger swipe to the right to shrink comments and expand topics list).

- An option or button to set it so that the posts/topics list takes up a majority of the screen while you’re scrolling through it, until you tap on a post, which will automatically expand the article/comments side of the screen.

by JoelitoHH

After two weeks of use, here are my impressions off Narwhal2 :

It’s a good alternative to Reddit’s native app.
+ You can search directly for a user or subreddit,
+ you can upvote/downvote posts/comments with swipes (as well as reply, save, and more),
+ and many other functions more than the Reddit app.
+ It even has a neat little tutorial for basic use at the top of the screen!

However, I have several issues with Narwhal2 :
- Following a user seems vague (the “+Friend” is unclear to me),
- You can upvote/download posts & comments older than 6 months (which Reddit doesn’t allow), making me doubt if my votes are actually registering in the site.
• I know I can probably verify by accessing the post/comment from a browser, etc., but I don’t really wanna do that.
- The auto-preview is all-or-nothing, which will show photos & videos and direct you to websites upon clicking the post, or leave the post blank when clicking it. I haven’t figured out how to use it to my liking, so maybe it’s just a setting I missed or uninstalling-then-reinstalling Narwhal2 .
- Clicking the source link (e.g. photos/videos from Imgur) does not take you to it. My fingers might be too fat to choose it, or I’m doing it wrong. 🤷‍♂️

These aren’t objectively negative issues, just my opinion on what doesn’t work for me. It offers a different user-experience than other Reddit clients, which others will enjoy more than me. Keep up the good work folks!

by Iannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Narwhal2 came through clutch once I had to let go of Alien Blue. It took some getting used to since I used Blue for sooo long, but once I got the hang of the format I quickly learned to love it.

The ease of organizing your most frequented subreddits is probably my favorite feature. Also the search feature is great! Commenting is easy along with upvoting and downvoting.

Recently I’ve run into issues with a freezing bug. It has only gotten worse every day for the last week. Narwhal2 will just randomly freeze when scrolling forcing me to close Narwhal2 and wait a second before opening it up again. I’m sure this bug will be fixed, but it’s gotten to the point where Narwhal2 is almost unusable. Please fix it so I can go back to loving Narwhal2!

by TInYvonne

Narwhal makes it super easy and intuitive to read what my family calls “an extremely stressful and overwhelming amount of content” on a mobile device.

My ONE gripe is the video playback - occasionally, the video freezes on the first frame and I have to reload/fiddle with it to get it to play properly. And then when it does play and I want to skip to certain parts, Narwhal2 video player has no idea what to do and skips around, often jumping to the same moment in the video regardless of where I am scrubbing. Maybe it’s just me?

Otherwise, when I’m not viewing videos, Narwhal2 is pretty great

by 60FPSTech

I love Narwhal2 so much! I tried every reddit client out there before downloading Narwhal, and this is the one that works for me. I love it on my phone and ipad, and I wish reddit looked like it on the actual website. The ipad app, though, is so much better than the phone app.

Would you be able to allow plus-size phones and the X to work like the ipad UI in when turned to landscape? Not sure how much extra work it is, but I'd love it. I supported you guys and would really appreciate it if you'd add that feature. And please take care of the gifs that autoplay sound until Narwhal2 is force-quit. Thanks again for this awesome app!

by Switch214

Narwhal2 is awesome, but one thing i don't like is that if you leave Narwhal2 and then go back on it refreshes pretty often bringing you back to the top, this may be out of control for the makers though and thats understandable. One thing id really love to see and i think a lot of people would enjoy too is a folder setting for anything you save, for ex: if i want to save a song from a music sub id like to be able to create a folder specifically for music so i don't have to scroll through all the random crap i save. I hope you guys take requests like that, i know it would make my narwhal experience 100x better :D

by Ceekay Mars

Update: i still love Narwhal2 but one nagging issue is that my keyboard lags severely only when using Narwhal2, the screen will also freeze up entirely in Narwhal, I have tried force closing , clearing cache etc in Narwhal2 , restarting device, but it still occurs and only happens when using Narwhal2 , needs an update to fix. I am On iPad mini 2 , OS 12.3.1. Prior review: I love this Reddit client app,surpasses the official Reddit app, it has more free customizations than Apollo, better UI as well,I love the sliding action to upvote , downvote, etc , the two pane design looks great on my iPad. Great job developers, I can also change Narwhal2 icon, 10 stars!!!!

by Keezie88

I started on reddit five or six years ago after my soon to be wife got me started. I’ve since moved from desktop browsing to constant browsing on mobile and narwhal is a vast improvement over the mobile site with customization options I couldn’t live without.

It’s highly stable and I’ve never crashed or even seen a bug with Narwhal2 . GIF browsing is fast and the slide to upvote, downvote, and hide post make things so simple and streamlined.

