13 ms·

Mastodon for Android

145 points by riffic 5y ago

riffic 5y ago
this app is open source, code is available here: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android this joins the previously released iOS client (https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios) I have no personal affiliation with the Mastodon project, I just like what they're doing to liberate social networking (and there are other Fediverse platforms to pay attention to, too!)
wirrbel 5y ago
Did they add local and federated timeline support?
- OberstKrueger 5y ago
  Based on this open issue on the repo [0], it only has federated timeline support. The lead developer of Mastodon had this to say with regards to not adding it to iOS[1]: > The omission is intentional and I do not intend to add these types of timelines into the app. They might have made sense for early Mastodon in November 2016 when there were less than 20k people total and all from a homogenous demographic but nowadays the signal to noise ratio makes them a liability in almost every aspect. > [...] > The local and federated timelines are not going away from other apps or the web app, to be clear. I’m simply not adding them to this app, and if that bothers you, simply don’t install the app. [0] https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android/issues/8 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android/issues/8 [1] https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/221 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/221
  - lin83 5y ago
    That's crazy. Local timelines are the best part of mastodon instances.
    - syshum 5y ago
      unfortunately it seems mastodon devs develop the app they want, not the app the users want. This will continue to limit its opportunity for wide adoption. Maybe if Elon actually buys twitter they will see a boost.
      - nulbyte 5y ago
        > This will continue to limit its opportunity for wide adoption. I don't see this having any practical effect. Unlike other services, you aren't locked into one app. There are others, and perhaps more importantly, they were here first.
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    This saddens me, and I truly believe it's because Mastodon's author, Eugen, also runs the largest server, mastodon.social. Of course the local timeline there is utter chaos, basically like the Twitter firehose. That's absolutely not the case for topical servers, like ones that specialize in posts about cats, or a friend group, or a particular city. I don't think Eugen opposes the idea out of malice, because he seems like a pretty good guy. I think he just has a particularly narrow view of what Mastodon is, as seen from his perspective.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
ssl232 5y ago
Turns out F-Droid inclusion is pending [1]. I was surprised not to see it there. [1] https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/10909 https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/10909
- vanderZwan 5y ago
  There are plenty of alternative clients on F-droid though. But I've never used the "official" app so maybe I'm missing some features when using Tusky?
  - fluctor 5y ago
    You have more features with Tusky (like being able to see the local timeline) than the official app.
zagrebian 5y ago
How does the mobile web app compare?
jeroenhd 5y ago
I love the idea of Mastodon but none of the people I follow on social media are using it. I wonder if there's some kind of web service that re-toots tweets from twitter so I can ditch the crappy Twitter web app and slowly move towards the fediverse at the same time. So far I've only seen publisher-oriented services, but I what I actually want is a combined feed of tweets and toots.
- bifrost 5y ago
  feed2toot can do some of it, but you'd need to build something to automate your feed/etc. Its also probably against Twitter's TOS to tweet2toot so YMMV.
- ushakov 5y ago
  technically it’s possible to mirror tweets from Twitter directly, just find a Mastodon instance which supports this
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- simcop2387 5y ago
  I need to get better about posting to it, but I have possibly the best mastodon instance available :) https://www.omeowgle.com/web/@buzz https://www.omeowgle.com/web/@buzz only cats are allowed.
- mtlynch 5y ago
  moa.party will re-syndicate your tweets to your Mastodon account.[0] It looks extremely shady, but I've been using it for a year, and it seems to be legitimate. To see a Twitter user on Mastodon, you can follow them from Mastodon under the account [twitter handle]@beta.birdsite.live.[1] [0] https://moa.party/ https://moa.party/ [1] https://beta.birdsite.live/ https://beta.birdsite.live/
  - jeroenhd 5y ago
    Birdsite.live was exactly what I was looking for! I guess I'll have to set up a server of my own, maybe together with a private Mastodon instance, to get all the accounts synced without hitting the API limit, but this is very promising!
giords 5y ago
From time to time I try Mastodon again and every time I ditch it. I joined the main server mastodon.social and still as of today it's pretty much impossible for me to perform effective searches and find content. Maybe I'm just unable to use it, I don't know.
- easrng 5y ago
