Mastodon IOS apps review

I tried all the free* (or apparently free) mastodon apps i could find in the iPhone app store and this is what I think, wanted to write it down somewhere

the one that looks free, but apparently makes u subscribe:

Ivory: there is one called Ivory it seems very cute but it makes you pay, so sorry Ivory! I don't have anything more to say about that.

ones that simply didnt work:

disclaimer, I am on an instance that requires using a single sign on and maybe this is messing them up, but some of the apps can handle it just fine so whatever

tootle: couldnt get as far as logging in

tusker: same as above, this one could at least find my instance but, not much better

tootter: also didn't work, plus it shows adds, barf

partially broken:

mercury: i liked that mercury gave the option for federated timeline (something the native app doesn't do) but it hides the respond/heart/boost buttons until you click something (this is an intentional design choice, which I don't like) and the home feed is broken/wont load for me. also the switching feeds at the top of the screen isnt so intuitive for me.

tootoise: same with the broken home feed! idk why home feed is so hard for mastodon.  otherwise the design is pretty cutesy, perhaps unnecessarily so using unfamiliar icons (like posting is a little paw print thing?)

tooot: again no home feed. design is nothing special.

function is OK, but not my favorite:

mastoot: is fine, but i find the interface unintuitive, you also have to click on toots to react to them, which i dislike

ice cube: works fine, nothing special

stella: i don't understand this app at all. i think it's meant to be like a news reader more than a regular mastodon app? the interface is terrible

twidere x: this is kind of an interesting one and the best out of this category. I think you can use it as an app for both twitter and mastodon. Anyway it shows mastodon with kind of a twitter-like interface, which is cool if that's what you want but I think it's limiting (it only gives you one "timeline" and it's unclear which of the three home, federated and local that is. probably home, since it shows people who aren't on my local instance.)

the winners:

mastodon native app: this has decent functionality and interface and works well. Only thing I don't really like is the inability to access "federated" timeline.

metatext: this is probably gonna be my go-to. it includes federated timeline, the timeline switcher and interface make sense to me, and as a bonus you can access the profile directory for your local server too.