"Bluesky", Jack Dorsey's Twitter competitor, is now on the iOS App Store but in closed beta
The acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk that was initiated back in April 2022 and concluded in October 2022, prompted Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey to promptly exit the company back in May of last year. Upon his departure, Dorsey began working on his version of a new decentralized social network that is meant to compete with Twitter, called Bluesky.
Bluesky has a homepage on the internet, but as of right now, it is just a landing page with a blog and a link to sign up for the private beta. The project itself was announced in 2019, but no updates had been given on when this venture would be officially unveiled to the public, if at all.
However, it appears that Bluesky is getting very close to opening its doors, as it now has a presence on the iOS App Store as an invite-only beta app. This means that you can go ahead and download the Bluesky Social app, but you need an invite code to create an account.
Not surprisingly, the app is so new on the App Store, that as of right now you can even install it on a Mac via the Mac App Store as I did. On a Mac, the app opens to mobile size, as it was designed for iPhone and not macOS. However, it is unclear if the app will continue to work this way or if changes are on the way.
When you open the app, you are greeted with a splash screen and options to "sign in" or "create a new account," which requires you to have an invite code. There is currently a waitlist to sign up for the service, which you can sign up for online, but no information is available on when that round of codes will be released.
I'm quite curious how Bluesky will fare once it launches publicly and begins to compete with Twitter and the currently most popular decentralized social network, known as Mastodon. Since the app is currently in closed beta on iOS only, its hard to gauge interest unless you are behind the curtain, so for now all we can do is wait and see.
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