  Don't bother with search. You really need to start out following people you already know about, then when they boost posts check if the people who wrote those posts are worth following. I started following 1 person and now I follow 102 people.
- narrator 5y ago
  Search is where a lot of these services fail badly. The search on most video sites besides youtube is garbage. In fact, Youtube is so far ahead that they recently made their search worse to satisfy other priorities besides competing with rivals.
- rvz 5y ago
  If after 6 years of it existing and it is still unusable for outsiders and not just for open-source fanatics, programmers or furries then it has no realistic chance for retention, let alone adoption.
  - satsuma 5y ago
    especially because that can be a very tight venn diagram
- slipperlobster 5y ago
  I'm the same way - I just signed up (again) to the main mastodon.social server and realized I have to have a separate account for each server I want to be a part of? I'm just confused at this whole thing.
  - zaik 5y ago
    You just need one account for all federating servers.
kstrauser 5y ago
Eh. I love Mastodon, and host a reasonably busy server. The official apps are just OK, though. In particular, they deliberately leave out the critical "local" timeline showing posts from users on that server. That's half the point of having a federated network: each instance can have its own "feel "or "flavor". Cutting new users off from an easy way to see what their neighbors are talking about makes servers almost fungible.
- riffic 5y ago
  there are multiple clients to choose from, and third-party clients (as far as I know) maintain the "local" timeline. The project made an intentional design decision here regarding their own official client, and personally I don't have feelings one way or another about that choice. It's good to hear the use-case towards local timeline inclusion though.
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    I've posted some links to variously decent iOS apps at https://honeypot.net/post/mastodon-apps-for-ios/ https://honeypot.net/post/mastodon-apps-for-ios/ . I'd strongly encourage a new user to chose from one of those (IMHO better) apps than to use the official, limited version.
  - rapnie 5y ago
    For a list of clients see: https://delightful.club/delightful-fediverse-clients/ https://delightful.club/delightful-fediverse-clients/
oneepic 5y ago
I get that people love the decentralization aspect of Mastodon, but... does it have better content than Twitter? I remember trying it very briefly once, and the few toots I saw were similar content -- some interesting info, but also a heap of complaining/virtual signaling.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  I believe it has much better content. The easiest way to boostrap your friend group is to look at the local timeline and see who posts interesting stuff, and follow them. When they repost things from interesting people, follow those people. Lather, rinse, and repeat.
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    ya that's just a description of how to use twitter tho. what's better here other than there being a lot smaller of a pool to draw from?
    - kstrauser 5y ago
      My personal experience has been that the most interesting people I now chat with on Mastodon either 1) left Twitter long ago, or 2) deliberately stayed away from it. For instance, if you're into infosec stuff, Mastodon is a wonderful place to be.
      - discardedrefuse 5y ago
        Is there a specific place or way to find these infosec related posts? I've bounced hard off Mastodon a couple times in the past, maybe I just don't know where to look.
        rapnie 5y ago
        Yeah, you point out where fediverse differs from Twitter, FB and Instagram. There's no algorithm that starts pushing you in some direction based on your first interactions. Initially your personal timeline will be completely empty. You might start by choosing an instance that is more on-topic than others, like https://hackers.town https://hackers.town and discover people from the server timeline, or browsing the website. Then filter on various hashtags and see who interacts with them. Having some good people you follow you also see whose posts they boost and this will lead you to find more.
ushakov 5y ago
fun fact: the app was built by HN user grishka, who previously worked on VK and Telegram Android clients. He’s got upset with the state of social media and turned to Mastodon/ActivityPub
- rapnie 5y ago
  He's also the creator of Smithereen. "Federated, ActivityPub-compatible social network server with friends, walls, and groups". It is modeled after VK and federates with Mastodon. https://github.com/grishka/Smithereen https://github.com/grishka/Smithereen
  - ushakov 5y ago
    there is an old meme about VK users begging Pavel Durov (then CEO) to "Bring back the wall" "the wall" was basically a classic feed without the algorithms and bullshit Smithereen actually takes this idea to extreme and completely recreates 2011-era VK look and features and especially "the wall"
- sschueller 5y ago
  I wrote an android PeerTube client [1] (also activitypub) and I am also a HN user. ;) [1] https://github.com/sschueller/peertube-android https://github.com/sschueller/peertube-android
2Gkashmiri 5y ago
