Not only did they make their own app, but there was an 11 year gap between launching Reddit (2005, granted smartphones weren’t a thing then) and when they launched their Official app (2016, well into the smartphone era exploding). And Reddit bought the iOS 3rd party Reddit app Alien Blue in 2014. It’s crazy of him trying to push the story that Reddit was never intended to be used by 3rd party apps.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/16/23763661/reddit-rif-is-fun-developer-ceo-steve-huffman
RIF developer pushing back on Huffman’s claims that RIF didn’t want to work with Reddit by releasing emails.