I tried to deal with forcing desktop old Reddit on my iPhone for a couple of days, it was absolutely awful - so tiny and cramped and difficult to read even on a 14PM. I wasn't sure whether I'd actually stop using Reddit but the reality is, as it stands, without Apollo or similar I probably will.
Have you tried the wefwef.app web app yet? I'm using that on iphone right now and it truly looks and feels like Apollo. Sometimes things don't load the first try with comments and upvotes but I'm hoping things will only improve from here.