I run a small 2 person family pleroma instance. I truly believe fediverse to be the best thing to happen to internet in a long time because just like in my case, I can have my own server with anyone I like. We don't need to serve 1000 people of different tastes, if I am content with people I am comfortable, why do I need to be exposed like on a public platform like twitter? Or Facebook which monetizes this same interaction for what benefit of mine? I am getting the same/similar interaction with people I care about, on my own dime.
TheAceOfHearts 5y ago
Would love to hear from people that use Mastodon on a daily basis. What is your experience like? How do you find interesting people? I'm on Twitter every day, mostly following artists, tech people, and political shitposters.
- nimbius 5y ago
  ugh, i tried. i really tried, and i really really wanted to love this but eventually came to find it inherited all the trash neoconservative hot takes, woke culture virtue signaling and micro-aggression bellyaching that twitter has. its a "federated" service only insofar as large groups of admins openly advocate for, and agree to ban traffic from certain servers with speech they disagree with, so thats also been a sticking point with me as well.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    I mean isn’t that like the whole point, sign up for a server that aligns with your preferences for moderation and enjoy? You can have everything from total firehose to catholic nun levels of moderation all on the same network.
    - kstrauser 5y ago
      I believe that's the killer feature. There's no futile one-size-fits-all moderation policy that has to work for every user in existence. Instead, each server is a freestanding little community with its own values and mores, and which can decide which other servers it wants to talk to. I love that.
    - root_axis 5y ago
      > I mean isn’t that like the whole point, sign up for a server that aligns with your preferences for moderation and enjoy? That's exactly how http websites already work...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 5y ago
tazjin 5y ago
I think Mastodon is even more dangerous than Twitter/FB in reinforcing filter bubbles. Consider: There are various federated servers, often with some shared interest/allegiance. The operators can disconnect you from other federated servers they consider untoward. You now have to choose the filter bubble you most actively want to be associated with, and hearing dissent can become technically impossible. Someone supporting Russia and someone supporting Ukraine in the current war may not be allowed to talk to each other about model trains, because their bubbles blocked each other. I think this is scary. It's halfway between centralisation (Twitter) and decentralisation (e.g. Scuttlebutt) and thus creates an uncanny valley.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  you can always hear dissent because following any server never requires you to disclose your identity. If you want to be an active participant in multiple communities with your name attached to it, sure another group might exclude you. This is possible on all platforms where people can form networks, including on twitter. This is not really a technological thing. Wherever there are factions there usually is exclusive membership.
- kixiQu 5y ago
  That's not what filter bubble means. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble But even in the more generic sense -- they can't disconnect you, they can disconnect the account you have on their server -- and it's common practice for people to have alts on different ones just for different topics they post about.
  - xigoi 5y ago
    Doesn't that defeat the point of federation?
    - kixiQu 5y ago
      Not really? Having alts can be a bit like how people have NSFW alts on Twitter (or, for artists, an art account and a personal one), except if you put them on different instances you can find a local timeline that's more relevant to the kind of thing you're posting. Some people (notably, it seems, Eugen) think "the point" of federation is to provide a seamless Twitter-like global experience that just happens to be hosted modularly. A lot of the current site culture prefers to consider each instance like a little neighborhood, with federation augmenting a local-first experience. (Conflict over product vision ensues.) But really, no matter what you're looking for, the vast majority of the time you can just use whatever instance and it's fine -- mod drama whole-instance-blocks get a lot of attention, but it's way more of a problem in theory than in practice (especially now you can move your followers if you move instances).
airflow 5y ago
A bold guess is that, when people meet in Mastodon, they will become Twitter friends or FB friends eventually.
- rsolva 5y ago
  Most people come to Mastodon seeking out viable alternatives to FB and Twitter, and many of them proudly announce to their Mastodon followers when they have deleted their FAANG accounts. This might change when Mastodon attracts more non-techy folk, but even they seem to become more weary of centralized and algorithmicly directed social media.
dakial1 5y ago
Is the app restricted to a specific region? On desktop the play store says it is available to all my devices but for some reason the install button is greyed out. On the Play Store the app does not appear at all on the search.
encryptluks2 5y ago
