Reddit’s iOS and Android app receives its biggest update in years

Reddit’s mobile app doesn’t often get major updates, but this week was an exception, as the company added a new “discovery tab” and lists for managing subscriptions.

at Blog post When announcing the feature, Reddit says one in five users joined at least one new community after using the Discover tab. Jason Costa, Reddit’s Director of Content and Communities Product, provided the following statement in the blog post:

We’re entering a new era of discovery on Reddit, with a focus on photos and videos. We make it easier to discover relevant content and communities with the Discover tab. It’s a great new way for people to explore and interact with hundreds of thousands of communities around the world.

The Discover tab is now in the top-level app navigation, replacing the Communities & Subscriptions tab. Clicking it will take you to a scrollable grid list of Reddit content from a variety of subreddits you might not already follow.

Reddit says that the Discover tab populates content based on both the subreddits you already follow and the amount of time you spend on them. So if you spend a lot of time on r/OLED, the tab will likely be showing content from another home theater or tech subreddits. On the other hand, if you subscribe to r/Xbox but don’t visit it often, you might occasionally see content from the Halo subreddit, for example, but not as much as a topic you interact with often.

Reddit says it won’t use demographic data like age, gender or location to make decisions about what content to show you in the Discover tab — it’s entirely based on your Reddit browsing and your previous post.

You can also delve into categories like ‘Tech’ or ‘Sports’. And you can provide feedback on individual pieces of content with options like “Show me more of this content,” “Show me less of this content,” or “Hide that content,” which will affect what appears on the tab in the future.

There are a number of other changes as well. For example, many features can now be found from the Communities and Subscriptions tab by swiping in from the left. From there, you’ll have the option to access posts on the subreddits you manage, sort and customize your communities, rate the list of Redditors you follow, and of course, go to the r/all entry point.

All of this is on the official Reddit app for iOS and Android of course. There are many third-party Reddit clients, but Costa told The Verge That there are no “plans to expose the API at this time.” The Discover tab will also not be available on the web version of Reddit in the near future.

The new tab is rolling out to Android and iOS users on Reddit now, although not everyone will see the update pop up at the same time.