A review of Ivory, a new Mastodon iOS app from Tapbots, maker of the now-defunct Tweetbot: an inspired design, Tweetbot-like gestures, custom filters, and more
You *can* add a non-Mastodon account to it. Here, I added my @viticci@pixelfed.social profile to Ivory and posted a picture from the app. … Tweets: Veerle Pieters / @vpieters : The launch of @tapbots Ivory makes Mastodon feels like home. Here is a great detailed review of the application. https://www.macstories.net/... I just became a pro subscriber. Can't wait to discover the whole journey with desktop and all. Join me. https://twitter.com/... M.G. Siegler / @mgsiegler : Still pretty skeptical of this whole Mastodon thing. But happily paid $25 to support this attempt to make it usable. It's very good. https://twitter.com/... Dave Winer / @davewiner : https://micro.blog/ supports ActivityPub, but Mastodon clients don't work with it. ActivityPub is a weak standard, too hard to support. Users want Mastodon clients. https://www.manton.org/... Doug Bowman / @stop : I've been spending more time lately on the Fediverse, and less and less time here, in large part thanks to Ivory, the Mastodon iOS client which was just released publicly today. If you were ever a Tweetbot user, you'll feel right at home in Ivory. Graham Stark / @graham_lrr : It's been ~5 minutes and I'm already loving Ivory by Tapbots. If you're looking for an iOS Mastodon client, it's great (especially if you also just got booted off Tweetbot, because it's very similar) (Reminder, I'm @Graham_LRR@kind.social, for those reading this on Twitter) Michael Fey / @mrrooni : I've been living with Ivory for the past few weeks and it's everything you'd expect a Tapbots app to be. If you're looking to move your social interactions over to Mastodon, Ivory is what you want to use to do so. https://www.macstories.net/... Chance Miller / @chancehmiller : Ivory from @tapbots is now available. If you've been on the fence about joining us on Mastodon, there's never been a better time. My hands-on: https://9to5mac.com/... App Store download: https://apps.apple.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Tapbots built its reputation on Tweetbot, the beloved Twitter client that died when Twitter shut down third-party API access — so Ivory is the studio's attempt to rebuild that craft on an open protocol nobody can revoke. The timing matters: Mastodon had just defaulted new signups to mastodon.social, removing the instance-picking friction that scared off mainstream users, but the apps were still rough.
Ivory supplies the missing polish — Tweetbot-like gestures, custom filters — and, notably, accepts non-Mastodon accounts like Fediverse neighbor Pixelfed, hinting at a client layer that spans services rather than belonging to one network. That direction has since been validated by the Iconfactory's Tapestry, which bundles Bluesky, Mastodon, and RSS into one timeline, and by Pixelfed's own mobile debut.
First-order effects
- Skeptics of Mastodon itself are paying $25 for Ivory anyway — the review notes users buying it explicitly to make the network usable — meaning Tapbots monetizes the experience layer even while the underlying service stays free and unproven.
- Refugees from Tweetbot get a familiar gesture-driven home on iOS, converting Tapbots' orphaned Twitter audience into Mastodon's most polished front door.
Second-order effects
- Multi-network clients become the competitive category: Iconfactory's Tapestry answers with aggregation across Bluesky, Mastodon, and RSS at $1.99/month, forcing a split between 'one protocol, best app' (Ivory) and 'many sources, one timeline' (Tapestry).
- Meta's plan for a Twitter-like Instagram app with Mastodon compatibility threatens to out-distribute both indies — if the largest social company speaks ActivityPub, indie clients must compete on design and trust rather than access.
Third-order effects
- When protocols are open, value migrates from the network to the access layer: users pay the client maker directly ($25 to Tapbots) while the service itself charges nothing — a durable shift if federated adoption holds.
- The pattern also exposes federation's soft spot: long-time Mastodon users still report thin social graphs and tone issues, so premium clients risk polishing an experience the protocol alone can't fix — client quality and network health may decouple.
The trend: As social networking fragments into open protocols, the money and differentiation move up the stack to paid third-party clients that span multiple federated services.