The Many Purposes of Timeline Apps ⇥ macstories.net

Federico Viticci, MacStories, thinking about apps like Tapestry:

My problem with timeline apps is that I struggle to understand their pitch as alternatives to browsing Mastodon and Bluesky (supported by both Tapestry and Reeder) when they don’t support key functionalities of those services such as posting, replying, reposting, or marking items as favorites.

[…]

But: the beauty of the open web and the approach embraced by Tapestry and Reeder is that there are plenty of potential use cases to satisfy everyone. Crucially, this includes people who are not like me. There is no one-size-fits-all approach here because the web isn’t built like that.

I, too, think an all-in-one client would be a nice addition to my home screen. This is the advantage of separating the data layer from its presentation, however — there exists plenty of opportunity for different takes. I am currently testing Flashes, an app which connects to Bluesky or other (hypothetical) AT Protocol systems and shows only photo and video posts. I do not want to follow the same people for both text and photography, but that is okay because Bluesky has enough filtering options to create a different experience in different apps. I could see a similar app pulling together photos from different ActivityPub-based services, too.