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Tag: Apollo

  • Apollo service to shut down on June 30 following Reddit’s change of API policy

    Apollo service to shut down on June 30 following Reddit’s change of API policy

    Well, this is a mess.

    Following the recent coverage, including our own, of Reddit’s decision to begin charging access to its API (Application Programming Interface) and the effect this has had on third-party clients, Apollo has announced that the API change is forcing Apollo to go offline completely.

    “Apollo will close down on June 30″ Christian Selig announced today. “Reddit’s recent decisions and actions have unfortunately made it impossible for Apollo to continue. Thank you so, so much for all the support over the years.”

    The issue at hand is Reddit’s decision to charge $0.02 per user for access to its service. While that doesn’t sound like much, Apollo would see a bill that estimated $20 million annually before ever turning a profit from developing the app.

    Christian offered the following explanation as to why increasing the cost of accessing Apollo isn’t a viable idea either:

    “Going from a free API for 8 years to suddenly incurring massive costs is not something I can feasibly make work with only 30 days, he writes. “That’s a lot of users to migrate, plans to create, things to test, and to get through app review, and it’s just not economically feasible. It’s much cheaper for me to simply shut down.”

    As such, Apollo will lose access to the Reddit API on June 30 to ensure that no cost is incurred under the new Reddit policy. Current subscribers will find themselves in a very similar situation to what Tapbots and The Icon Factory faced with Tweetbot and Twitterrific when Twitter effectively killed its free API. Once Apollo’s API is removed, it will no longer be able to access content from Reddit. This, in turn, could lead a number of users to request a refund on annual subscriptions to the app, which Christian estimates that he would be on the hook for a quarter of a million dollars if or when this happens.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

    Via 9to5Mac, the App Store, and Reddit

  • Apollo CEO highlights increased Reddit API fees, pressure on the third-party developer community

    Apollo CEO highlights increased Reddit API fees, pressure on the third-party developer community

    Reddit’s API tools are getting pricier.

    The maker of Apollo, one of the most popular third-party mobile apps for browsing Reddit, may have to close up shop due to Reddit’s recently announced new API (Application Programming Interface) pricing terms. Per app developer Christian Selig, Reddit’s API terms have jumped, and Selig would have to pay $20 million per year to keep running Apollo’s business as it currently stands. This also comes in the face of harsh criticism leveled Reddit’s way, as Apollo has been considered one of the best Reddit browsers given its updates, iOS-friendly design, and general ease of use, which has made the app a popular alternative to Reddit’s official client.

    The news comes on the heels of Reddit having assured the developer community that API pricing changes wouldn’t impact those who were building apps to help people use Reddit. Instead, the move was positioned as a way to protect Reddit’s sizable internet forum site from becoming free fodder for companies training their AI systems on large swaths of the internet. Reddit, in turn, seems to be looking to be paid for its “corpus of data,” according to a comment made by company CEO Steve Huffman in a recent New York Times interview.

    Acccording to Huggman’s comments, developers who wanted to build apps and bots and researchers who wanted to study Reddit for academic or noncommercial purposes wouldn’t have to pay for the API.

    Selig, in return, has commented that this is not the case.

    In a post on Reddit, the developer shared that, according to phone conversations he’s had with Reddit, 50 million requests will now cost $12,000 under the new API’s terms — “a figure far more than I ever could have imagined,” he wrote.

    “Apollo made 7 billion requests last month, which would put it at about 1.7 million dollars per month, or 20 million US dollars per year,” Selig explained.

    The developer also said that making the app only available to subscribers in order to cut down on the number of requests would not be a solution, either, as the average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which would mean the average user would cost $2.50 per month. That figure is over double what the subscription currently costs, Selig said.

    Selig stated that his company had engaged with Reddit representatives across multiple conversations to address these pricing concerns. While the interactions were characterized as civil and communicative, he expressed that he was “deeply disappointed” with the results.

    Apollo currently has around 1.3 million to 1.5 million monthly active users, and roughly 900,000 daily active users. Third-party estimates from app intelligence provider data.ai confirm Apollo has had close to 5 million global installs to date.

    “In fact framing it differently, even if I kicked out every user other than the ones that pay a subscription, I would still be in the red every month,” Selig lamented. He also says there’s no plan B in the works as he wasn’t expecting to receive this sort of news.

    Reddit’s decision to overprice its API access follows a similar move by Twitter, which cut off a large swath of its third-party developers ecosystem from being able to afford access to Twitter’s developer tools.

    Reached for comment, Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt provided the following statement:

    This is absolutely not aimed at “killing” any third-party apps. We have been in contact with third-party apps and developers, including Apollo, over the course of the last six weeks following our initial announcement about API changes, and our stance on third-party apps has not changed. We’re committed to fostering a safe and responsible developer ecosystem around Reddit — developers and third-party apps can make Reddit better and do so in a sustainable and mutually-beneficial partnership, while also keeping our users and data safe.

    Expansive access to data has impact and costs involved, and in terms of safety and privacy we have an obligation to our communities to be responsible stewards of data.

    Lastly, Reddit data for commercial use will need to adhere to our updated API terms of service and premium access program. We’ve had a long-standing policy in our past terms that outlined commercial and non-commercial use, but unfortunately some of those agreements were not adhered to so we clarified our terms and reached out to select organizations to work with them on compliance and a paid premium access tier.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

    Via TechCrunch, Reddit, and The New York Times

  • HP to end webOS development, spin off computer business and focus on software/services

    Even the mightiest can fall.

    Or be forced to radically restructure.

    According to Bloomberg, Hewlett Packard, the world’s largest PC maker, has announced plans to spin off its PC business and scrap its recently acquired webOS smartphone and TouchPad tablet business to focus on software and services.

    Per the report, HP “has been aiming to lessen its dependence on lower-margin PCs, where growth has stalled as consumers flock to tablet-style computers like those made by Apple.”

    Recent reports have documented HP’s slide, along with most other top PC makers, in shipments of new computers as Apple continues to grow its sales of Macs and particularly iPads.

    Apple was the only maker in the top 5 PC vendors of Western Europe to experience growth in computer shipments, and the company just surpassed HP in mobile PC sales, largely due to booming sales of iPads.

    HP has been unable to gain traction for its own iPad alternative, despite a campaign launched last year to buy Palm for US$1.2 billion and use its webOS to power a new generation of mobile devices.

    HP is scheduled to announce quarterly earnings after the market closes today, and is expected to detail its US$10 billion plan to acquire Autonomy Corporation, the second largest UK software maker, headquartered in Cambridge, as it spins off its PC hardware unit.

    Autonomy develops enterprise search and data processing technologies that look for meaning in text, voice and video data, whether in a database, files or streams. Much of its technology has origins in research conducted at the University of Cambridge.

    Following a series of mergers and acquisitions, HP represents a combination of Apollo, DEC, Compaq, 3Com and Palm, but is now valued at just US$62 billion, compared to Apple’s current market cap of US$338 billion.

    Apple acquired HP’s vacated “Executive Briefing Center” Pruneridge campus in Cupertino, California, and has plans to develop the site, along with adjacent land it already owned, into a futuristic new “Apple Campus 2” site, located one freeway exit away from its current Infinite Loop headquarters.