{"id":39497,"date":"2023-05-24T15:56:04","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T19:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=39497"},"modified":"2023-05-29T09:39:09","modified_gmt":"2023-05-29T13:39:09","slug":"ivory-for-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/05\/24\/ivory-for-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivory for Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tapbots<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Ivory is free to download, but requires a subscription to use. You may subscribe and immediately cancel to activate a 7-day free trial and evaluate its features in full. Outside of the trial and subscription, the app is limited to one account and limited to read-only mode. The iOS+iPadOS app<\/a> is a separate subscription, but there is a bundled discount if you want use Ivory across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Joe Rossignol<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

John Voorhees<\/a>:<\/p>\n

What Ivory brings to the growing field of native apps is what we saw with iOS and iPadOS: impeccable taste and snappy performance that few other apps can match.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Ivory’s multi-column design is the most readable of any Mastodon app I’ve used. It’s easy with multiple columns of text and media for a multi-column window to look cluttered, so it’s a testament to Ivory’s design that it’s as readable as it is. One of the touches that helps a lot is that instead of including a tab bar for each column, Ivory uses drop-down menus at the top of each column to allow users to pick what the column shows. That eliminates a lot of duplicative interface elements you find in other apps like Mona.<\/p>

I really appreciate the additional columns I can open on the Mac. When I use Ivory on my iPhone, it’s usually to read my own timeline. However, when I’m at my Mac, I’m usually working and want to keep tabs on the mentions coming into our MacStories accounts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

I discovered in the interregnum that the traditional Twitter client paradigm is not ideal for me. After using NetNewsWire to read Mastodon<\/a>, I find that I prefer reading posts by account rather than mixed together in a timeline. I like having unread indicators and being able to bulk-mark certain ranges, accounts, or folders as read. I like not worrying about losing my scroll position or losing access to older posts if I take too long to read them. I like single-press archiving<\/a> to EagleFiler.<\/p>\n\n

That said, the combination of RSS and a Web browser is awkward and slow for basically any interaction other than skimming\/reading, though Homecoming for Mastodon<\/a> helps. I’d like to be able to use Ivory for these other tasks and to handle multiple accounts. I’m a bit put off, though, that it feels so much like an iOS app, in ways that Tweetbot didn’t. The Settings window seems even more constricted and rigid than System Settings, and I can’t close it with Command-W when it’s showing a subscreen. On the other hand, without Catalyst<\/a> there wouldn’t be a Mac version today.<\/p>\n\n

More importantly, I can’t stand being forced to use Universal Links<\/a>. Universal Links that I could opt into would be great, but it seems like you can still only manually opt-out on a per-click basis. If every Mastodon link is going to switch to Ivory instead of staying in my browser—or, worse, open in Safari with a “Do you want to allow this page to open ‘Ivory’?” alert—I’m afraid I’ll probably have to uninstall it.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n