1y ago

As Twitter flounders, Mastodon refreshes its official app for Android users

techcrunch.com As Twitter flounders, Mastodon refreshes its official app for Android users

While Twitter is busy limiting the number of readable tweets and breaking its Tweetdeck app, open source Twitter alternative Mastodon is celebrating the launch of a significant refresh of its Android app. The new app, released over the weekend, features a complete Material You redesign — Google’s de...

Android @lemmy.world

techcrunch.com /2023/07/03/as-twitter-flounders-mastodon-refreshes-its-official-app-for-android-users/

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As Twitter flounders, Mastodon refreshes its official app for Android users

techcrunch.com /2023/07/03/as-twitter-flounders-mastodon-refreshes-its-official-app-for-android-users/

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I switched last year and haven't looked back! For me at least, Mastodon has been a much better experience than Twitter ever was.

And yet you still can't follow threads on their app, so on Tusky I'll stay
- How they still don't have it I don't understand.

Is this what everyone is using now? I was using Megalodon, Tusky, and the original app, but I've skipping a few updates of all of them.
- I use fedilabs, don't know if the other apps have caught up (hope they did) but the timeline function where you can add timelines from whatever instance you like and also have tags as timelines is so OP.
  Since I spend most of my time browsing other instance timelines that feature is a must.
  
  Just for me to understand this as I'm pretty new. Each instance has their own "timeline" aka homepage or feed with all content (people you follow, tags etc.), and you either have to access each instance separately or use something like the app you mentioned?
- I still use and love Tusky
- I'm mostly on Trunks.. and I occasionally glance at Megalodon. Both have been light on updates lately (maybe I'm just spoiled by the crazy pace of development on Connect for Lemmy right now).
  Based on their Mastodon posts, it looks like the Megalodon dev has been hard at work re-basing their app on the new official Mastodon app version. Still no public release of that to use that I'm aware of.

I've reinstalled it to take a shniff and I'm impressed so far, very clean and functional.
- You don't need to use the official Mastodon apps, they're not the best way to use Mastodon. The official apps only arrived last year, and they were intended as "Fisher Price My First Mastodon" things with a restricted set of features.
  Third party apps have been around longer than official ones, and include way more features. You can sign in with the same account on all apps.
  :android: On Android try Tusky, Fedilab, Megalodon, Tooot
  :apple_inc: On iPhone/iPad, try Toot!, Ice Cubes, Ivory, Mona
  As per Feditips: https://mstdn.social/@feditips/110644814293019308
  
  You can also use kbin to read, comment and boost mastodon 'toots'. That's what I do anyway.
  
  Any way to get the iOS apps to open Mastodon links by default?

The mastodon app on f-droid is marked as "promotes anti-features" with a description "This app promotes or depends entirely on a non-free network service" and I wonder why that would be, since there's also Tusky, Fedilab, Husky, and some others, none of which have a warning like that.
- Apparently it calls api.joinmastodon.org.
  
  Aaaah, that makes sense.
- Is the version fdroid even updated??
  
  it's version 1.2.3

Is it possible to view Matsodon from Lemmy platforms?
- In my cursory research, it seems to be possible to view mastodon through Kbin. And possible to view Lemmy through Mastodon.
  Lemmy doesn't have support for following user accounts, only communities.
  All the platforms use the same backend. So there's no reason full mastodon interoperability couldn't be added to Lemmy in the future.

Aside from Mastodon.Social are there any other decent instances? I'm considering joining one; I liked Twitter before Elon bought it and miss it.
Of course Im staying on Lemmy as well. :)
- There's a ton of established instances that have been around for awhile
  See: https://joinmastodon.org/
  
  Thank you, I ended up joining Fosstodon 😘
- mastodon.world is also maintained by Ruud, same Admin as lemmy.world
- I'm waiting on my blue sky invite
  
  To be honest I'm not seeing the appeal of a centralized Twitter clone.
  
  I tried it. It was awful.

