Ivory for Mastodon by Tapbots Reviews

I’ve been having a good time using Ivory and I’m really hopeful that one day mastodon will be a suitable replacement for Reddit after the whole mess they’ve been causing this past month. I just have one issue right now. I’ve been trying to use the search function to find new users to follow and it keeps telling me “no posts found” “search may not be enabled on this instance.” I downloaded the regular mastodon app to try the same searches there and it worked just fine. Is this an issue stemming from not having a paid account or just a bug in Ivory ?

Editing my review.

Still a great app but I realized that aside from my issues with searching which is a whole problem in itself. I cannot even follow or unfollow users without a subscription. This is kind of a dealbreaker for me and even though Ivory is cleanly designed and pretty smooth to use I can’t get behind paywalling features that should be stock. I would give an easy 4 or even 5 stars if this was not the case

I've used this app since its early testing period on an iPhone and then on Mac, and watching Tapbots constantly improve it has been inspirational. They took feedback well, particularly in helping add descriptive text to images, something many people want and need. The experience takes Mastodon, already a great federated service that continues to evolve, and makes into something vibrant. It's easy for me to say that without this app, I'd be enjoying Mastodon much less, as this app fits my brain perfectly. It's great having the same client and same approach now on my iPhone and on my Mac.

Free version only allows viewing — you can’t post, comment, like, retweet, etc. I understand the financial needs of development, but wish I could at least like and retweet posts. For such a small social media network, it definitely needs more interaction to survive + knowing most users are going to use this client for free, I don’t want to see larger creators leave the Mastodon platform because of little interaction.

I usually don’t feel the need to use 3rd party clients for software, but the official Mastodon app is really confusing. This guys really clean and makes me want to use the service much more. Great app. Sad to see what happened with Twitter.

I've loved using this app on iOS for the last several months - it has become my primary Mastodon client and it's the main way I interact with social media. But typing a long thread is easier on the Mac, so I'm glad to see this app come to the Mac!

It's got the same great UI polish and touches I've come to expect from Tapbots. I love being able to keep my place in the timeline across devices, or easily just pop open my laptop to reply to something that requires more typing. The this app UI also does a good job of surfacing Mastodon features that I forget even exist. Great stuff - so happy it's here!

Honestly Ivory is still beta but I can see it getting better as they implement more of mastodon’s api since I’ve also used the tweetbot client before (rest in paradise). The integration with SwiftUI is awesome and smooth with some good customization options for the end user. So far I’m happy enough to subscribe since it’s not to costly, I do hope that out of the subscriptions revenue they generate that they may potentially create a free version of this in the spirit of mastodon being open source and what not. That would be amazing I’d still be happily subscribe even if that’s the case to support the dev team.

I never, ever, ever write reviews, so I can promise you I mean this: TapBots has a reputation for building intuitive, aesthetically lovely apps, and this is definitely another win. Getting into Mastodon can be intimidating, but the fact that this app’s UI mimics TweetBot’s (RIP) makes it a heck of a lot easier to make the jump. I’ve tried a lot of Masto clients over the last couple years, and there’s no question that this is by far the best. I was ticked at EM for hobbling all 3p apps, but the one and only good thing was that it let the TB crew push this fantastic client out a little faster. Well done, folks!

If you used Tweetbot on Twitter this app is Tweetbot for Mastodon. If you didn’t use Tweetbot then this app is simply one of the most polished Mastodon clients available. Keep in mind that this app is in early release stage so all the features that the developers want this app to do are not complete. But even in this early release form this app is a better experience than the many other Mastodon clients I have tried. I trust the guys at Tapbots to keep adding features and innovating on what a premium Mastodon client can do and that’s why I didn’t hesitate to hit the premium subscription button.

After many years of using Tweetbot as my Twitter client I tried to use the Twitter app. It didn’t work for me. I don’t mind ads and if Twitter had offered 3rd party access with ads even with a fee, I might have stayed there. That decided me to move to Mastodon. this app will keep me there because the experience is so much better than other Mastodon apps I explored.
Thanks to Tapbots for bringing a first class experience to Mastodon.
I’m glad you’ve set up a subscription model so you can pay your people and continue to innovate.

