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After Twitter unceremoniously decided to ban all third-party apps, a developer who was on the receiving end of this decision took what he learned from his own Twitter app and created a dedicated client for Mastodon on iPhone and iPad, called Ivory.
Developed by Tapbots, consisting of Paul Haddad (opens in new tab) and Mark Jadine (opens in new tab)Ivory is reminiscent of Tweetbot, the previous third-party app for Twitter, but looks and feels much more polished than other attempts at Mastodon apps we’ve seen in recent months.
Are available for $1.99 / £1.99 / AU$2.39 (opens in new tab) as a monthly subscription, or $19.99 / £14.99 / AU$21.99 for a year, but you can sign up for a 7-day trial to see what you think.
Apps like Mammoth and Mastodon’s own app used to be fine, but Tapbots has its own style, which has carried over into all of its apps, like Calcbot and Pastebot, which is why Ivory has evolved into my default Mastodon app (opens in new tab) for the foreseeable.
Tweetbot died so Ivory could live
If you’ve used Tweetbot before, Ivory will feel very familiar to you; but even if you haven’t, it’s classified as a Twitter app, so someone coming to Mastodon as a new user will feel right at home. You have one bar for notifications, mentions, search, and your profile, but you can customize three of them if you want easier access to filters, favorite toots, and more.
There are many more ways to make Ivory your own, including changing themes and color styles, in addition to many different icons, including one in honor of Tweetbot. You can make the app your own with all of these options, which should appeal to someone switching from Twitter to Mastodon.
There are also plenty of widgets that you can place on your iPhone and iPad home screens to display your latest followers, images from your timeline, stats, and much more. Each of these widgets is well implemented and they make a strong case for them coming soon to macOS.
There’s also a clever ‘Open in Ivory’ extension in Safari for when someone sends you a link to Mastodon via iMessage or WhatsApp, for example, so that Ivory can open the toot in Mastodon, saving you the trouble.
For a version 1.0 release, there’s plenty to enjoy here if you use Mastodon, but it’s no surprise. Tapbots has taken what it learned from Tweetbot into Ivory, and it shows. It feels like Ivory has set a standard for other third-party apps to aspire to, and shown the way forward for developers – that is, by focusing on their own style, rather than trying to conform to Mastodon along the way. to fit.
It’s an impressive release that’s already on my iPhone and iPad – and I’d love to see a macOS version.