Feeds Version 0.92 Approved By Apple
August 7, 2008 — Mike (admin)We just got word that Apple approved the newest version of Feeds. It should be available in the App Store within hours. The first time you run the new version Feeds will automatically purge and re-download your feed list. This will fix the bugs some people were having with not being able to delete feeds. The only side effect is that the order of your feeds will not be preserved. We apologize about that and will try to avoid such inconveniences in the future.
Speaking of the future, we are hard at work getting offline mode setup for Feeds. This *should* be available in the next version (or possibly the one after that) so look out for it in the App Store soon.
Does it synchronize with Google Reader?
Solem, We don’t have Google Reader synchronization just yet. It is our second most asked for feature right after offline mode. Once we finish up offline mode and get it working well expect to see Google Reader sync. (We have already started some of the Reader sync stuff so hopefully it wont be too long before it is ready)
Please add a way to show which feeds have unread items.
Steve, An update in the near future will be adding offline support. With this update you will also get unread item counts on the feed list. Both features are tied together so when one of them is done so too will the other be ready.
I think your reader is the best since now on iPhone. One thing that it lacks and that could be useful: an “update all” button on the first page. It could be very useful when you have to turn off the wifi, when you have to take a plane or enter an underground line, and you would like to have something to read.
Silvio, Offline mode is the next big item that we are working on. Expect to see it in an update in the near future.
Unfortunately, some feeds can still not be deleted despite complete uninstalls and reinstalls, via the phone and via itunes. Attempting to delete crashes the phone to home page. Very disappointing. An otherwise excellent app, but as long as it has this bug it’s worthless to me.
So far, this is the best Feedreader in the appstore behind NewsNetWire, and once the offline mode version is online it will be much better. A few requests are left though:
- It would be nice to have the article titles be links like they are in NetNewsWire. I don’t want to switch to safari to read article comments, having the article title as a clickable link to the article on the website itself, behaving the same as links in the article text would allow much faster access to the full blog site including the comments.
- On the cosmetic side: The star button looks a bit distorted, I think it didn’t take the downsizing too well. The program icon itself is well designed, but personally I would prefer little more minimalistic style that points more clearly too RSS … maybe like the RSS stamp you have on the top of this site, colored in your green and not in orange to distinct itself from others. (But that’s all a question of taste…
- Having the program Icon display the number of unread items (but I suppose that is part of the offline mode and only becomes important once the notification service is enabled by Apple)
Regards, Florian
Hi Florian, Thanks for the feedback. We used to have the article links open right in Feeds but we uncovered quite a few bugs with Safari that would occasionally crash the application when there were a lot of external resources on the page (javascript and css files). Until Apple addresses the bugs we are not confident that displaying the web pages inside Feeds will provide a stable enough experience. Once Safari is patched up we’ll be sure to put it back in.
You are correct in that offline mode will be required for the number of unread items. We are hard at work on offline mode right now so it shouldn’t be too much longer.
Hi Adam, we apologize for the issue with removing feeds. We are actively working on the problem and the new release (0.93) might take care of it for you. Please do post when the issue is fixed for you as we do not like to have unresolved issues.
“Until Apple addresses the bugs we are not confident that displaying the web pages inside Feeds will provide a stable enough experience.”
Title links are absolutely important, esp. for feeds that don’t provide full articles – unless title links are not enabled, Feeds is useless to me. Switching back and forth between Feeds and Safari just isn’t an option.
I understand that you don’t want to have your application crashing without it being responsible, most people would blame the app and not Safari. But I would very much like to see the possibility to enable/disable the function as a user, for example by integrating Feeds into the iPods/iPhones settings. The feature is simply too important to wait for Apple to fix it errors. I am using NetNewsWire atm even though I bought Feeds…
Anyway, thanks for the quick reply! It’s a really promising app you got there!
Florian, Sounds like a plan to add it to settings. I’ll put a little disclaimer in there and we’ll see how it goes. This will make it’s way into the update that includes offline mode, which is our next major release.
Thanks again for the feedback.
Superb! Thank you very much!
I have bought almost all the RSS readers from the app store and so far I have been burned on all of them. One of the major MUST HAVE is offline mode! I’ve been keeping track of your app and I am waiting impatiently for the next major release! Hopefully your app will be the last RSS reader I try on the app store.
Don, If you sit tight and wait a bit longer you will certainly be getting offline mode. We are currently hard at work converting our infrastructure and Feeds to work offline. Let us know if you have any other feature requests that haven’t already been posted here.