Social networks change, and I am not wrong to say that Twitter, or rather, X, has changed forever. Therefore, when the changes introduced by the beloved (and also criticized) Elon Musk they bother the communityI remember the existing alternatives, such as Bluesky either Mastodon.
We are not obliged to stay in X, much less with Mastodon being a similar alternative. The only problem, at least for me, was that I didn’t feel comfortable using the official app. But it is no longer an impediment: Megalodon is to blame.
Looking for an alternative to the official app
X decided that it was best block alternative apps which also gave access to it. Another compelling reason to use similar services. Mastodon is a free and decentralized social networkwhich works the same way as X, with some differences.
Be that as it may, I ended up using it, discovering the good and healthy communities that abound in the numerous instances. However, I found one drawback: the application has a simple but somewhat outdated interface. Yes, it uses Material Design, however, it does not follow the design lines of the most recent versions of Android.
As I am obsessed with the aesthetic section of the applications I use on my Android mobile, I set out to look for a third-party application, which is not uncommon to find and is much better designed than the official ones. That’s what happens with Megalodoneasy to find because my colleague Iván Linares cited it as one of the best apps of 2023.
Megalodon for Mastodon
Megalodon is a modified version of the official Mastodon app for Android that adds important features missing from the official app.
This is Megalodon, my favorite app to use Mastodon
Like the official client, Megalodon is very light: installed it takes up just 20 megabytes, making it ideal for mobile phones with little memory. This slight size does not mean that it is not full of functions, in fact, from the first opening, we will see how it improves on the original.
We have Material You in every corner, beautifying buttons, switches and in general, the interface. In addition, scrolling through the feed is very smooth, more noticeable on a screen with a refresh rate above 60 hertz. This is for me, the most differential.
And if that was not enough, the settings allow you to change it completely. Let’s take a walk through them. In the ‘Behavior’ section, we can configure many aspects, such as using the internal browser, or confirmations when performing an action: in general the behavior of the app.
In ‘Display’, we are allowed to adjust the appearance, with device-friendly themes. What’s more, it is able to follow the accent color of our wallpaper, which improves the feeling of consistency with Google’s operating system. Use custom emojis, minimize long posts, underline links… a thousand and one adjustments to leave it to our liking.
Then, we have privacy settings, being able to choose a personalized view of posts: for example, ‘Followers only’ or ‘People mentioned’. It gives a lot of play. On the other hand, notifications work very well, and yes, they are also customizable in detail.
In the end, what Megalodon enables us is to “design” our own Mastodon space, in conjunction with a design language consistent with the OS, and many tools with which to scrupulously personalize the experience. None is equal to it and if you are a Mastodon user, don’t hesitate: it will not disappoint you.
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