Reddit’s only free iOS app icons are ugly now

If you’re not a fan of the new pixelated Reddit icon on your iPhone, I have some bad news: unless you want to switch to an icon themed around the Dogecoin dog or WallStreetBets, you’ll have to subscribe to Reddit Premium to be able to use an icon that just features the regular Reddit logo, as spotted by 9to5Mac’s Benjamin Mayo.

Below are the current options. (I put them together side by side so that you won’t have to scroll through a giant vertical image.) The free ones are “OrangeRed” (the pixelated one), “Doge,” and “Wall Street,” while the icons with regular Reddit logos are at the bottom of the list.

If I paid for Reddit Premium, which costs $5.99 per month or $49.99 per year, I’d have access to benefits like more custom app icons, ad-free Reddit browsing, and the r/lounge community. But I don’t, so I’m stuck with one of the three free icon options, all of which I dislike.

This admittedly isn’t a huge deal for me; the Reddit app usually lives in a folder in my App Library, so I don’t see it every time I go to my homescreen. But if Reddit is one of your homescreen apps — or has recently joined your homescreen lineup after Reddit’s new API pricing forced some third-party apps to shut down — I can see how you might not be pleased with your current options if you aren’t a Premium subscriber. And if you’re already unhappy with Reddit’s recent decisions to remove chat history from before 2023 and get rid of its Gold awards system, the limited choices for free app icons might be that much more frustrating.

If it helps, the Doge and Wall Street icons will apparently only be available for “a limited time.” But it’s unclear exactly how long that might be or what options will be available if those are switched out in favor of other free choices.

Reddit didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. A colleague tells me the default icon for the Reddit app for Android is also now the pixelated version, but if you don’t like that and don’t want to pay for Reddit Premium, you might have an easier time swapping in your own app icons on Android than on iOS.