I just deactivated both of my Twitter accounta. Done with the bs, I'll use mastadon for a while (and Lemmy).

Which Android client should I use for Mastodon ?
- I use Megalodon and I really like it. The base app is pretty decent though too.

Might have to give it a go, see how well they integrated the updated material design. So many apps still don't support adaptive icons and proper colors.
- I guess it depends on your interests. As for me, Twitter became such a cesspool they I don't want to even browse it. Mastodon on the other hand, is a breath of fresh air as I can find all my interests in there.

I hate Material U design. It is really like the Superflat design for 2020s with rounded corners and it looks really tedious.
- I'm not gonna lie I miss skeumprphism from the 2000's, I know a lot of people thought it was tacky but it had more character than this flat, low-effort boring shit. This new flat stuff from the mid-2010's makes it look like these companies got halfway through product design and quit.
  
  Na, there is a nice middle ground. I would rather have flat over the Skeumorphism if I had to pick between the two though. I thought it was hideous then, and I think it still is now lol.
- Word.
  Btw is there another Android app for Lemmy other than Jerboa? It feels like one of the biggest victim of the Material You template's drawbacks.
  
  Someone created this sheet that tracks all Lemmy/Kbin apps.
  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1m_MWfu72TQWiCV5aEH_Kb9PCFcqlRQK5a0yWl-XUjZI/htmlview
  
  Liftoff has a good UI but doesn't do federation as well as jerboa, not by a long shot.
  
  Connect for Lemmy is a good Sync clone until the official Sync app releases
  
  There's the webapp wefwef.app that seem very popular. I'm currently using Connect for Lemmy and it seems to work pretty well. I found a list of clients somewhere that I was planning to go through but that browser tab seems to have been eaten by the Wumpus (not the discord one).

The app isnt open source eh? I dont see it on fdroid.
- It is open source.
  https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android
  https://f-droid.org/packages/org.joinmastodon.android/
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.joinmastodon.android
  https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android/releases/latest
- "is it on F-DROID" probably isn't a great way to tell whether something is open source
- That's strange - it was uploaded to F-droid the day it was released. I have it installed from there and it works like a charm.

There are less Android clients than iPhone clients? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔That doesn't 🤔🤔🤔seem correct.
But 1.4M (active?) users since the twitter "exodus" doesn't seem bad. That probably means 2M joined and 1M stayed.

Mastodon is just so empty as a platform. I hope for its success but I am not seeing it at this point the way we are with Lemmy.
- This is a strange take - Mastodon makes up ~80% of the Fediverse, whereas Lemmy makes up like 3% or something.
  Mastodon is the entire reason the Fediverse as a whole ended up taking off - for most people, it is the only thing they are aware of.
  
  According to fediverse observer Lemmy hit 2.2 million users to mastodons 8 million, so it's up to like 17% now!
  
  I think the reality is just that microblogging is always going to be devoid of content when compared to a messageboard system like lemmy or reddit
- I Iiterally cannot keep up with my feed. You have to build a network there. It is not spoonfed to you.
  
  Which it should be if you want it to.
- If you're looking for the exact same celebrities you followed on Twitter, you're going to be let down.
  If you follow hashtags instead, there's a lot to like. In a sense, Mastodon almost seems more Reddit/Lemmy-like, in the fact that content is more discoverable by topic instead of person.
- I mean all your can do is engage with the community and actually work to get it up to what you want. I've commented more in the last 3 days then I did in 8 years on Reddit cause I want it to thrive
  
  Same, plus it's nice that people aren't hyper aggressive like Reddit was, nearly every time I commented someone told me to kill myself/ called me an idiot.
- weird, i've gotten the opposite impression! i joined mastodon and lemmy at the same time, and i'm finding that mastodon feels a lot more lively to me so far. granted, i haven't used twitter in years, so i haven't been comparing the two in my mind.
- You need to start following people and hashtags.There is no algorythm filling your timeline.
- My masto feed is really active, but I've also been there for a couple of years and migrated instances at least twice.
  
  How did you migrate between instance?

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