Ivory is one of the smoothest, well functioning Mastodon apps on the market today. Tapbots do incredible work as a small team to turn out this level of craftsmanship and quality. For apps like this to exist, they need to make money and I am more than happy to pay them to continue their incredible work. It’s odd to me how many people can buy a $600-$1500 device and not be ok paying a few dollars a month for quality apps to run on that device. Seems like an odd choice to me but what do I know?

I was an avid Tweetbot user but had to give it up when I left Twitter last year. When I saw Tapbots was making a Mastodon app, I knew it would be Ivory for me and boy was I right. I’ve been using it for a bit now since I was lucky enough to get into the beta and have had no problems. It’s intuitive, which is saying a lot since Mastodon can be quite confusing. It reminds me so much of Tweetbot it’s like seeing an old friend again. What else can I say but Ivory just works and looks amazing. Well worth the subscription.

this app is both easy on the eye and easy to use, even on iPad Mini-5 which gives other Mastodon apps layout fits. The photo chooser is quite nice giving access to all Photos albums and proper layout and sizing. Image description editor works correctly. this app controls layout makes access to most Mastodon capabilities easy and intuitive. Features missing at launch include followed hashtag access and posted post editing.

As a longtime Tweetbot user, I was not happy to see it cease to function after the bird site shutdown API access. I started uising Mastodon and found the existing clients lacking. While there are now several good clients available, I have stuck with this app. The Tapbots developers listen to their users, and are quick to fix bugs and enhance features. The only thing I find lacking is search functionality - I often come up with empty results, when the same search in a diferent client results in several items.

Ivory makes Mastodon incredible. Worth every penny, the guys at Tapbots have done it again. I loved Tweetbot. It WAS Twitter for me. When that experience was taken away due to Twitter shutting down the third party API with no warning, it changed how I felt about using Twitter. With this app, Mastodon now has the same feel I used to love, and in a much more sustainable, and better, social media platform. Definitely give Mastodon a try if you haven’t yet… and if you do, get Ivory… it’s fantastic!

They say it’s “Early Access”, but I’ve been enjoying Ivory so far and don’t notice much missing. Back in the Twitter days, I just used the official Twitter app, but for Mastodon this is just so much more polished than the official app. The subscription is very cheap for something you use multiple times a day. Great work by the developers, and I look forward to seeing what they do with this over the coming years.

I’m not sure why I should consider paying $15/year perpetually for Ivory. It’s visually pleasing, for sure. But it doesn’t offer anything that several other Mastodon clients don’t already offer, for free or way less money.

I could see the cost if there was a special Mastodon hosted instance they were offering. But without any true standout features, I think most people would be better served with one of the equally-attractive and even more feature full alternatives. Some of which are open source software, even.

As a dedicated and unwavering Tweetbot user, one of the most jarring parts of picking up Mastodon was finding an app that suited me. There are a number of clients and they all have ideas, some of them are even good, but for my timeline the Tapbots feel is what my eyes and hands need and now here they are.

I used this app in beta, it felt great on day one, every update feels even better. Could not smash the subscription button fast enough, very excited for what’s to come!

I have used Tweetbot as my go to Twitter client for the better part of the last 10 years. Recent events have pushed me not only away from Tweetbot (involuntarily) but also voluntarily away from Twitter. I found a new home in Mastodon but the none of the available apps, while all good in their own ways, were able to make my experience of the service as smooth and frustration-free as this app has. Fantastic app that I’m proud to support.

Totally unfinished app that was rushed out. and it looks and feels as such. look, I was a fan of tweetbot. the fact this developer blew of mastodon until Twitter booted them and that isn't something I particularly care about. noty problem. so they rushed this product out thinking 10 years of blah blah will help them out. maybe it did, maybe it didn't.

my main gripe is they expect us to pay for using their app and being beta testers. they fall back on "other apps are unfinished" which is true bit they aren't charging their users to beta test.

anyways, I'm done testing this lackluster tweetbot clone. unless you pay me ofc.

