iOS Today: Navigating Post-Twitter Social Media with Cross-Platform Apps

Consolidating Social Media Feeds

• 💡 Ivory for Mastodon offers a premium, customizable experience for accessing Mastodon, with features like configurable navigation and multi-account support, priced at $14.99-$24.99/year.
• 🚀 Tapestry by Iconfactory unifies various social media feeds, blogs (via RSS), and podcasts into a single timeline, supporting platforms like Mastodon, Tumblr, YouTube, Blue Sky, and Reddit for $1.99/month or a $79.99 lifetime purchase.
• 🧩 Tapestry's name reflects the goal of weaving together disparate online "threads" to avoid opening numerous apps.

Streamlining Cross-Platform Posting

• ✍️ Croissant by Innoveghtive is a tool designed for cross-posting content simultaneously to multiple social networks including Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky, with support for alt-text, available for $2.99/month or $59.99 lifetime.
• ⚠️ The app's name, "Croissant," is a clever play on "cross-posting."
• 🛠️ The developers are praised for tackling the complex API integrations required to connect with diverse social media platforms.
• 📅 For business users, Buffer offers professional social media scheduling across platforms like Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Facebook, featuring a calendar view and automation integrations.

Apple Arcade and New Game Releases

• 🎮 Apple Arcade continues to offer ad-free gaming for $6.99/month, or as part of Apple One bundles.
• 🍎 New games launching August 7th include Play-Doh World (open-world creative), Worms Across Worlds (strategic combat), Let's Go MightyCats (tower defense), and Everybody Shogi (board game variant).
• 🎁 A reminder that new Apple devices often come with a free trial of Apple Arcade.

Shortcuts Corner: Sorting Photos and Videos

• ❓ Jack requested a shortcut to sort over 300 mixed portrait and landscape photos and videos by orientation for marketing purposes.
• 💡 Rosemary Orchard demonstrated that while iOS Shortcuts can determine video dimensions (width vs. height), they cannot directly read video orientation like they can for photos.
• 💻 The solution involves a shortcut that renames files by prepending "Portrait" or "Landscape" based on width and height, allowing for alphabetical sorting, and includes an option for AirDropping the results.
• 🔗 A link to the developed shortcut will be provided in the show notes.

App Caps: Must-Have Utilities

• 📚 Knots 3D ($5.99) is a comprehensive reference app for learning and visualizing various knots with 3D animations, covering categories from scouting to boating and military applications.
• 💊 Capsule, a medication tracker developed by Rosemary's team, is launching with a family sharing subscription of $12.99/year (introductory price), offering customizable tracking for multiple medications, schedules, and notifications.