I thought with Mastodon, that if one server shuts down or you get banned that you can just migrate your account and all your info was federated to the other instances. However, when I tried to migrate an account from a server that was shutdown, I couldn't even do it cause I needed access to the old server to do the migration. Is this still the case? If so, breaking Twitter up into hundreds or thousands of individual instances does nothing to fix any of the problems if they each have their own rules and can ban/remove your content whenever they want.
- zaarn 5y ago
  Well, yes, if you want to migrate all your data to a new instance you need a copy of the old data. Mastodon does have a takeout option that lets you export followers and your tweets, which you can import into a new account. Though I honestly don't know why you'd expect an account migration to work if the old server is not available.
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    > Though I honestly don't know why you'd expect an account migration to work if the old server is not available. That is the whole point of federation, doesn't matter where you sign in your data should still be there and can migrate between instances freely. Without this, Mastodon does nothing to solve free speech or replace Twitter.
    - zaarn 5y ago
      I think you misunderstood federation. It doesn't make all your data available everywhere, it means that all servers can talk and exchange some data. There is no reason for servers to hold much userdata outside of what other users have viewed. It also doesn't mean you can sign in wherever. You can't use your email login from live.com to log into the google account, those are two independent credentials. Data also can't migrate freely, it is exchanged freely but not migrated. When I request your account's data, my server requests it from your server. If that server is not available, it can possibly get there via other ways (pushed from other servers along with events, like someone liking the toot). What you might be thinking of is a fully decentralized network, where data is kept like on IPFS. But that's not mastodon. Mastodon offers you a takeout in case you don't trust your instances backups or admin. You can bring that along to a new instance. It does solve the free speech problems of Twitter in that way; if an instance wants to silence you, you're not forced to interact with them, nor can they enforce their moderation rules on you if you don't want to (since you can always move to an instance that agrees with your view on things).
miduil 5y ago
I've just tried the app and it works really snappy, somehow feels more native than Tusky which has been my favorite app so far.
neotoy 5y ago
I'm just curious, but why when you search for the Mastodon app from inside the Google Play app on Android, it seems to be impossible to find it?
Tao331 5y ago
This illustrates the worst thing about Play Store: I can search for an app that I know exists, but if it's not supported for my device /OS version, Google will pretend there's no such thing. Surely there's a reasonable UX solution for returning unsupported results such that even if you can't install them, you at least know they exist and what the requirements are.
- pritambaral 5y ago
  This is one of benefits of searching on the web version. It might help that my browser doesn't force me to open a page in an app; and my habit of browsing in private tabs by default. I don't know what the experience would be in Chrome.
- viraptor 5y ago
  They already have that on the website. You can search in your browser and it may say "none of your devices support this".
- tintedfireglass 5y ago
  It might not be available in your region, or unsupported for your device
- trissylegs 5y ago
  I can install it. But it still wouldn't come up.
proactivesvcs 5y ago
The official Mastodon apps are missing two major features of Fediverse microblogging: the local and federated timelines. Whilst there are plenty of general-purpose instances, there are also those tailored to specific interests or communities. Many are small enough for one to be able to keep up with posts from local users (the local timeline) every day or two without missing a beat. These aren't entirely on-topic but they're usually strongly flavoured towards their focus and those I've used and perused have a strong community feel. The federated timeline is a firehose of all of the posts on instances that the home instance talks to and whilst it has plenty of chaff can also yield some gems which are sometimes worth the pastime. Although the use of tags in posts and profiles are the primary methods of discovery on the Fediverse, I've found both these timelines crucial in building a network and generally enjoying the platform. Look for clients further afield if you think these would be interesting or useful for you. My personal preference on Android is Fedilab https://fedilab.app/ https://fedilab.app/ , a snappy, feature-rich client that does not decide what content you're permitted to consume and even has a third-party push notification system which reduces the data footprint Google collects.
lkxijlewlf 5y ago
rsolva 5y ago
I tested this new "official" Mastodon app and see why it might be a good on-boarding experience for newcomers. I'll stick with Tusky [0] as it is much more mature and offer more features, like multiple account and a local timeline. 0: https://tusky.app/ https://tusky.app/

