The app has been around for a little while now, but since the 1.1 update, Tapestry has become one of my favourite apps.
It is one of those timeline apps you see more often lately: one app for all your feeds, but chronological and without an algorithm. Think news from your favourite websites, the latest videos from YouTube channels you follow, or posts from people on Bluesky and Mastodon.
You could already build your own timeline from your favourite sources, but since update 1.1 you can pin those timelines to the menu at the bottom of the screen.
And that is worth its weight in gold.
That one feature has almost single-handedly made me doomscroll less on my phone. I have a pretty cursed relationship with my smartphone, and sometimes my screen time is genuinely ridiculous. I hopped from app to app, dopamine hit to dopamine hit.
Not anymore.
Now I just open Tapestry in the morning and scroll through my own timeline to catch up. Lovely.
I created four different timelines and pinned them to the bottom menu:
- News: everything I actually want to read. Film and TV news, game reviews, and the occasional terrible take about Ajax.
- Socials: a handful of people on Bluesky and Mastodon whose posts I do not want to miss. Not Threads ragebait, just posts from journalists and people with good taste.
- YouTube: the YouTube app is rubbish, right? In this timeline I follow my favourite channels and only watch what I actually want, without disappearing into the depths of YouTube for hours.
- Updates: posts from favourite app developers, updates from makers of gadgets I like, and news from the football club I play for.
Your Zelf Bepils
Because I decide what I read in Tapestry, it gives me a lot of peace. I do not have to get angry at some stupid take because an algorithm decided I might enjoy being annoyed.
Your zelf bepils, you know?
But it goes further than that. One of Tapestry’s strongest features is the ability to mute certain words or topics.
On Threads I already mute everyone and their mother, so naturally I love this kind of feature. Tapestry handles it nicely too. I block pretty much everything related to politics, for example.
Muting is also a gift from the heavens. There are some topics I do want to read about, just not right now. Last week half the internet was crying about the death of someone in a certain show, and of course that meant spoilers were suddenly everywhere. Solution: mute that stuff.
It still appears in the timeline, but the post is collapsed. That way I can decide later whether I want to read it or not.
Muting certain topics is really nice.
That is why a timeline app like this has so many advantages. It has become a real alternative to social media apps for me. You decide what you read. Not a hundred billion posts. Just a handful of sources.
That means more calm, less anger, less frustration.
And that is better for everyone, right?
Oh, and it is only for iPhone, iPad and Mac users. Android weirdos will have to find their own way to stay calm.