Woolly, a Mastodon app, has been launched today for iOS, joining the growing list of third-party apps that connect users to the decentralized social network. Woolly offers a more customizable home screen, threaded views for reading longer conversations, and a TweetDeck-inspired layout for iPad. According to latest tweet by TechCrunch.
The app’s main differentiator is the approach it takes to home screen customization. Users can pin multiple remote timelines, lists, bookmarks, search, hashtags, or even other user profiles directly to the app’s main tab bar for quick and easy access to their favorite content. The columns are presented in a TweetDeck-like view on the iPad.
Another standout feature in Woolly’s new app is its support for threaded conversations, which resembles Twitter’s own look and feel, complete with connective lines between posts to help users follow replies as they scroll down. The feature aims to offer “a better reading experience for longer conversations,” according to Woolly’s creator, Matteo Villa.
Woolly’s app also includes a way to filter timelines to hide boosts and replies, settings to open links in-app or in the system browser, a selection of light and dark mode themes, toggles for hiding or unhiding sensitive media, hiding posts with content warnings, access to trending posts, links, and hashtags.
Woolly is not as feature-rich as some other apps at launch, such as Ivory which includes access to things like analytics and more custom timeline filters. However, it is a polished and stable app that also has the potential to make former Twitter users feel more comfortable when making the switch to Mastodon.
Since Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the federated social web has been gaining ground, as some former Twitter users began to experiment with other places to socialize online. Mastodon’s user base has grown too, reaching 2.5 million monthly actives by year-end.
Woolly is available as a free download on the App Store. However, to post to Mastodon, users must purchase an in-app subscription costing either $0.99 per month or $6.99 per year, which offers the ability to log in to multiple accounts, customize the main tab bar, unlock more themes, and soon, utilize Home Screen widgets.