145 points by riffic 5y ago

this app is open source, code is available here: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android this joins the previously released iOS client (https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios) I have no personal affiliation with the Mastodon project, I just like what they're doing to liberate social networking (and there are other Fediverse platforms to pay attention to, too!)

wirrbel 5y ago

Did they add local and federated timeline support?

OberstKrueger 5y ago
Based on this open issue on the repo [0], it only has federated timeline support. The lead developer of Mastodon had this to say with regards to not adding it to iOS[1]: > The omission is intentional and I do not intend to add these types of timelines into the app. They might have made sense for early Mastodon in November 2016 when there were less than 20k people total and all from a homogenous demographic but nowadays the signal to noise ratio makes them a liability in almost every aspect. > [...] > The local and federated timelines are not going away from other apps or the web app, to be clear. I’m simply not adding them to this app, and if that bothers you, simply don’t install the app. [0] https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android/issues/8 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-android/issues/8 [1] https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/221 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/221
- lin83 5y ago
  That's crazy. Local timelines are the best part of mastodon instances.
  - syshum 5y ago
    unfortunately it seems mastodon devs develop the app they want, not the app the users want. This will continue to limit its opportunity for wide adoption. Maybe if Elon actually buys twitter they will see a boost.
    - nulbyte 5y ago
      > This will continue to limit its opportunity for wide adoption. I don't see this having any practical effect. Unlike other services, you aren't locked into one app. There are others, and perhaps more importantly, they were here first.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  This saddens me, and I truly believe it's because Mastodon's author, Eugen, also runs the largest server, mastodon.social. Of course the local timeline there is utter chaos, basically like the Twitter firehose. That's absolutely not the case for topical servers, like ones that specialize in posts about cats, or a friend group, or a particular city. I don't think Eugen opposes the idea out of malice, because he seems like a pretty good guy. I think he just has a particularly narrow view of what Mastodon is, as seen from his perspective.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

ssl232 5y ago

Turns out F-Droid inclusion is pending [1]. I was surprised not to see it there. [1] https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/10909 https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/10909

vanderZwan 5y ago
There are plenty of alternative clients on F-droid though. But I've never used the "official" app so maybe I'm missing some features when using Tusky?
- fluctor 5y ago
  You have more features with Tusky (like being able to see the local timeline) than the official app.

zagrebian 5y ago

How does the mobile web app compare?

jeroenhd 5y ago

I love the idea of Mastodon but none of the people I follow on social media are using it. I wonder if there's some kind of web service that re-toots tweets from twitter so I can ditch the crappy Twitter web app and slowly move towards the fediverse at the same time. So far I've only seen publisher-oriented services, but I what I actually want is a combined feed of tweets and toots.

bifrost 5y ago
feed2toot can do some of it, but you'd need to build something to automate your feed/etc. Its also probably against Twitter's TOS to tweet2toot so YMMV.
ushakov 5y ago
technically it’s possible to mirror tweets from Twitter directly, just find a Mastodon instance which supports this
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
simcop2387 5y ago
I need to get better about posting to it, but I have possibly the best mastodon instance available :) https://www.omeowgle.com/web/@buzz https://www.omeowgle.com/web/@buzz only cats are allowed.
mtlynch 5y ago
moa.party will re-syndicate your tweets to your Mastodon account.[0] It looks extremely shady, but I've been using it for a year, and it seems to be legitimate. To see a Twitter user on Mastodon, you can follow them from Mastodon under the account [twitter handle]@beta.birdsite.live.[1] [0] https://moa.party/ https://moa.party/ [1] https://beta.birdsite.live/ https://beta.birdsite.live/
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  Birdsite.live was exactly what I was looking for! I guess I'll have to set up a server of my own, maybe together with a private Mastodon instance, to get all the accounts synced without hitting the API limit, but this is very promising!

giords 5y ago

From time to time I try Mastodon again and every time I ditch it. I joined the main server mastodon.social and still as of today it's pretty much impossible for me to perform effective searches and find content. Maybe I'm just unable to use it, I don't know.

