After founding and promoting the favored Mastodon consumer Mammoth, developer Shihab Mehboob is returning to compete with it with the launch of his new app, Saturn. Not to be confused with the social calendar of the identical title, Mehboob’s Saturn works with the decentralized social community Mastodon and particularly gives a singular “Highlights” function that summarizes your timeline and exhibits fashionable content material.
Mehboob stresses that the app is just not leveraging AI and even machine studying to perform this, noting that many within the Mastodon group are cautious of such know-how. Instead, he says that the Highlights function is powered by a easy native checker that appears to see which posts and accounts from the person’s timeline are seeing the best likes and reposts and brings these ahead within the app. However, the function doesn’t essentially embody solely content material from accounts you observe, as a result of it additionally helps content material that was reposted into your feed.
In this manner, Saturn goals to handle critics’ complaints about utilizing the would-be Twitter/X different, Mastodon, the place it will possibly usually be laborious to search out fascinating accounts to observe once you first be a part of.
Saturn additionally helps anticipated options like the power to submit pictures, movies, GIFs, polls, customized emoticons, drawings, spoiler textual content, and extra.
Unlike X and Meta’s Threads, which depend on algorithms to curate content material for the person person, Saturn guarantees chronological timelines solely.
Similar to different third-party Mastodon apps, like Ivory, you’ll be able to configure Saturn’s backside navigation bar to incorporate fast entry to issues like fashionable posts, the most recent information, prompt accounts, communities, and trending tags. You are additionally in a position to simply entry your feed, the firehose out of your Mastodon server, group posts, and lists, in addition to your bookmarks and profile from the in-app nav bar.
In addition, the app gained’t embody adverts because it as an alternative depends on premium subscriptions to maintain itself. For $12.99 per yr (or $39.99 as a one-time buy), Saturn’s subscription gives entry to the sensible highlights discovery function, and different choices, together with a lurker mode for searching timelines safely with out unintentionally liking one thing (Instagram, TAKE NOTE!), a velocity dial for messaging your common contacts, assist for limitless accounts, push notifications, customized themes and icons, social sharing, shortcuts, widgets, and extra.
With a concentrate on iOS 18, Saturn additionally helps Apple’s App Intents (for Shortcuts), Control Center Widgets, Translations, Pencil gestures, and Live Activities for the Apple Watch. (The Watch app is included with the app obtain.)
Mehboob says he was in a position to launch Saturn because it has been greater than a yr for the reason that sale of Mammoth, which is now backed by Mozilla, Long Journey Ventures, and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff.
“I find that the biggest draw with Saturn is its beautiful interface, customization, smoothness, and the ability to add in new OS-specific features fast,” Mehboob says. “It looks and feels right at home on iOS,” he provides.
The app is a free obtain and gives in-app purchases.
