Tuesday, January 31, 2023
While we iOS users celebrate the recent release, Ice Cubes by Thomas Ricouard, Tapbots ivoryWhen Taskerand look forward to the imminent release of other new Mastodon clients like Shihab Mehboob mammothabout Mastodon You asked what is the best client for Android.
Simply put: cricket chirping.
Apps with the most recommendations Tusky, Open Source It is free for clients. It’s not a problem. It’s what you see on your Pixel 4 home screen for now. But if Tusky was his iOS app, it wouldn’t be a top 5 Mastodon client.I would describe the UI as savage.[いいね]or[ブックマーク]Tapping the button reveals a fun “burst” animation. )
honorable mention Toot, Mastodon official clientand several open source forks of the Mastodon app MegalodonThere is also fedi lab, which costs $2.50 on the Play Store, but is also open source. Fedilab is homey even by Android app standards, but it’s fast and has great features like built-in translation. (Bonus points for friends was suggested This Emacs mode, I don’t think it’s ironic. ) All of these apps are more brutal than Tusky.
None of these Android clients get a lot of attention on iOS. Tooot and the official Mastodon client are also available for iOS and appear to offer the same functionality and the same basic interface on both platforms. There’s a reason third-party clients are overwhelmingly more popular than Mastodon’s official client on iOS, but the Mastodon app is clearly his one of the best on Android. Androidtown is truly another world. Fluid scrolling, swipe gestures, tap-and-hold context menus, and more are important for iOS apps. None of the Android clients scroll smoothly and none offer swipe gestures. Only Tooot seems to offer a tap-and-hold context menu.But more broadly, they’re all just looks, especially felt Inert and hard. Nothing shrinks or stretches. they have no life.
Try Google’s Android system software and first party apps. (Specifically the Chrome Android app is for iOS, not iOS.style, but iOS caliber in terms of fluidity, originality, and attention to detail. ) the Instagram app for Android tries. But for the most part, her third-party Android apps don’t even seem to attempt to achieve the comfort, fun, and panache of the iOS app’s look and feel. That’s strange. The gap between the look and feel of iOS and Android apps is widening rather than narrowing. The opposite happened with Mac and Windows in the 90’s. Windows itself and Windows software back in the Window 3.x days were terrible. Starting with Windows 95, this gap has been greatly reduced. After spending a few hours exploring the state of the art in the Android Mastodon client, I get the distinct impression that Android is forever stuck in the Window 3.x era of sleek UI and design. It’s rough.
iOS and Android are competing peer platforms from a macro perspective. But not all games on all consoles strive for the highest possible production value, for example, gaming consoles (PlayStation vs. Xbox vs. Switch). None of the Android Mastodon clients seem to be aiming for iOS-level production value.Again, not iOS style — just refined baseline levels and detail perspiration. de ligurFor apps such as the new Mastodon client for iOS. Your bank’s iOS app is probably the worst (mine is), because it’s probably a cross-platform web wrapper that’s pretty much the same as Android (mine is). Games on Nintendo Switch aren’t in the same style as games on PlayStation or Xbox, but all games are truly goodIt’s not Android. It’s a banking app in almost every way. It’s a completely different culture with a different value system than iOS.
20 years ago my friend Brent Simmons He wrote about why he chose to create a Mac-only appeven though the Windows market is very large:
One of the reasons I develop for OS X is that it’s big league when it comes to user interfaces. spectacle, show, playIt’s probably what Joel calls “emotional attraction.” […]
The other way is honorable, sensible, and rewarding.
But for me, it’s the difference between an empty night sky and a big, bright night sky with shining stars. Bella Luna“A compelling appeal?” And I don’t apologize for that one second.
We are fully aware that some Android enthusiasts choose to adopt this platform because they really like the platform. But the difference in user and developer priorities between iOS and Android is evident in the Mastodon client app. For one, he doesn’t seem to have a single developer trying to create a commercial Mastodon client for Android. Everything feels like a hobby app. Android seems to be the platform for those considering This comprehensive feature checklist It can be a useful resource for evaluating which apps to try. iOS is a platform for craftsmanship-minded users and developers who value emotional appeal far more than the feature comparisons that can be expressed in a spreadsheet. I often quote Stanley Kubrick. It’s that feeling that makes his Mastodon client on iOS better than the one on Android.
iOS is currently spectacle, show, play.