easrng 5y ago
Don't bother with search. You really need to start out following people you already know about, then when they boost posts check if the people who wrote those posts are worth following. I started following 1 person and now I follow 102 people.
narrator 5y ago
Search is where a lot of these services fail badly. The search on most video sites besides youtube is garbage. In fact, Youtube is so far ahead that they recently made their search worse to satisfy other priorities besides competing with rivals.
rvz 5y ago
If after 6 years of it existing and it is still unusable for outsiders and not just for open-source fanatics, programmers or furries then it has no realistic chance for retention, let alone adoption.
- satsuma 5y ago
  especially because that can be a very tight venn diagram
slipperlobster 5y ago
I'm the same way - I just signed up (again) to the main mastodon.social server and realized I have to have a separate account for each server I want to be a part of? I'm just confused at this whole thing.
- zaik 5y ago
  You just need one account for all federating servers.

kstrauser 5y ago

Eh. I love Mastodon, and host a reasonably busy server. The official apps are just OK, though. In particular, they deliberately leave out the critical "local" timeline showing posts from users on that server. That's half the point of having a federated network: each instance can have its own "feel "or "flavor". Cutting new users off from an easy way to see what their neighbors are talking about makes servers almost fungible.

riffic 5y ago
there are multiple clients to choose from, and third-party clients (as far as I know) maintain the "local" timeline. The project made an intentional design decision here regarding their own official client, and personally I don't have feelings one way or another about that choice. It's good to hear the use-case towards local timeline inclusion though.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  I've posted some links to variously decent iOS apps at https://honeypot.net/post/mastodon-apps-for-ios/ https://honeypot.net/post/mastodon-apps-for-ios/ . I'd strongly encourage a new user to chose from one of those (IMHO better) apps than to use the official, limited version.
- rapnie 5y ago
  For a list of clients see: https://delightful.club/delightful-fediverse-clients/ https://delightful.club/delightful-fediverse-clients/

oneepic 5y ago

I get that people love the decentralization aspect of Mastodon, but... does it have better content than Twitter? I remember trying it very briefly once, and the few toots I saw were similar content -- some interesting info, but also a heap of complaining/virtual signaling.

kstrauser 5y ago
I believe it has much better content. The easiest way to boostrap your friend group is to look at the local timeline and see who posts interesting stuff, and follow them. When they repost things from interesting people, follow those people. Lather, rinse, and repeat.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  ya that's just a description of how to use twitter tho. what's better here other than there being a lot smaller of a pool to draw from?
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    My personal experience has been that the most interesting people I now chat with on Mastodon either 1) left Twitter long ago, or 2) deliberately stayed away from it. For instance, if you're into infosec stuff, Mastodon is a wonderful place to be.
    - discardedrefuse 5y ago
      Is there a specific place or way to find these infosec related posts? I've bounced hard off Mastodon a couple times in the past, maybe I just don't know where to look.
      - rapnie 5y ago
        Yeah, you point out where fediverse differs from Twitter, FB and Instagram. There's no algorithm that starts pushing you in some direction based on your first interactions. Initially your personal timeline will be completely empty. You might start by choosing an instance that is more on-topic than others, like https://hackers.town https://hackers.town and discover people from the server timeline, or browsing the website. Then filter on various hashtags and see who interacts with them. Having some good people you follow you also see whose posts they boost and this will lead you to find more.

ushakov 5y ago

fun fact: the app was built by HN user grishka, who previously worked on VK and Telegram Android clients. He’s got upset with the state of social media and turned to Mastodon/ActivityPub

rapnie 5y ago
He's also the creator of Smithereen. "Federated, ActivityPub-compatible social network server with friends, walls, and groups". It is modeled after VK and federates with Mastodon. https://github.com/grishka/Smithereen https://github.com/grishka/Smithereen
- ushakov 5y ago
  there is an old meme about VK users begging Pavel Durov (then CEO) to "Bring back the wall" "the wall" was basically a classic feed without the algorithms and bullshit Smithereen actually takes this idea to extreme and completely recreates 2011-era VK look and features and especially "the wall"
sschueller 5y ago
I wrote an android PeerTube client [1] (also activitypub) and I am also a HN user. ;) [1] https://github.com/sschueller/peertube-android https://github.com/sschueller/peertube-android

2Gkashmiri 5y ago

I run a small 2 person family pleroma instance. I truly believe fediverse to be the best thing to happen to internet in a long time because just like in my case, I can have my own server with anyone I like. We don't need to serve 1000 people of different tastes, if I am content with people I am comfortable, why do I need to be exposed like on a public platform like twitter? Or Facebook which monetizes this same interaction for what benefit of mine? I am getting the same/similar interaction with people I care about, on my own dime.

