Apollo on ipad is torturous. I use it on mobile, but narwhal blows it out of the water on ipad.

What's the problem on iPad? I used Narwhal briefly, before Apollo, but it never particularly impressed me, though I can't name any specific faults either - maybe the design language, which doesn't feel very native or in line with iOS' overall appearance.

It's not optimized for tablets, just scaled. Narwhal displays a normal ipad-oriented layout like mail.

Downloading it now to give it a whirl. Thank you for the recommendation!