Tweetbot Developer Tapbots Launches 'Ivory' App for Mastodon

[Abazigal]

Any reason you can’t just you know, use the native apps for these things? Native Twitter and Native Mastadon app working well, and I’m not paying extra. I think these gen z app developers need to deliver more meaningful products instead of some api shell that plugs on top of someone else’s successful product…

The reason is simple - the stock twitter app sucks, and ivory is a nicer experience over other free mastodon apps like Mastodon or Ice Cubes that I am happy to pay for a better browsing experience (and I have walked the talk by subbing to the highest tier).

It’s the same reason I browse Reddit using Apollo and am responding to this via Tapatalk (and Tweetbot before it shut down). The service is nothing without a nice interface to interact with.

 

[msackey]

Very happy with Ivory. It immediately feels like Tweetbot. I first was a bit ‘meh’ about Mastodon, but Ivory makes it feel a very big leap forward. So I decided to pay the 18 EUR a year. The guys deserve it.

I balked at the subscription service. I bought Twitterific rather than the subscription.

I wanted to buy Ivory and make it my main Mastodon client. Alas, it’s subscription only and I’m not going there. Subscriptions are like constant wallet drain. I’m happy to pay one-time fee (even $30 or more!) and pay again for major upgrades. But not for wallet draining subscription models.

 

[msackey]

crazy, almost like developers need to make a living in order to continue iterating on the apps they make for one of the most popular phones on the market

What did developers do in days before subscription model was common?

Let’s not forget that the subscription model is fairly new. It wasn’t always like this. Another model is pay for one-time fee and pay again for major upgrades if you want to upgrade.

I’m reminded that I read user reviews of 1Password 8 that indicated using FaceID to unlock has been broken for about a year and users end up having to type their master password each time instead of quickly unlocking via FaceID. How infuriating is it to subscribe to an app (draining money each month) to not be able to use such a fundamental feature? Nutty. Insane.

 

[msackey]

It is astounding how entitled some individuals are when it comes to apps.

While many are supportive and recognise talented developers who deserve support, there are those who will lash out, insult, and berate those who simply want to earn a living through their full-time jobs creating, designing, and maintaining these apps by charging a minimal annual fee equivalent to a few cups of coffee.

Could they offer both subscription model and one-time purchase fee? Some programs do this like Sebelius (music notation software). Some of us really despise subscription models which is a constant (and often unnoticed; forgotten) drain on the bank account.

 

[msackey]

I wonder how all these devs survived before Apple started to push subscriptions, they must have been all living on skid row.

Wait that’s news to me. Apple pushing on subscription? Any article links for a deeper read on this?

 

[macduke]

Mastadon is too complicated. It won't even let me create an account on the same server as MacRumors. Back in the autumn I had created one on some other server.

To be clear, I'm not saying it's too complicated for me. As a UX designer, I'm saying it's too complicated for mass adoption. People don't want to dork around with nerd crap like making accounts on different servers. Until they come up with a better solution to that, I don't see it gaining mass adoption. I hope it's successful.

 

[Bustycat]

Mastadon is too complicated. It won't even let me create an account on the same server as MacRumors. Back in the autumn I had created one on some other server.

To be clear, I'm not saying it's too complicated for me. As a UX designer, I'm saying it's too complicated for mass adoption. People don't want to dork around with nerd crap like making accounts on different servers. Until they come up with a better solution to that, I don't see it gaining mass adoption. I hope it's successful.

Why do you have to create accounts on different servers? A user can follow people from all federate servers.

 

[cdrider]

Tweetbot was barely updated despite them saying moving to subscription would enable them to do more updates. I certainly wouldn’t be paying them more than double for a Mastodon app based on past performance from them.

 

[ppetrovic]

It's literally a couple of guys making small, useful, delightful niche apps, a true indie app shop that I'm more than willing to support financially. I'm happy to pay for the subscription, and I also pay a cloud hosting fee in order to host my own Mastodon instance, which is all the beauty with federated social media.

It literally feels like the early days of BBSes (fun times) and for a change I get to curate my online social media presence, tinker with stuff I find interesting (I made my career in Linux system administration, after all) and just be a part of something cool.

It's fine if one doesn't care about any of this, in which case you're in the wrong forum thread. Don't spread the hate, touch some grass, life is (often) beautiful.

 

[7149041]

So it's like Reddit?

It's worse. It combines the worst qualities of Twitter and Reddit, resulting in a Twitter built around echo chambers and moderators with God complex.

