After founding and selling the popular Mastodon client Mammoth , developer Shihab Mehboob is returning to compete with it with the launch of his new app, Saturn . Not to be confused with the social calendar of the same name, Mehboob’s Saturn works with the decentralized social network Mastodon and specifically offers a unique “Highlights” feature that summarizes your timeline and shows popular content. Mehboob stresses that the app is not leveraging AI or even machine learning to accomplish this, noting that many in the Mastodon community are wary of such technology.
Instead, he says that the Highlights feature is powered by a simple native checker that looks to see which posts and accounts from the user’s timeline are seeing the highest likes and reposts and brings those forward in the app. However, the feature doesn’t necessarily include only content from accounts you follow, because it also supports content that was reposted into your feed. In this way, Saturn aims to address critics’ complaints about using the would-be Twitter/X alternative, Mastodon, where it can often be hard to find interesting accounts to follow when you first join.
Saturn also supports expected features like the ability to post images, videos, GIFs, polls, custom emoticons, drawings, spoiler text, and more. Unlike X and Meta’s Threads, which rely on algorithms to curate content for the individual user, Saturn promises chronological timelines only. Similar to other third-party Mastodon a.