There’s a brand new Bluesky app within the works from a preferred developer of iOS functions. Tapbots, the corporate behind the favored Mastodon consumer Ivory, born out of its earlier efforts with Tweetbot (RIP), is readying a brand new app referred to as Phoenix, designed for Bluesky’s rising social community of over 32 million customers.
In a publish on Bluesky, the corporate shared its web site teasing the brand new app, which is anticipated to launch someday later this summer time.
On its web site, Tapbots clarified that its work on a Bluesky consumer doesn’t imply it’s abandoning its efforts within the fediverse, also called the open social net. However, Ivory’s growth will quickly gradual as the brand new efforts are underway.
Ivory, which launched in 2023, introduced again Tweetbot’s appear and feel and a number of other of its options to supply an alternative choice to Mastodon’s official social app, an open supply, decentralized various to bigger platforms like X. As a federated app, Ivory is built-in with ActivityPub, the protocol powering a number of federated social apps together with not solely Mastodon, but in addition PeerTube, Pixelfed, Meta’s Threads, Flipboard, and others.
Bluesky, in the meantime, is constructed on a special protocol, the AT Protocol (or atproto for brief).
Since Twitter’s acquisition by Elon Musk and its transformation into X, many former Twitter customers have moved on to different networks, together with Mastodon and Bluesky. For an indie operation like Tapbots, that meant its buyer base was break up between two companies, making it tougher to generate income with only one app.
“… For us to continue to thrive as a company, we must support both,” Tapbots shared on its web site. “Unfortunately, we can’t survive on Mastodon alone.”
The firm additionally explains that it determined to launch a devoted app for Bluesky customers as a substitute of mixing the 2 networks into one app as a result of this could provide customers a greater expertise. Those who need to keep a presence on each social networks will be capable to benefit from a deliberate cross-posting function, it added.
Unfortunately for Mastodon customers, work on Ivory might want to gradual because the crew works to launch Phoenix.
“It would be a lie if we said Ivory would be in full development while we are trying to get Phoenix up and running,” the web site explains. “However, we did not want to start Phoenix development until after we released Ivory v2.3. Once Phoenix is out the door, development will happen concurrently and both apps will get all the huge improvements we have planned throughout the apps.”
News of Phoenix’s launch was first reported by MacStories.
Though the corporate has not introduced Phoenix’s monetization technique, it should possible be a subscription mannequin just like Ivory’s — a free app with in-app purchases for entry to premium options. Currently, Ivory is $1.99 monthly or $14.99 per 12 months.
Phoenix will enter a restricted public alpha part forward of its summer time 2025 launch.