 

[Joseph C]

Tweetbot was barely updated despite them saying moving to subscription would enable them to do more updates. I certainly wouldn’t be paying them more than double for a Mastodon app based on past performance from them.

There was a pretty substantial update literally days before Twitter pulled the API access...??

 

[revs]

Its a really great app, drop in replacement for Tweetbot. Luckily as well about 90% of the people I follow are now on Mastodon.

I don't quite get why people say its complicated, other than picking a server once t the start, its 99% the same as Twitter.

 

[CarlJ]

What did developers do in days before subscription model was common?

In the days before the App Store, developers charged much higher prices for most programs (e.g. $50+, not $5), and every year or two they came out with a major new version and the upgrade cost a substantial portion of the original purchase price. For really good apps, that I'm going to use a lot, I have no qualms paying for a subscription for an app. What I don't have time for is the "subscription for subscription's sake because the VC that funded development likes money" that goes on with some apps that are not really good. Ivory qualifies as really good, to me.

The opening of the App Store sparked something of a gold rush, to get apps into the store to sell to an easily reachable market of millions of customers, and then we got a race to the bottom, as some developers decided to compete on price instead of quality, driving away some of the better apps for ones more pedestrian, or even mediocre. And in the process, the public got the mistaken idea that software was only worth $3 or 99 cents, and got angry when prices were any higher.

So... I prefer one-time purchase prices on things rather than subscriptions, but I'll go with a subscription if I find the app especially useful (and in some cases, I'll go for the "lifetime unlock" for really great apps, if one is offered, like with Apollo).

 

[revs]

Tapbots gonna tap out of money pretty soon trying to develop for a dead platform. Poor use of funds. If I had paid for Tweetbot back in the day and saw the developers using that money for this, I'd be mad. Luckily, I didn't. Give it a year. Big L.

What do you suggest they do then? Twitter pulled the API, so they can't develop Tweetbot anymore, even if they wanted to.

They decided to take their existing product, spend a few months making it work for another service (They also tried doing the same for App.net back in the day).

Everything is a gamble, but I'd say being able to tweak an existing product for something new isn't a terrible idea. They didn't spend years on it. It's probably a safer bet than developing a whole new unrelated application.

 

[CarlJ]

Could they offer both subscription model and one-time purchase fee?

You can't do that directly in the App Store (that is, Apple doesn't support having two different "Buy" buttons - "Buy outright" vs "Rent"), but some apps work around this by having the download be free and then you can choose an in-app purchase for either a large one-time fee or a small monthly fee.

 

[msackey]

You can't do that directly in the App Store (that is, Apple doesn't support having two different "Buy" buttons - "Buy outright" vs "Rent"), but some apps work around this by having the download be free and then you can choose an in-app purchase for either a large one-time fee or a small monthly fee.

Yes, I’ve have some apps like that. That’s fine. I always go for the one-time fee.

 

[currocj]

Mastodon is on the rise! Happy to see so many people are transitioning over there for social media purposes.

Ha! It's the next MeWe or whatever tried to replace Facebook. It's going nowhere fast

 

[gank41]

Tweetbot was barely updated despite them saying moving to subscription would enable them to do more updates. I certainly wouldn’t be paying them more than double for a Mastodon app based on past performance from them.

From following them on Mastodon they've made it clear why certain updates to Tweetbot weren't released- LOTS of changes due to Elon, and then more changes. And then firings, including all of their Twitter Contacts that worked with the 3rd parties. Soooo... Since no one knew what would happen, they "stayed the course" and then eventually he shut them all off anyway.

As someone who's used Tweetbot since it was initially released however many long years ago, they make a GREAT app that rarely if ever NEEDS an update. And now that Mastodon is so open, and yes they are able to take some of the code base from Tweetbot for Ivory, but it's still different. Things they're unable to do with their Twitter app are now coming along great.

 

[Xano]

I wanted to buy Ivory, one time fee and I'm done. Subscriptions are like constant wallet drain, I'm avoiding that.
I’m happy to pay one-time fee and pay again for major upgrades, subscriptions are being avoided by many.

 

[gank41]

Also, to those calling Mastodon "a website", you're already wrong. Mastodon is a collection of a very large number of servers all connected in a federated way, unlike Twitter that is one single site (centralized).

And to the person's post that is now seemingly gone, complaining about what people's personal preferences and all that stuff "you don't care about", well guess what? Maybe pick another server? Or maybe don't care about the things you say you don't care about?? That's the best part about Mastodon- you can choose where you want to be. You're a nazi racist fascist? Alrighty! Sign up on the appropriate instance. You're LGBTQ+? Ok! Sign up on the appropriate instance.. It's all up to you! As opposed to Twitter where you'll be forced to see folks like Nick Fuentes. Don't like that? Too bad.