Tweetbot was my most used app by a mile, so I was heartbroken when it was abruptly killed by Twitter. Thankfully, Mastodon is far more welcoming to 3rd parties than Twitter ever was, and it shows with this app — this app is basically the Tweetbot we could’ve had if Twitter cared about 3rd party devs. Incredibly well polished like you’d expect, and with features Tweetbot could never support like in-app voting on polls and real time notifications.

Thanks for everything Tapbots 🫡

Ivory is great! It has most of the features of Mastodon and is (in my opinion) by far one of the best Mastodon clients for iOS. However, there are a few features which Ivory is missing.
1. The ability to manage filters.
Although the UI for managing filters is there, it doesn’t save your filters from the web UI. This is especially problematic considering I have a list of NSFW filters I made on the web UI, and now I have to go to the web UI to edit them.
2. No emoji picker
There is no emoji picker, so I can’t use any of my instance’s emojis.
3. Custom emojis don’t show in posts
Custom emojis used don’t show in posts. Instead, the name is what is rendered. This is weird considering there’s already a “badges” feature that moves emojis in someone’s name to their avatar.
I would give Ivory five stars were these basic features implemented. Thank you for making a great app.

There are two issues I have with Ivory that will hopefully be resolved in time.

1. It says here that you can "view local and federated timelines *as well as trending posts*," but unless I've missed this somewhere, there's no way to view trending posts, like you can in the official Mastodon app.

2. Because this app uses its own mute filters, things muted in it aren't muted in other Mastodon applications. They say integration with Mastodon's filters will be added in the future (on their website), but I feel is important to mention here as someone who also uses Mastodon in a browser.

One last minor annoyance I have is that you can try to add users you don't follow to a list, but this app only gives you a vague error message when you do so (Mastodon doesn't allow adding users. You don't follow to a list). Again, something that they will hopefully fix, preferably by not allowing you to add invalid users in the first place. Or maybe they'll add their own custom list feature since they use their own custom muting filters.

I will start off with the positives: first, the UX is amazing, as expected from Tapbots. It feels polished and well-built.

However, after months of development it is still missing features that I would consider critical, such as custom instance emoji. At least in my social sphere, custom emoji are used heavily and it can be very confusing to follow a conversation when they are not supported.

I understand that Ivory is in “early access” (which I’m surprised Apple allows, given App Store Review Guideline 2.2: ”Demos, betas, and trial versions of your app don’t belong on Ivory Store – use TestFlight instead”), however it seems strange to charge a subscription for an incomplete product.

Updates are few and far between, often taking several months. I would prefer a quicker development cycle with more piecemeal additions.

I will be unsubscribing and switching to a different client, and may come back in the future when Ivory is more complete.

I've sought refuage from the big datafarms of social media in the Fediverse, and wound up finding communities I want to participate in where the people are polite and kind.

I run my own instance (soc-kvet-ch) and have used a dozen different clients and apps and this app is hands-down the best-in-slot choice for me. If you are interested in privacy, security, knowledge work, productivity, gaming and open source projects Mastodon is amazing and more accessible than any other platform of it's kind.

So glad Tapbots are here, I feel like this is a hail mary but it's a beautiful throw, love and respect to all of you and yours.

Ivory isn't bad but it is starting to lag more and more and feels like a money grab from people who expected to float through this transition. The price doesn't reflect the features and effort at this point for how much it crashes, the search has been broken since TestFlight early on yet works fine in other apps, following and unfollowing looks like it works only to find out later it just didn't. I could go on and on. Even the emoji for certain instances won't load and they aren't even able to animate anything so far. Basic apps do this for free. The biggest kick is the pricing. 2023 it was $25 for a year and now suddenly it's $15 in 2024. I feel shafted and I'm PO'd. These people seemingly have no interest in polishing Ivory they just want an easy subscription based option for income and it's gross to have taken advantage of people they way they have. They have a cult following that have rated it well just because of who they are from Twitter but don't fall for it. Plenty of free options and even website alternatives are much better. Save your money for groceries or bills we all need help on those these days.

This has been such an amazing app. Not just in what it does, which is bringing community together in a new (to so many of us) platform, Mastodon, but in such a timely way - when we need it most, there it is, working so well, a familiar experience. We're so grateful for what you've given us.

And still, after I don't even remember how long, Ivory is probably the one I use more than any other, besides the browser itself.