Tweetbot creator Tapbots this week released Ivory for Mac following months of beta testing, bringing its well-designed Mastodon app to the desktop. Mastodon is a social network that gained popularity following Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter last year.
A new "Universal" subscription tier allows users to access Ivory across the Mac, iPhone, and iPad for $24.99 per year, or users can subscribe to the Mac app on its own for $14.99 per year. A free seven-day trial is available and provides access to all features, and the app can be used in read-only mode without a subscription at any time.
Ivory has a similar design as Tweetbot, a third-party Twitter app that Tapbots was forced to abandon after Musk cut off their access to the platform. Tapbots promises to add new features to Ivory as development continues, but the app already provides one of the best experiences for using Mastodon on the Mac. MacStories editor John Voorhees published a review of Ivory for Mac yesterday for a closer look at the app.
Ivory can be downloaded from the Mac App Store. The app requires a Mac running macOS Ventura or later, according to the listing.
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That said, I generally agree with the sentiment. Twitter "worked" as a platform for conversation because virality and discoverability is built into its genes. Mastodon is the exact opposite. It's HARD to find people unless you actually know them, and that's just not a great way to connect with new people.
But that's okay. Not everything needs to be a Twitter clone, and Mastodon doesn't WANT to be a Twitter clone, so maybe people should stop acting like it is?
Update: yes I’m aware how it works with different instances, but already that creates problems and is annoying. Better twitter alternatives to Mastodon exist already: Reddit and Discord. Twitter is much better than all three for getting broad information and divergent opinions. Reddit is ok for having certain focused questions answered, but beyond that I find it has some serious vampire energy going on. It may help if Reddit just got rid of downvotes altogether. It might rectify some of the groupthink on there. With Discord I’m not in love with how it works at all. Twitter also has many features for muting certain words, topics and conversations (which I use to make my experience more pleasant and a bit less political) and not too many ads. Curating your own experience is infinitely better than someone else censoring for your experience.
And unlike YouTube, for example, when you block an account on twitter it stays blocked even in search. YouTube make it impossible to block the most annoying accounts and I’ve sent them feedback many times on this for years but they obviously don’t care about their users because they don’t listen. Blocked should mean 100% blocked, always. No excuses. Twitter definitely isn’t perfect but phones are mostly toxic anyway.
You can set one up just for yourself, and post your thoughts and then censor yourself.
Some people want that, which is fine. They just need to be realistic about the reach.
Compare this with Twitter ?: