Mona 7 for Mastodon

It has the same bugs and lack of features as Mona 6, but it’s a new purchase, to get around the old version’s lifetime purchase option, named “Mona Pro Max”. There’s no guarantee version 6, the older version, will be maintained or supported any longer or if so for how long, so not purchasing 7 isn’t necessarily an option, especially when the developer has made it clear that the discounted one-time purchase of 7 for 6-purchasers *is* temporary. This is all very disingenuous and scummy from the developer. They’ve made zero effort to address any of the existing bugs or lack of features but have changed the revenue model to be more hostile to their customers. Shameful and untrustworthy. Examples of a bugs/missing features: 1. the number indicating replies to a post and the actual replies displayed is off, usually the actual replies displayed are fewer than the number indicates, and there *are* replies that aren’t loaded/displayed. Other clients do display the replies correctly but no version of Mona does. 2. Private notes, mutes/filters and scroll/read positions are only saved in the app locally but not in the server. If you happened to have both Mona 6 and 7, for evaluation purposes, or Mona and another app because Mona lacks the essential features the other app has, these app-only features stand out. I think there’s little reason to purchase Mona 7.

I saw the buzz around this new app and I figured I would try it out to see what improvements it offers over the previous versions. The first thing I noticed is that even with this latest update, many of the icons from the last version are missing. I feel like the developer must think that nobody uses these ( "Has lots of icons? Check!" ). But imagine if you were used to using one icon and now that no longer exists and you lose time trying to find it. It's these types of design considerations that are myriad in this app: the complicated UI views on the Mac are extremely confusing: the sidebar turns into a horizontal bar when you "divide the window". What ever happened to just "colunms". Depending on your view, you get random and unpredictable menubar preferences. Then the pricing is a mess. Is it subscription or is it a one time purchase? How do I know if I have Mona Pro Ultra? What happened to Mona 6? What is Mona Classic? I think this app may be for folks who are enormously invested in a single product and who have time to learn all of the idiosyncrasies of a strongly opinionated app. I am definitely thankful that I was able to try this app before purchasing, because I just don't have the time to be able to unravel this.

This app is easily the most customizable Mastodon app available, with the most features added, compared to a number of other popular Mastodon apps. This seems to continue on through the iOS 26 liquid glass features, although I am sad that the red and dark red icons are no longer there. I guess purple is OK, but I really like the red theme better. Five stars.