TheAceOfHearts 5y ago

Would love to hear from people that use Mastodon on a daily basis. What is your experience like? How do you find interesting people? I'm on Twitter every day, mostly following artists, tech people, and political shitposters.

nimbius 5y ago
ugh, i tried. i really tried, and i really really wanted to love this but eventually came to find it inherited all the trash neoconservative hot takes, woke culture virtue signaling and micro-aggression bellyaching that twitter has. its a "federated" service only insofar as large groups of admins openly advocate for, and agree to ban traffic from certain servers with speech they disagree with, so thats also been a sticking point with me as well.
- Spivak 5y ago
  I mean isn’t that like the whole point, sign up for a server that aligns with your preferences for moderation and enjoy? You can have everything from total firehose to catholic nun levels of moderation all on the same network.
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    I believe that's the killer feature. There's no futile one-size-fits-all moderation policy that has to work for every user in existence. Instead, each server is a freestanding little community with its own values and mores, and which can decide which other servers it wants to talk to. I love that.
  - root_axis 5y ago
    > I mean isn’t that like the whole point, sign up for a server that aligns with your preferences for moderation and enjoy? That's exactly how http websites already work...
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tazjin 5y ago

I think Mastodon is even more dangerous than Twitter/FB in reinforcing filter bubbles. Consider: There are various federated servers, often with some shared interest/allegiance. The operators can disconnect you from other federated servers they consider untoward. You now have to choose the filter bubble you most actively want to be associated with, and hearing dissent can become technically impossible. Someone supporting Russia and someone supporting Ukraine in the current war may not be allowed to talk to each other about model trains, because their bubbles blocked each other. I think this is scary. It's halfway between centralisation (Twitter) and decentralisation (e.g. Scuttlebutt) and thus creates an uncanny valley.

Barrin92 5y ago
you can always hear dissent because following any server never requires you to disclose your identity. If you want to be an active participant in multiple communities with your name attached to it, sure another group might exclude you. This is possible on all platforms where people can form networks, including on twitter. This is not really a technological thing. Wherever there are factions there usually is exclusive membership.
kixiQu 5y ago
That's not what filter bubble means. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble But even in the more generic sense -- they can't disconnect you, they can disconnect the account you have on their server -- and it's common practice for people to have alts on different ones just for different topics they post about.
- xigoi 5y ago
  Doesn't that defeat the point of federation?
  - kixiQu 5y ago
    Not really? Having alts can be a bit like how people have NSFW alts on Twitter (or, for artists, an art account and a personal one), except if you put them on different instances you can find a local timeline that's more relevant to the kind of thing you're posting. Some people (notably, it seems, Eugen) think "the point" of federation is to provide a seamless Twitter-like global experience that just happens to be hosted modularly. A lot of the current site culture prefers to consider each instance like a little neighborhood, with federation augmenting a local-first experience. (Conflict over product vision ensues.) But really, no matter what you're looking for, the vast majority of the time you can just use whatever instance and it's fine -- mod drama whole-instance-blocks get a lot of attention, but it's way more of a problem in theory than in practice (especially now you can move your followers if you move instances).

airflow 5y ago

A bold guess is that, when people meet in Mastodon, they will become Twitter friends or FB friends eventually.

rsolva 5y ago
Most people come to Mastodon seeking out viable alternatives to FB and Twitter, and many of them proudly announce to their Mastodon followers when they have deleted their FAANG accounts. This might change when Mastodon attracts more non-techy folk, but even they seem to become more weary of centralized and algorithmicly directed social media.

dakial1 5y ago

Is the app restricted to a specific region? On desktop the play store says it is available to all my devices but for some reason the install button is greyed out. On the Play Store the app does not appear at all on the search.

