Specific native features that you're missing are platform controls, better UI performance, and support for APIs like notifications.

A comments section on a news site doesn't need high performance UI controls or native notifications.

The fact that Apollo exists and is popular (though, I personally don't think its controls are native enough) means that this isn't really true.

And Sync and AlienBlue if they're still around. It blows my mind that one dev is able to push out such a high quality product where the official app feels amateurish by comparison. It really highlights the difference between development that serves Reddit vs development that serves the user.

Yup, Reddit Sync is great, Relay for Reddit also! The official app is such a disappointment in comparison.

I found Apollo last year and was so impressed that it inspired me to finally get into iOS development.

Until then, not being much of a phone user at all, I'd been convinced that mobile experiences were always worse than desktop ones.