Just doing a little #marketresearch.. if you’ve seen me mention Indigo over the last month or so but haven’t given it a try, I’d love to hear why?
Is it pricing? You’re happy with your current client? Any thoughts at all?
Jun 19, 2026, 7:01 PM@BenRiceM I had thought there was no Mac version, but I now see there is! Looking forward to giving it a spin.
@apike well that was an easy win! And we’ve got some improvements to keyboard navigation in the next update
@BenRiceM I'm an android peasant
@stedieang can’t help you there 🥲
@BenRiceM I just started using it - but only for mastodon. Was a little bit hesitant to switch to only use half of the app. Glad it did :)
@jayfm we do still want it to be a nice client even if you’re just on one service
@BenRiceM it is, but maybe other have the same thought process? Maybe this can be a point for the marketing to adress
Jun 19, 2026, 7:11 PM@BenRiceM happy with my current client (ivory) and I’m not much of a crossposter so I don’t mind manually opening bsky to read. Indigo looks great though!!
@latte perfectly valid! I’ve been using Tapbots apps for a decade+ and following in their footsteps is.. intimidating 😅
@BenRiceM I don’t use BlueSky.
Mona has been great for me, so why change.
I don’t particularly like change 😂
@BenRiceM Same as another reply, I am very happy with Ivory. Ive been using it for Bluesky RO, but I dont use the service enough to justify paying for more there at this time.
@tsrats what’s Bluesky RO?
@BenRiceM Sorry I meant I'm using Indigo in read only mode for only Bluesky 😄
@BenRiceM personally I use Mastodon and Blue Sky for different things, so having them separate is a feature not a problem I’m looking to solve.
@BenRiceM I don’t really use Bluesky and change is … annoying so I am staying on Ivory for the time being.
Unrelated question: Did I gaslight myself into thinking there was a one-time purchase option for Obscura Ultra?
@hiiaminfi It should be there. Could you show me a screenshot of the paywall you’re seeing?
@BenRiceM maybe it’s because I am still on the one month plan …
@hiiaminfi Ah, that’s an App Store paywall, not mine. And it’ll let you swap between plans within the same subscription group, but the one-time purchases can’t be a part of that.
I *think* you need to cancel your subscription and when it expires you should be able to purchases the lifetime option
@BenRiceM wow. cool.
God I am glad Apple takes a 30% cut. They make it sooooooooooo easy.
Anyways - Obscura cool. Obscura Studio even better. Guess I will have to wait to support an indie dev then.
@BenRiceM I’m sure Indigo is great, but I don’t use Blue Sky and am happy with Ivory for Mastodon
@dzombak appreciate the feedback!
@BenRiceM honestly, in the past I’ve had issues with both Obscura and Croissant (which I still use mind you), and trying to reach support to file issues was either broken or I just never heard anything and bugs persisted
Not thrilled on paying more after going 2 for 2 on subscription apps
Jun 19, 2026, 9:19 PM@BenRiceM Pretty happy with my current app. Still gave it a very brief download to see what the hype was about and then decided it wasn’t worth yet another subscription. I appreciate the option for a lifetime purchase, however that’s quite the price to charge for an alternative frontend to social media which might stop working with any update. 😅
@amxmln I know a lot of developers who say (or used to say) to avoid lifetime options, for a variety of reasons.
So I try to price them high enough to discourage most users from considering it, while the people who are aggressively against subscriptions still have an option
Jun 19, 2026, 10:12 PM@BenRiceM Yeah, I understand the struggle, you have to make it sustainable somehow and subscriptions are the only way to get continued revenue for the work you put in. 😅
But it’s what personally made me not want to use the app. It felt too high a price for what it is.
Anyway, I hope it works out for you! The idea is nice and the app looks good at first glance. 😊
@amxmln I do wish Apple made it easier to support other pricing models like paying for 1 year of updates. But there’s no way for the App Store to serve different versions of the app so that’s kind of a non-starter.
And as you might imagine, I’m not a big fan of the advertising model
Jun 20, 2026, 8:28 AM@BenRiceM From what I know (which is admittedly limited), it’s also not really feasible to have a pay per major upgrade model on mobile operating systems because the underlying APIs could change at any time, breaking non-updated apps—so yeah, I get the conundrum. 😅
@amxmln That’s mostly true, but Apple could support publishing updates to older versions of the app.
It can be a huge pain trying to support multiple operating systems, but imagine if you could have a “legacy” version of your app for iOS 18 and the current version on iOS 26/27 but still be able to publish bug fixes to the 18 version.
And if that were possible you could tie your paid updates to operating system versions.
(Does that make sense?)
Jun 20, 2026, 9:31 AM@BenRiceM Yeah, I get it. 😊
I guess a workaround could be to have an Indigo Classic and then Indigo 1/2/3/4 for releases? Although I don’t know how that would work with maintenance, overhead, user-data, etc. My current Mastodon app, Mona, did something similar with the Liquid Glass update. 🤔
@BenRiceM using Tapestry to read and the integration with Ivory in the rare instances of replying (like now).