encryptluks2 5y ago

I thought with Mastodon, that if one server shuts down or you get banned that you can just migrate your account and all your info was federated to the other instances. However, when I tried to migrate an account from a server that was shutdown, I couldn't even do it cause I needed access to the old server to do the migration. Is this still the case? If so, breaking Twitter up into hundreds or thousands of individual instances does nothing to fix any of the problems if they each have their own rules and can ban/remove your content whenever they want.

zaarn 5y ago
Well, yes, if you want to migrate all your data to a new instance you need a copy of the old data. Mastodon does have a takeout option that lets you export followers and your tweets, which you can import into a new account. Though I honestly don't know why you'd expect an account migration to work if the old server is not available.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  > Though I honestly don't know why you'd expect an account migration to work if the old server is not available. That is the whole point of federation, doesn't matter where you sign in your data should still be there and can migrate between instances freely. Without this, Mastodon does nothing to solve free speech or replace Twitter.
  - zaarn 5y ago
    I think you misunderstood federation. It doesn't make all your data available everywhere, it means that all servers can talk and exchange some data. There is no reason for servers to hold much userdata outside of what other users have viewed. It also doesn't mean you can sign in wherever. You can't use your email login from live.com to log into the google account, those are two independent credentials. Data also can't migrate freely, it is exchanged freely but not migrated. When I request your account's data, my server requests it from your server. If that server is not available, it can possibly get there via other ways (pushed from other servers along with events, like someone liking the toot). What you might be thinking of is a fully decentralized network, where data is kept like on IPFS. But that's not mastodon. Mastodon offers you a takeout in case you don't trust your instances backups or admin. You can bring that along to a new instance. It does solve the free speech problems of Twitter in that way; if an instance wants to silence you, you're not forced to interact with them, nor can they enforce their moderation rules on you if you don't want to (since you can always move to an instance that agrees with your view on things).

miduil 5y ago

I've just tried the app and it works really snappy, somehow feels more native than Tusky which has been my favorite app so far.

neotoy 5y ago

I'm just curious, but why when you search for the Mastodon app from inside the Google Play app on Android, it seems to be impossible to find it?

Tao331 5y ago

This illustrates the worst thing about Play Store: I can search for an app that I know exists, but if it's not supported for my device /OS version, Google will pretend there's no such thing. Surely there's a reasonable UX solution for returning unsupported results such that even if you can't install them, you at least know they exist and what the requirements are.

pritambaral 5y ago
This is one of benefits of searching on the web version. It might help that my browser doesn't force me to open a page in an app; and my habit of browsing in private tabs by default. I don't know what the experience would be in Chrome.
viraptor 5y ago
They already have that on the website. You can search in your browser and it may say "none of your devices support this".
tintedfireglass 5y ago
It might not be available in your region, or unsupported for your device
trissylegs 5y ago
I can install it. But it still wouldn't come up.

proactivesvcs 5y ago

The official Mastodon apps are missing two major features of Fediverse microblogging: the local and federated timelines. Whilst there are plenty of general-purpose instances, there are also those tailored to specific interests or communities. Many are small enough for one to be able to keep up with posts from local users (the local timeline) every day or two without missing a beat. These aren't entirely on-topic but they're usually strongly flavoured towards their focus and those I've used and perused have a strong community feel. The federated timeline is a firehose of all of the posts on instances that the home instance talks to and whilst it has plenty of chaff can also yield some gems which are sometimes worth the pastime. Although the use of tags in posts and profiles are the primary methods of discovery on the Fediverse, I've found both these timelines crucial in building a network and generally enjoying the platform. Look for clients further afield if you think these would be interesting or useful for you. My personal preference on Android is Fedilab https://fedilab.app/ https://fedilab.app/ , a snappy, feature-rich client that does not decide what content you're permitted to consume and even has a third-party push notification system which reduces the data footprint Google collects.

lkxijlewlf 5y ago

rsolva 5y ago

I tested this new "official" Mastodon app and see why it might be a good on-boarding experience for newcomers. I'll stick with Tusky [0] as it is much more mature and offer more features, like multiple account and a local timeline. 0: https://tusky.app/ https://tusky.app/