A brand new app known as Tapestry promising to unify social media, information, and RSS in a single place, is nearing completion. Designed by Iconfactory, the identical workforce that created the third-party Twitter shopper Twitterific again within the day, Tapestry was unveiled at the beginning of the year as a software that would higher arrange at present’s fragmented on-line media, permitting customers to trace their favourite blogs, information websites, and social networks from a single app. This week, the corporate introduced an replace on Tapestry’s progress, saying that it deliberate to formally launch the app to the general public in “early 2025.”
“Clearly the earlier the higher, however there’s nonetheless some necessary work to be carried out and bugs to be squashed,” the replace on the challenge’s Patreon page famous.
As an alternative of elevating from exterior traders, Iconfactory has been crowdfunding Tapestry’s improvement. To this point, over 3360 backers pledged north of $177,800 to convey the app to life.
The app will attraction to people who find themselves bored with making an attempt to maintain up with a number of websites, blogs, and social media providers by always opening new browser tabs and switching apps. It additionally capitalizes customers being annoyed that there are actually too many Twitter clones.
Following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, now known as X, there was an explosion of curiosity in new Twitter-like providers, together with apps like Mastodon and Bluesky, constructed on open protocols, and Meta’s Threads, which is working to combine with ActivityPub, the identical protocol powering Mastodon. (Different smaller apps like T2/Pebble, Post, and Cohost, have since shut down.)
On account of these experiments in a extra open social internet, there’s potential for brand spanking new person experiences designed to browse these totally different providers, app builders consider.
Simply this week Flipboard launched its personal tackle what a browser for the open internet ought to appear to be, with the launch of an app called Surf that allows you to monitor RSS, Bluesky, and Mastodon content material in a single app.
It’s not the one firm fascinated by this.
Apart from Iconfactory, the developer behind the favored Mac and iOS newsreader Reeder, Silvio Rizzi, reinvented his app to broaden past RSS to incorporate assist for different social providers, like Mastodon, Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and others. One other indie app known as Feeeed additionally expanded this year to allow users to track RSS, newsletters, Mastodon, Tumblr, Reddit, and others. And this week, Feeeed added assist for Bluesky, too. Plus, an app known as Openvibe enables you to browse Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads in a single place.
Regardless of their related premises, every app provides a distinct person interface and expertise. Whereas Reeder nonetheless look and feels very like an RSS reader, others appear extra like social experiences of their very own.
Tapestry is fascinating because it tries to straddle each worlds, permitting customers to trace their favourite web sites and blogs, and even import RSS feeds en masse by way of an OPML file, whereas additionally connecting to a wide range of social sources. Right this moment, the beta model of the app helps Mastodon and Bluesky, in addition to webcomics, social apps like Reddit, Tumblr, and YouTube in addition to sources for climate and earthquake alerts — occasions X continues to be typically used to trace.
Nonetheless, Tapestry isn’t nearly cramming every little thing into one interface. Its actual energy lies in permitting individuals to create their very own customized feeds (or “timelines”) the place they’ll decide and select which sources — like social websites, web sites, blogs, podcasts and extra — are included. You too can use instruments like “mute” and “muffle,” borrowed from Twitterific, to configure whether or not or not posts with sure key phrases are blocked fully or collapsed (muffled) when proven.
There are a variety of different customization instruments that may attraction to energy customers who prefer to construct feeds, too.
Nonetheless, one level of confusion with the present construct is that Tapestry separates sources (like RSS feeds or social apps) into two sections known as “feeds” and “connectors” — the previous to fill your timeline with content material and the latter to create different feeds to populate your timeline. Some providers, like Mastodon and Bluesky, can seem in each sections for those who add them. We’d want a mixed part simply known as “sources.”
Nonetheless, it’s straightforward to see the way you would possibly use Tapestry to maintain up with a number of social providers alongside breaking information and new posts out of your favourite sources, as an alternative choice to searching X.
Iconfactory hasn’t but shared an actual launch date for Tapestry, however the app will generate income by the use of month-to-month and annual subscriptions.
