Tootle for Mastodon 17+

Tootle is the best app for Mastodon I've used so far. There are a lot of things to like: very customizable UI, the ability to pause the timeline, easily setup specific filtered views, etc. I even like the design of its content warnings (although I'd prefer if the text just read "show content", rather than "show NSFW content", since half the time it's not actually NSFW, but that's not a bid deal). On top of all that, it's free (with the option donate).

The one thing that stops me from giving it 5 stars is that clicking on a post shows the thread in reverse chronological order. That order makes sense for the general feed, but if I click on a toot, it really makes sense to go in normal chronological order. If you gave me that, I would indeed "buy you a coffee :)". Until then, I find myself using the web version more.

I was quite worried upon seeing the in app purchases. I just can't trust Freemium anymore with apps, even though I highly respect developers, I have had many poor experiences. So I was pleasantly surprised to see it was only for donations! Which I will do when I have the cash. Until then I hope my review can make a difference. Not everything in here is immediately intuitive but almost everything you want on mastodon you can do here. The biggest thing for me so far as a new user is I wish the option to block an instance was available from the federated timeline. But instead you have to go into the profile then find it in the three dots drop down on the profile of a person from that instance. Besides that I've been thoroughly enjoying the quality of this app. If you want free mastodon done right then it's here. I can't speak for the paid apps though. But if you're a purist and don't want to ever pay for software then again here you have it. Though I recommend you donate!!

Tootle is insanely customizable which means I tend to peruse it far more than my desktop client because I am invested in it's design. You can resize text, change colour schemes, follow multiple instances from one account; then rename those instances with unique icons & also change the layout of 'tabs' on the bottom bar.

The app also features quick swapping between accounts & is really a joy.

4-Stars instead of 5 because..

-I have noticed that you can't add 'alt-text' to photos for a description which seems important since some instances require the descriptions for hard of vision users. This seems like a crucial accessibility flaw.

-Also Ive been experiencing a bug recently where I am not able to view my notifs on a particular instance due to it crashing shortly after selecting the tab. I also have encountered a bug where I can't change my pfps/descriptions from inside the app.

-However with these flaws I still daily drive this app due to the customization and differentiation to other social medias, that's makes Mastodon on Tootle feel like a league of its own.