Federico Viticci, writing at MacStories:

I think both Tapestry and the new Reeder are exquisitely designed apps, for different reasons. I know that Tapestry’s colorful and opinionated design doesn’t work for everyone; personally, I dig the different colors for each connected service, am a big fan the ‘Mini’ layout, and appreciate the multiple font options available. Most of all, however, I love that Tapestry can be extended with custom connectors built with standard web technologies – JavaScript and JSON – so that anyone who produces anything on the web can be connected to Tapestry. (The fact that MacStories’ own JSON feed is a default recommended source in Tapestry is just icing on the cake.) And did you know that The Iconfactory also created a developer tool to make your own Tapestry connectors?

My problem with timeline apps is that I struggle to understand their pitch as alternatives to browsing Mastodon and Bluesky (supported by both Tapestry and Reeder) when they don’t support key functionalities of those services such as posting, replying, reposting, or marking items as favorites.

Maybe it’s just me, but when I’m using a social media app, I want to have access to its full feature set and be able to respond to people or interact with posts. I want to browse my custom Bluesky feeds or post a Mastodon poll if I want to. Instead, both Tapestry and Reeder act as glorified readers for those social timelines. And I understand that perhaps that’s exactly what some people want! But until these apps can tap into Mastodon and Bluesky (and/or their decentralized protocols) to support interactions in addition to reading, I’d rather just use the main social media apps (or clients like Ivory).1 To an extent, the same applies for Reddit: if neither of these apps allow me to browse an entire subreddit or sort its posts by different criteria, what’s the point?

I really enjoyed Viticci’s piece, a link post to an article from David Pierce at The Verge covering The Iconfactory’s new Tapestry app. The concept of “timeline apps” (thanks to Pierce for the phrase) has been floating around in my head for a few months now since the release of the new Reeder, a subscription product that combines Bluesky, Mastodon, RSS — really simple syndication — podcasts, and more into one timeline. The new Reeder was such a departure from the previous RSS-only version that it required me to look at it from the perspective of someone who was new to RSS and couldn’t quite grok the point of it when social media already serves as an excellent, oftentimes personalized link aggregator. The chronological timeline-style nature of RSS makes it a convoluted solution for the vast majority of people, so Reeder is a perfect middle ground between chronological timelines and social media algorithms.

I really wanted to try the new Reeder, and I even subscribed to it for a month to give it a shot, abandoning my beloved NetNewsWire for a few days to see what it was like. I found myself less confused after my flirt with the idea but disheartened simultaneously. I really like Reeder and Tapestry — they’re gorgeous apps designed by talented independent developers with a knack for good design. Yet, I just have no place for them in my life. I use RSS to read the news in a chronological, unsorted format where I can pick and choose what I want to read. If I ever want to see what everyone else is reading, I can go to Bluesky or Threads, which are amalgamations of everything people I follow are into. To check what’s trending — or if I’m in a pinch and really need what’s important — I check a site like Techmeme or Political Wire by Taegan Goddard. Timeline apps don’t fulfill either of those needs well enough for me. They look like social media but aren’t as personalized as Bluesky or Threads.

And, as Viticci writes, if I see a social media post, I’ll probably want to like it or reply. Timeline apps are read-only, which makes sense from an RSS standpoint, but it waters down social media for me. In my eyes, the news and social media are related but separate media sources, and I appreciate viewing them discretely in their own bespoke apps. There’s a reason I avoid following news sources on social media, with the exception of Techmeme and The Verge because I typically check social media before RSS and need critical news on my timeline. Timeline apps are sub-par social media clients because they’re designed to bridge the gap between feeds and stories. They’re meant for an audience accustomed to feeds and stories in one app.

Yet I keep coming back to timeline apps because I find them delightful. I don’t want RSS and social media to be in one, but I do want an RSS reader with a smidgen more organization than only folders. Ultimately, I do enjoy social media and don’t begrudge my time on it, unlike some other RSS users, and replicating that experience with hard news would be an interesting concept. Tapestry nails the user interface of a lightweight “catch-up-and-leave” app so well, which makes sense coming from the company that made Twitteriffic, the ultimate app to look at while waiting on the toaster. To me, RSS is a sit-down experience where every article is meant to be opened and read, whereas social media often turns into mindless scrolling. There’s nothing bad about mindless scrolling in moderation, and Tapestry understands this.

When an item is tapped, Tapestry doesn’t just open the full article, unlike traditional RSS client. It displays the headline, a hero image, and the description provided by the RSS feed. For instance, a New York Times article will display the author-written blurb at the top of the page. (If a description isn’t provided, the app clips the article’s text after about 500 words.) If I want, I can tap the article one more time to open it in the in-app browser, just like social media, but if I choose to save it for later or disregard it entirely, there’s no pressure on me to indicate so, i.e., there’s no read/unread marker. Tapestry is just a timeline of links and shorthand clips of text. It’s not meant to be an RSS reader, but it’s so much more than social media. It’s uncannily reminiscent of Google Reader and the heyday of short, link blogs.

I love Tapestry and Reeder so much. Reading requires at least some attention, but social media scrolling doesn’t because it removes the pressure of having to do something with what someone has just read. I guess I’m reading the news on social media, but it doesn’t feel like I’m reading down the list of the going wrongs in the same way RSS does. Tapestry is an RSS reader that addresses what’s occasionally my biggest gripe with RSS: how boring it gets. I find it such an amazing app for wasting time.

That’s also exactly why I can never find a use for it: I need RSS for my job. I find stories to write about using RSS; I don’t use social media for that. Tapestry can never negate my need for a proper, NetNewsWire-like RSS solution, and it’s not good enough to replace any of my plethora of social media apps. Plainly, I have no use for it. No matter how much joy it gives me, I can’t find a place to squeeze it in. I realize this is a shameless first-world problem — and believe me, I feel shame in writing about it — but it’s a problem I’ve been trying to solve for a few months. It’s not Tapestry or Reeder’s fault — it’s my fault for having a rigid media consumption diet impossible to break away from. Does it work for me? Yes. But I also suffer from shiny object syndrome, and the fresh, hot bits are way too enticing for me to ignore.

Even if you don’t plan on using it, give Tapestry a shot. It’s free in the App Store.