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Universal Twitter alternatives: Mastodon & co apps

oMc

oMc

macrumors 6502a
Oct 17, 2010
676
675
Finland & France
I also decided to subscribe to Ivory just because it feels so good and familiar after 10 years using Tweetbot.
Yeah it's pricey (18€ per year here) but I can spare 1.50€/month on something I am going to enjoy daily. Looking forward to the macOS app as well, although I was kinda hoping we would be able to use the iPad app on Silicon Macs.

But I will definitely keep an eye on Ice Cubes, it is very promising.
 
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pacorob

pacorob

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Ivory has a smooth UI but lacks still so many features (see the comparison sheet). I prefer features over UI at the moment. Also the subscription price is a bit too much for me. I will keep using Ice Cubes on iPhone (already gave the developer a one off payment and also support him via GitHub as well. Hope to see iPad column support coming and a bit smoother timeline, GIF support and faster loading times and some bug fixing.

Yesterdays update to Woolly is also nice however it it buggy since then (app closes). I hope a fix will be done soon for that by Matteo the developer. It does also still need quite a few basic features to become a daily driver. I do like the slick iPad column layout as only a few apps offer (Ivory Woolly, Mammoth and official app).
 
dannyyankou

dannyyankou

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Mar 2, 2012
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I really want Mastodon to succeed, but now they have 1.4m active users. Last month it was 1.8m. Maybe that will reverse at some point, but if you want notable people to join your platform, the user base has to grow.
 
it wasnt me

it wasnt me

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Apr 18, 2019
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The open bugs in Ice Cubes are too many right now - I had to report one more. I surely wish the developer had more help - it’s Open Source, after all!

Evaluating Mammoth as my only client while it’s in beta - quite good software, except a few rough edges in the timeline. I guess it won’t be free when it’s “released”, so I’ll keep Ice Cubes installed, just in case…
 
R

revs

macrumors 6502
Jun 2, 2008
454
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UK
dannyyankou said:
I really want Mastodon to succeed, but now they have 1.4m active users. Last month it was 1.8m. Maybe that will reverse at some point, but if you want notable people to join your platform, the user base has to grow.
Click to expand...
I think i've been lucky in that 90%+ of people I followed on Twitter are on Mastodon.

it wasnt me said:
The open bugs in Ice Cubes are too many right now - I had to report one more. I surely wish the developer had more help - it’s Open Source, after all!

Evaluating Mammoth as my only client while it’s in beta - quite good software, except a few rough edges in the timeline. I guess it won’t be free when it’s “released”, so I’ll keep Ice Cubes installed, just in case…
Click to expand...

As Mammoth are also hosting their own instance to make signup easy, it'll have to be a paid app, and probably subscription, so that they can continue to run the instance.
 
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pacorob

pacorob

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it wasnt me said:
The open bugs in Ice Cubes are too many right now - I had to report one more. I surely wish the developer had more help - it’s Open Source, after all!

Evaluating Mammoth as my only client while it’s in beta - quite good software, except a few rough edges in the timeline. I guess it won’t be free when it’s “released”, so I’ll keep Ice Cubes installed, just in case…
Click to expand...
I agree Ice Cubes comes with so many features, however I'm bugged out more and more about the slow response time for data to appear which I though at first had to do with my instance but it's the app itself. Also when I do a search it first keep indicating no results while I'm still writing what I want to look for. The UI is also not as slick as others and the timeline is sluggish. Also I really want to see an option to swipe the images away (not yet possible in that app) and a column layout on the iPad like Ivory, official Mastodon app, Mammoth, Woolly and Trunks offer. Mammoth will definitely be subscription based. I'm curious if trunks will not be that and more like Ice Cubes or a pay once app like Toot or Mona.

I've noticed that Mammoth launched a new TestFlight and another icon not sure why. It is packed with features but I keep skeptical towards long term updates and pricing. Also early TestFlight was really buggy.

I have been using Woolly in recent days which has a great tablet layout but it constantly crashes and still lacks some essential features.

This morning I stepped in on 'trunks' (Mastodon account, TestFlight) and oh my that is a really nice Mastodon client. It is available in TestFlight (and also on Android). I still got a feature list I want to see but it is already packed with quite some features and it is slick, fast en has a great column layout so for iPad this will be my main driver and possibly soon as well if the developer gives lists and followed hashtag (not yet possible) a better place then where it currently is.
 
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pacorob

pacorob

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it wasnt me said:
It won't let me login with my instance: "NoSuchKey". Well, no test for me then. (Reported, of course.)
Click to expand...
I noticed someone else mentioning that in a response on Mastodon. I haven't had any problems on iOS. I did notice that it kept loading on iPadOS when trying to login. I had to close the app and re-open but it was logged in then. I've also send a list of feature wishes and bugs. I e.g. noticed that you can't delete an image from a post when you edit it (let alone replace it).
 
