If you enjoy using Mastodon for Android, please consider leaving a positive rating or review on the Play Store, because a lot of people who do leave reviews are like this:

@Gargron done ✅

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Refreshing social media platform.
Mastodon doesn't use algorithms to sort posts for you but rather shows you what you follow."

I'm pretty sure other people can highlight the other amazing features of Mastodon/app so it will show in the first few lines (before "see more")

@PaulaToThePeople

Five stars: far left 💪
@Gargron

@Gargron this ad placement can't help.

@controlc @Gargron Yeah it's nasty..

Apple App Store same deal

@controlc @Gargron

and the former is rated "teen", while the latter is "mature"

@Gargron Well, my impression is that that Mastodon/Fediverse is a bit more ... radical ... than I'd like. In particular I'm not sure that all the "eat the rich" or "kill the naciz" are joke.

@Gargron web browser or death, my friend. Apps are a dead end.

@codinghorror @Gargron

Honestly, I'm feeling this very hard.

I'm running my own Mastodon node and I haven't bothered to install an Android client. The web app is fine: It's fast, it's clear, it's extremely well crafted... I'm not sad that there are alternatives to be sure, but I just have no use for them.

@mark @Gargron also, is it really helpful to split engineering work across three rather different domains: webapp (HTML/JS), android (Java),. and iOS (Swift/Ojbective C) -- and constantly spend so much engineering time keeping them in sync? Why not have one canonical implementation, the webapp, and focus all your efforts in one place? Isn't that a more efficient use of limited resources?

@mark @codinghorror @Gargron I'm in the same position running my own instance, and not just with #Mastodon. I am increasingly using only web interfaces when possible, and avoiding apps, even though may firms will nag you endlessly to use the app instead. Of course they want you to use the app, given how much other data about you that will typically permit them to gather.

@pavel @Gargron They're not jokes.

@maybenot @controlc @Gargron with the amount of mdni fucks on fedi, and the lack of ways to easily filter them out, yeah i could see why

you open the federated timeline on mastodon.social and it takes you like 1 minute to find porn

@soop @maybenot @controlc @Gargron An entire minute? Like 60 seconds? Really? Okay, that's an order of magnitude longer than X, so I can understand the frustration…

@aspensmonster @Gargron Yeah, well... Spreading hate is not ok. Some people should go to jail, and fedi should get better moderation.

@codinghorror The web app will always be the primary interface for Mastodon, but the app stores are a significant driver of traffic, accounting for 37% of new sign-ups.

@Gargron @codinghorror

So you are saying that if there was a way to take the web app frontend code and deploy it as a native app, you could have an increase in the number of signups *without* having to develop and manage three separate codebases?

Perhaps this could help: https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/724534

@raphael @Gargron yes that is what I am saying, sorry for not being clear.

@raphael @codinghorror 😬

Please don’t do this, @Gargron. Web apps masquerading as native apps are hot garbage. Mastodon deserves a truly native experience.

(Particularly on Android, where as I understand it there aren’t as many high-quality 3rd party apps to be found as on iOS…)

@jeff @codinghorror @Gargron

I've been using Voyager for Lemmy, it is a PWA and it works just fine.

elk.zone is a PWA. Also works quite well.

But the point is that if you are a developer/manager of a dev team who is running on a shoestring budget, having native apps is *not* a priority. It would be better for everyone to focus on one single "official" frontend, and let the community pick up the slack if this is so important.

@raphael @codinghorror @Gargron I’ve been both a manager and a developer on a shoestring budget and, in our case, the mobile app was _everything_.

Bailing on providing a high-quality native experience would be a disappointment. There are other options, but the “official” option is people’s introduction to Mastodon. Having only the web app is a suboptimal experience.

@jeff @codinghorror @Gargron

Sorry, your whole argument seems like post-facto rationalization and it's really hard to give any credence, considering you are an iOS developer.

Of all the issues I heard about people not satisfied with Mastodon or the Fediverse in general, "lack of a really polished, native mobile app" is probably never mentioned.

People might complain about missing features compared to the traditional networks, but aside from die-hard iOS users no one cares native or PWA.

@raphael "Sorry, your whole argument seems like post-facto rationalization and it's really hard to give any credence, considering..."

Yeah, with that you can make like a PWA and go be mediocre somewhere else.

<plonk>