Shorter entry today, just wanted to talk about this for a sec.

As I’ve been using my iPhone and Mac together more and more, along with Mastodon, I’m realizing that there aren’t really any great or amazing Mastodon apps for Android (yet!) There are some good ones — Megalodon and its fork Moshidon, both derived from the official Mastodon app, come to mind — but nothing that is both native and fast like Mona or Ivory on macOS/iOS exists.

Nothing against those apps, either, or the others that exist. It’s just that I’ve tried them all out and have found that the iOS walled garden gets way better treatment than Android folks do. There’s a reason for that, though.

A big problem with Android app development is that there are just so many devices that it’s hard to optimize an app like that for them all. Whereas on iOS/macOS, each version of the OS has a fairly small set of devices that it supports, so it’s much, much easier to build for. That’s always been Apple’s strong suit, and it’s certainly helping them win this fediverse app game.

The thing is, it’s worth a shot building something that just feels good to use. Smooth animations, native design, customizability are all things that people look for. That’s what I want in a Mastodon app on Android! It just doesn’t exist yet, as far as I can tell…

I guess what I’m saying is, I hope someone steps up to build something like a Mona or Ivory on Android. I really do! (And if you have any suggestions for ones to try, please do let me know!)

The post There aren’t really any great Mastodon apps for Android (yet) appeared first on Slade Watkins.