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Abazigal

Abazigal

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Jul 18, 2011
20,399
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pacorob said:
Ivory has a smooth UI but lacks still so many features (see the comparison sheet).
Click to expand...
Ideally, the devs would have more time to work on Ivory, but Tweetbot getting disabled forced their hand.

tapbots.com

Ivory for iOS

A Mastodon app based on the award-winning Twitter app for iOS.
tapbots.com tapbots.com

They do acknowledge having numerous features missing and are working to adding them. But as a long-time lurker, it's good enough for me. Ivory feels smoother and faster and it's really tweetbot for Mastodon.
 
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pacorob

pacorob

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Apr 8, 2010
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the Netherlands
Abazigal said:
Ideally, the devs would have more time to work on Ivory, but Tweetbot getting disabled forced their hand.

tapbots.com

Ivory for iOS

A Mastodon app based on the award-winning Twitter app for iOS.
tapbots.com tapbots.com

They do acknowledge having numerous features missing and are working to adding them. But as a long-time lurker, it's good enough for me. Ivory feels smoother and faster and it's really tweetbot for Mastodon.
Click to expand...
I'm aware that they were still developing it and need to earn money since Tweetbot was no longer working due to the API pull from Elon. The subscription price is however pretty steep I think. I'm subscribed to some apps but this is a bit too much for me. I will probably go for Trunks of Mona if Trunks also will become pay once as Mona announced. Woolly will become subscription based I think as will Mammoth. Ice Cubes first needs to smooth things out.
 
MisterSavage

MisterSavage

macrumors 601
Nov 10, 2018
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revs said:
I think i've been lucky in that 90%+ of people I followed on Twitter are on Mastodon.
Click to expand...

Same. People keep post usage graphs/stats and talking about how it's nowhere near the usage of numbers of Twitter. Finding it hard to care when I'm already getting a healthy amount of usage from Mastodon already.

pacorob said:
I'm aware that they were still developing it and need to earn money since Tweetbot was no longer working due to the API pull from Elon. The subscription price is however pretty steep I think. I'm subscribed to some apps but this is a bit too much for me.
Click to expand...

For me the justification was $1.25 a month for something I'm using every single day works for me.
 
pacorob

pacorob

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Mona became available in open beta via TestFlight yesterday. I've therefore added it to the Mastodon client comparison sheet. The amount of supported features is quite impressive. Not as far yet as e.g. Ice Cubes or Toot but comes seriously close to it and it's fast and great tablet UI. Also I'm looking forward to the 1.13 release of Trunks in the upcoming days.

I really want to like Ice Cubes but the fact it takes so long time to load and the UI is holding me back to use it. I tend to use Mona now on the iPhone and switch between Mona and Trunks on the iPad although Trunks is still a bit more limited in features and lacks a true multiple column layout it does have a great UI and filters and so nice and clean.
 
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MisterSavage

MisterSavage

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pacorob

pacorob

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Trunks update 1.1.3 has become available. You can now see the edit history of a post and schedule a post.

I really love that you can watch the app also on iOS in Landscape mode (quite unique for a Mastodon client I think) so have a small iPad in the palm of you hand ;)

I do hope the features below are added soon to make it a daily driver on iOS. I do really love the slick clean UI.

Feature wishes I hope to see before the App Store beta release as of version 1.2.0:
- dedicated area for followed hashtags
- machine-translate posts in timeline
- Notification banners / Badge on app icon
- fix bug that you can't easily move the cursor within a post / using 'paste' takes ages to show
- social keyboard shortcuts above creating a post @ / #
- Add GIF from Giphy database to a post
- Read-access to publicly browsable instances
- Multi-column option to show e.g. timeline, lists and notifications side by side (currently you can only see two columns with e.g. timeline posts side by side
- Shows whether person follows you
- Type beyond character limit while editing
- URL is counted as 23 chars
 
pacorob

pacorob

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Apr 8, 2010
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Another great update of Trunks version 1.1.4 is expected in the upcoming days on iOS/iPadOS/Mac (Apple Silicon only) besides the web client (which already has the features implemented). The developer also indicated that he will submit it to the App Store this weekend as well.

An overview of the expected features & some bug fixes (see for bug fixes earlier link):
- Lists, Followed Tags, and Instances available in top level navigation (pin)
- Post translations
- Social keyboard (# / @) support
- Type beyond character limit while editing
- Urls are 23 characters
- Per instance customizations
- markdown support
- Show relationship details on profile pages (see if someone follows you)
 
it wasnt me

it wasnt me

macrumors 6502
Apr 18, 2019
270
163
the internet, mostly
pacorob said:
Cons: slow response time, timeline has hickups, has some bugs which hopefully get resolved soon.
Click to expand...

re: Ice Cubes, this is mostly solved by now, even the response time has been decreased a lot. :)

It looks like new Mastodon clients are still being born, like Stella*. It's actually sad to have missed the point in time where I could have become rich with writing one myself. - I have uninstalled Woolly when the developer announced his prices. Last time I checked, he still considered one-time purchases though.

I also played with Trunks again, and although I don't like its (weird) GUI, it is intriguing because it is one of the few non-SwiftUI clients in the list.
 
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