Not really looking for a replacement to a system that already works and whose UI I got used to.
Jun 19, 2026, 9:29 PM@BenRiceM it requires OS 26.
@BenRiceM I had assumed it was iOS only, and while I do cross post most of the time I never really do so from my phone, so I’m quite used to just switching between tabs in the browser (I have been wanting to make my own solution too, just for the cross-posting part)
Theres no doubt value in your app just as a reader though, so I might have to give it a look, even if I might not be on iOS for much longer ☺️
@BenRiceM I would like the ability to make the post font size larger than the largest. Would love to have the command + and command to adjust the font size.
I really like Mona's ability to add the previous post of a thread together in the main timeline.
And the scrolling is a little stuttery for me (on M4 Max MacBook Pro).
Little things, but enough to keep me on Mona for now.
(PS: I did buy a lifetime sub to show my support! :) )
@lwdupont large type on macOS specifically? I’ve heard that from a few people so I’ll try implement that soon.
Aaron has done a lot of work on scroll performance and is doing some more experiments right now so hopefully that’ll continue to improve
@BenRiceM I will not rest until you have thrown Mona in the trash
@BenRiceM Ya, MacOS specifically :) I run my laptop one monitor size bigger, and like bigger fonts. :) (Writing this now in Indigo, the text edit font should adjust too, it’s teeny tiny for me :) ).
@BenRiceM The reply dialog also could support the font size setting as well.
@BenRiceM My notifications panel, notice the different font sizes for the posts:
@BenRiceM Sorry I’m spamming you, but here’s another little bug (maybe just on macOS (Tahoe)).. clicking on the alt text icon on Emory’s post opens the image, but doesn’t show the text.
(Found another bug, can only drag and drop one image to a post, when I try it doesn’t show up, and in the case of the screenshot I just took, it’s gone). Oh, I’m wrong, I thought it was gone, but the image was below, just found it after resizing the reply dialog.
@BenRiceM I use it as my Bluesky client, but not for Mastodon, because I still prefer the Ivory look and feel and features. Compact output so I can fit more on screen and scroll less, swipe gestures for actions like favorite or replies rather than taking up valuable screen space with buttons on each post, and more control over fonts because I’m picky. 😅
@BenRiceM I am not on Bluesky but Indigo has been making me think I might try.
@BenRiceM Can’t figure out a way to look at Mastodon and Bluesky timelines separately
@pinkoos the only way to do that right now I think would be to make either account inactive, which is far from ideal.
But viewing just a single timeline is a feature we hope to add as soon as we can
@BenRiceM I don’t use Bluesky and don’t intend to. I’m done with algorithms in my social feeds. If I used both, I’d have gotten it asap.
Otherwise, I really love Ivory, and I wasn’t looking to replace or use something alongside it just for Mastodon.
@stegrainer Interesting! Bluesky’s primary feed is chronological and that’s what Indigo uses to combine with Mastodon so there’s nothing algorithmic by default
(not to try and persuade you, just curious that that was your perception of Bluesky)
@BenRiceM Yeah, but I knew they have an algorithmic timeline, and I don’t trust a company to not optimize toward that in the long run since it feeds into their business interests. Mostly though, I’m done with centralized social media.
@BenRiceM happy with Ivory and also not into Bluesky (and frankly don’t want to add another social media into my daily consumption). But as an avid early adopter, the FOMO is real 😬
@BenRiceM I don't use BlueSky and as you know a lot of us just love the UI and feel of Tapbots Ivory so it's hard to change. I also use Tapestry which has a couple of BlueSky feeds that I do want. I like to keep Ivory and Tapestry consumption separate.
@BenRiceM You should note though that I have it installed and read all your update notes and open it with each new update and love the speed of development so at some point maybe I jump ship 🤔
@pauls Ha, well that is a nice approach
@BenRiceM I am a very light user of Mastodon, so it didn’t feel like I was part of target demographic. Also, because I am a very light user, unfortunately I don’t get enough from the platform to justify spending money on a nicer client. It’s been so refreshing to see the wonderful ecosystem of clients we have around these days though compared to what happened to Twitter and Reddit.
@BenRiceM Pricing.
@grievousangel Is there a max price you’d be comfortable paying?
@BenRiceM for me personally I wouldn’t pay more than I pay for Overcast, so £10 a year.
However, you probably want to target market segments with higher need than me for these features.
So your pricing, while too high for a casual user than me, may be fine for people who post and read with business purposes in mind.
@grievousangel Aaron and I have been chatting about how to better address users like yourself, we know $35/y is a lot especially for users only on one social network
@BenRiceM @Aaronvegh Don’t use BlueSky and happy with Ivory for Mastodon. :)