Can’t wrap my head around Tapestry by @iconfactory I want to keep my sanity by interacting less with social media. This app wants me to do the opposite. Even though the app seems to shield me from the worst, the people I’m interacting with aren’t, and so the worst gets to me by proxy. So why?
@renevanbelzen Yeah, I can definitely see it’s not for everyone. It’s a pretty special little app, really. Very hackable. For me, the social protocols I’m on today are email, RSS, and ActivityPub. I really wish the closed platforms died already, but I still got friends, family, and people I care about on those sites. And many of my favorite third places—like cafés, galleries, and other venues—only have an online presence as microblogs on the corporate silos.
Tapestry won’t let me interact with them (the app is for reading, not writing), but it does let me keep an eye on what they’re up to without requiring an account there myself. But the social network support of Tapestry is just a fraction of the app’s potential. Here’s what Iconfactory says:
> Weaving your favorite blogs, social media, and more into a unified and chronological timeline.
I’m subscribed to quite a few bloggers I like but who post a lot. Like, multiple times per day. I don’t read everything they write—they’re more like rivers I like to dip my toes in from time to time. Blogs like that don’t really make sense in a traditional feed reader with unread counts. At least not according to my brain. So I’ve moved them over to Tapestry, where their frequent updates are a better fit.
What does Iconfactory mean by “more” in the quote above? Well, with their connector system, folks with a little JavaScript knowledge can put anything they want on the timeline. I’m using it to get updates from websites that don’t provide their own RSS feeds. And I’m thinking about writing another connector to post changes to local electricity prices, so I know when to start the dishwasher or charge my car.
Wow, I’m getting long-winded here. 😅 All this just to say that you could ignore Tapestry’s social network connectors entirely and might still find some good use out of the app.
@sod I recently disconnected from Strava, and am happier for it. The app shoved AI stats and recommendations into the UI, seemingly to shame me into subscribing. The constant bombardment of Kudos was also very disconcerting. I mean, don’t have people lives to live? Not taking part in it made it worse. So I just quit Strava.
To respond to some of your writing, for which I am thankful, if I happen to follow someone, but I notice that I can disregard most of the deluge of posts, I can probably also NOT follow that person. Am I missing out then? Probably, but I have a motto in life that news only becomes News when it’s recorded by history, otherwise it’s fluff that can easily be ignored. A few days often make clear which an article is: fluff or something noteworthy. If it’s important, it will come to me. The Internet takes care of that.
Of course, this is my situation. Others may have other considerations.
@renevanbelzen using Tapestry doesn’t mean you have to follow people or sites that cause you stress. It’s up to you to curate who and what you follow. Tapestry does allow you to impose filter rules however so those you do choose to follow can be minimized or muted easily across all of social media.
@iconfactory Thanks, I will try the free version and see how it goes before I pay for a subscription. I’m still skeptical about a read-only app.
Sure! With real-time pricing, electricity rates change hourly for me based on demand, weather conditions, and other factors. Here are today’s prices from my electric provider’s app:
So, let’s say I want to charge my car. From the graph, I can see that charging at night is ideal because the price is actually negative—I’d basically get paid to do it! On the other hand, I definitely want to avoid charging between 17.00 and 20.00.
The problem with this app, though, is that it’s a slow and clunky web app. I don’t like it. 😊 And I think it could be a lot more helpful. Instead of making me analyze a graph, I’d rather it just tell me something like: Set the dishwasher to start at 02.00 tonight.
That’s why I like the idea of having a custom timeline in Tapestry—something that quickly shows me this info (and maybe other things I care about) at a glance.