The fact that mastodon.social & mstdn.social aren't even accepting new sign ups (for now) should show how much it's grown. People keep calling Mastodon a fad or a single web page. Those are the folks that absolutely don't use it or understand it. Steer Clear of those folks' opinions.

 

[MisterSavage]

I got into the Ivory beta last month and I have been pleasantly surprised by it and Mastodon. A critical mass of people I follow and/or interact with either moved over or cross-post. I've really enjoyed it overall. Search does leave a lot to be desired though.

I have never really understood Twitter and how it is supposed to be useful. All I see when I open Twitter is a bunch of tweets and ads that confuse me. They are injected by Twitter and forced upon me.

Is Mastodon different in that regard?

Yes, it's totally different. There is no algorithm to show you content. Your timeline is people you follow but you can look at local and federated timelines if you want.

Wwhat exactly is the benefit of being part of any of these platforms? I mean really, what do people get out of something like Twitter that actually improves their lives on a daily basis?

As a developer it has helped me tremendously. I get to learn more about programming, see what others are working on, get tips on how they solved problems, get help with problems I'm having, etc. I've made some great friendships through it also.

The reason is simple - the stock twitter app sucks, and ivory is a nicer experience over other free mastodon apps like Mastodon or Ice Cubes that I am happy to pay for a better browsing experience (and I have walked the talk by subbing to the highest tier).

Agreed! The stock Mastodon app was very underwhelming to me.

 

[nburwell]

I tried to get into the beta, but it was always full. As soon as I saw this post, I immediately downloaded the app from the App Store. It definitely has a very Tweetbot vibe to it, which I really love. I’m slowly getting used to Mastodon and Ivory certainly helps with that. I’m ideally looking to fade Twitter and use Mastodon (Ivory) more.

Great job by the Tapbots team!

 

[boyarka]

View attachment 2147588

I don’t think Elon has to worry.

Mastodon is a hugbox just like Truth Social or Parler. I’m aware of the “oh it’s federated and totally unique!” argument, but in practice it’s just for people to create their own little ideological ghettos where nothing that challenges them is allowed.

I was about to write something, but you put it in text even better. Applause!

 

[Andronicus]

So for people that follow different news/rumors sites on several different social media sites could you please explain to me why? What is the point of seeing the same story posted on multiple apps?

 

[spercharged69]

Also, to those calling Mastodon "a website", you're already wrong. Mastodon is a collection of a very large number of servers all connected in a federated way, unlike Twitter that is one single site (centralized).

And to the person's post that is now seemingly gone, complaining about what people's personal preferences and all that stuff "you don't care about", well guess what? Maybe pick another server? Or maybe don't care about the things you say you don't care about?? That's the best part about Mastodon- you can choose where you want to be. You're a nazi racist fascist? Alrighty! Sign up on the appropriate instance. You're LGBTQ+? Ok! Sign up on the appropriate instance.. It's all up to you! As opposed to Twitter where you'll be forced to see folks like Nick Fuentes. Don't like that? Too bad.

The fact that mastodon.social & mstdn.social aren't even accepting new sign ups (for now) should show how much it's grown. People keep calling Mastodon a fad or a single web page. Those are the folks that absolutely don't use it or understand it. Steer Clear of those folks' opinions.

Honestly though Mastodon is better without these people on it. All the naysayers posting about what a rip off this app is, how Mastodon is a failure, and all that stuff are much better off quarantined on Twitter. It doesn't seem to matter what the platform is whether it's a web forum, a Facebook group, a subreddit, you name it, they all go through the same curve:

They start small, and are extremely fun because everyone vibes the same way... then they grow a bit more and start to have problems with trolls or people just joining because it's popular that otherwise don't really fit into the "culture" of the group / platform they're joining that begin to cause conflict. The small community that started the platform eventually just get tired of dealing with these people, then quit posting, and then pretty much nothing that you liked about the community remains.

To some extent, you even see this has happened on this very forum.

Right now Twitter is acting as an incredible firewall to keep that from happening on Mastodon. Elon has embraced and enabled the people that made Twitter awful to use, and Mastodon is much better off if they stay there. Mastodon can be a wildly successful platform with its existing userbase. One could argue it has been successful for years, particularly if your metric for success is the enjoyment you get out of it as a user and the quality of interaction you have with people on it.

Convincing the people you're trying to convince to give Mastodon a shot will objectively make that worse.