Iconfactory, the team behind the Twitterrific app, has released a new app called Tapestry. This app gathers different online content like social media posts, blogs, podcasts, and YouTube channels into one easy-to-read timeline.
Unlike many news apps that use algorithms to decide what you see, Tapestry shows everything in the order it was posted, giving users full control over their feeds. Tapestry includes features to help manage what appears in your timeline, like “Muffle” to reduce the visibility of certain keywords and “Mute” to hide specific sources. You can also make custom timelines to sort content by type and use a search function to find information across different feeds. The app syncs your data across devices and offers various personalization options, though some features are available only with a paid subscription. It looks a lot like a Twitter feed that you can scroll through. When a post is pressed, it shows you the full post.
Tapestry is one of several ‘timeline’ apps we’ve seen over the past few years, giving people a single place to view content from different platforms. Other examples include Reeder, Unread, Feeeed, and Surf. While each app has its own look and features, they all aim to gather various internet feeds in one spot. These timeline apps can be seen as the modern version of earlier RSS readers like Google Reader and Feedly, adjusting to how content is now spread across many platforms.
I use Feedly, and it doesn’t work well on every website it shows. It also has a lot of trouble with Reddit. Apps like Feedly have limitations because they only allow passive content consumption and don’t support interactive features like liking or commenting on posts, which is common on social media.
As managing multiple online accounts and feeds becomes more complicated, these aggregation tools are becoming more popular. Timeline apps are useful for organizing different kinds of online content in one place, but they also have some challenges. Checking the official Kickstarter shows the company had no plans to come to Android, so a port to those devices may take a while.
Since they need to work with various content types, like text, podcasts, and videos, they must have a strong and flexible design. It seems like Tapestry does a great job of this, and you can download it from the Apple App Store. The app is only compatible with iPhone, iPad, and (M1 or later) Mac.