10/10 would use again.

by Sambaa88

Been using narwhal since it was first launched. UI has always been sleek and smooth. Doesn't limit functionality. The ability to customize everything is always a plus. The developer is always eager to hear feedback and implement changes quickly through timely updates. After a few months of use, I couldn’t help but pay for Narwhal2 as i felt i wanted to give something back to the devs for an app that i use multiple times, every day.

by Orbitalpunk

I’ve compared narwhal to the official Reddit app a few times and narwhals strength is it’s simplicity and layout in its interface that makes browsing thru Reddit very fast and efficient. The official Reddit app is so busy and poorly laid out. With narwhal I can scan more posts in a shorter amount of time. Plus narwhal has single tap comment collapse and automatically marks posts as read and has the “mark all above as read” feature and even a “hide all above” to organize posts better so you don’t keep re-reading the same post titles. If you go through tons of posts per day on Reddit, narwhal is the better choice. It has better control over font settings too. I hope the creators never mess up narwhal and try to be more like the official Reddit app with more flashy icons that are just not necessary.

by OneNEETOtaku

Coming from iAlien (which I was very happy with) was kinda weird. The menu bar being on the right than the left was hard to get used to also. BUT as time went on Narwhal2 gained more traction and more customization options kept being added. Things like what happens to a video or post when force touching (for force touch compatible devices) or what icon you prefer to use. Dark and light mode with a single tap! No going through settings to change the mode when viewing at night or day. The font you read can be changed. Literally almost everything can be changed to your liking. You can even hide certain menu options that you find yourself never using at all. Hopefully one day they add an option to switch the menu tab from the right to left lol.

Recently a new tab was added called recently viewed and my goodness I did not know how much I actually would use that tab. I always find posts I find interesting but forget to save it and wouldn’t be able to find it later. Now I just go to that tab and it’s there! It’s super useful.

by Joshua Gilmore

I’ll admit that it took me a while to try out Reddit Is Fun. I stubbornly clung to the official reddit app, excusing the poor loading times, frozen videos, and constant loss of connection on my service provider. After switching apps, I’m happy to say that all of those problems “mysteriously” disappeared. I’m not usually the sort to rate an app, let alone leave a review, but I just have to say it. If you’re frustrated with Reddit’s official app or their mobile site - use Reddit is Fun instead. You won’t regret it.

by Ooo-Baby-A-Triple

I’ve been using Narwhal ever since Alien Blue was no longer in service and I love Narwhal2 so much I paid for the premium features. However, after this last update any posts with A gif or gifycat or gify as the host for the link are unplayable. They just appear blank and I can’t seem to get it to work no matter how many times I restart my app, device and even my WiFi and phone service. Since half of reddit is just gifs it’s been a real inconvenience. I hope this bug gets fixed soon, I love Narwhal2 and the developers are fantastic.

by Fluffy-face

I’ve tried several Reddit clients. Yes, even the one that was huge in 2017. And yet this is the client I come back to. This client has everything some of the other clients offer for money—logins for multiple accounts, dark mode, icons, and more. And what I really like about this client is I can preview a webpage in Narwhal’s browser while looking at a Reddit thread at the same time. I haven’t seen a feature like it in other Reddit clients or even the official app. This client is totally worth paying the developers to only remove ads.

by Quality Reviewer

The devs mentioned that a lot of people complain about the icon, but that they have no intention on changing it.

It's weird right. You don't see such complaints on other Reddit apps. But the devs are perfectly fine to tell you to go elsewhere if you are unhappy. Wouldn't it be polite to respect the user a bit.... Maybe not use a color scheme and art direction that clashes with every color scheme and wall paper you could pick? Many different people want a solid Reddit app. To go "well we like the design so we won't change it"... Isn't that an indicator of a developer who doesn't care? Any time Narwhal2 is brought up, the design of it, the mascot eating bacon... The devs have no respect for the breadth of content that can be consumed on Reddit and how cohesive a dolphin eating bacon and a vegetarian subreddit might mesh. Or maybe adults who look at philosophy subreddit who are looking for a more serious experience. It's just a selfish decision, and I hope developers star really caring about what the people want.

Edit: and the fact that you can customize Narwhal2 icon means nothing. This creepy cartoon is still everywhere in the interface.

by D The Mighty

Came from alien blue (loved alien blue), the transition took maybe a day or two at most and frankly I would hate to not have the features narwhal brings to the table. The gesture based system is great and makes things a total breeze. Took me a while however to realize pressing hard on a post would open it in the main view instead of having to actually open the post but now that that’s figured out there’s not much more I’d ask for from an app!

by Wojovox

I was an Alienblue user when it was a good app. Then Reddit bought Alienblue just to destroy it and replace it with the official Reddit app which I only hear bad things about. Narwhal took the best of what users love about Alienblue and expanded upon it. The $4 to make this ad-free was more than worth it. Narwhal2 is so good, the developers are selling t-shirts now due to demand. And now, with the update of true black mode, no more greyscale night mode; this things looks absurdly polished now. Just pick this up and never return to another Reddit client that leaves screen real estate to die on the sides or never go back to official Reddit nonsense.

Update: severe issues with multiple accounts. Sometimes I have to uninstall/reinstall to get back to my other account.

by Fabio B. M.

Really good app, nice design, gestures work very well. I've been using it for a quite a while and decided to review now since I saw the devs asking for people to send reviews in the update notes (which is so much better than if they threw a pop up asking for reviews inside Narwhal2 ).

One of the very few apps I've paid for the complete/ads-less version, and it was totally worth it!

Support for Reddit videos has come right on time! Keep up the good work and the regular updates!