Feeds Version 1.7 Sent Off to Apple
August 2, 2009 — Mike (admin)We just sent off version 1.7 to Apple for review. Nothing major to report for the update. It is just a few more tweaks to make everything happy with iPhone OS 3.0 and 3.0.1. The updated includes the following:
✚ Reduced sensitivity in the swipe to mark item read/starred
✚ Removed errors when viewing RSS feeds offline and Feeds tries to load an image
✚ Updated to the new ReadItLater integration API
✚ Fixed issue when editing a feed inside a folder
✚ Added the ability to back sync up to 5 days (Note: this will make sync times very long in some cases)
August 22 edit: we are patiently awaiting word from Apple as to whether they will allow this update or now. We are on day 20 and hoping that Apple will eventually get around to reviewing Feeds. It sure is a good thing this updated didn’t have a major bug fix in it!
UPDATE: We pulled this version from Apple’s review process due to the insane amount of time it has been in review. See http://www.prime31.com/iphone/feeds-1-8-sneek-peek-if-apple-ever-finishes-reviewing-the-1-7-update for more info.
The issue when editing a feed inside a folder – is that the bug that constantly throws you out when you try to enter the folder containing the edited feed? In that case, the bug report I was just about to write you guys won’t be necessary = )
Keep up the great work! This is undoubtedly the best RSS reader for the iPhone I’ve used!
@Windy, the editing issue is for when Feeds gets ‘stuck’ in editing mode once you save or cancel your edit. No need to report it. It will still slide you back to the main feed screen so that it can contact Google and update itself but it will no longer get stuck in edit mode.
I really like your blog and i respect your work. I’ll be a frequent visitor.
@Clemento, we’re glad to hear you like our stuff!
There seems to be a problem with Feeds and the TUAW RSS feed. It’s stuck on July 24th. Can someone advice?
@Angel, are you using Google Reader to sync? It seem to work fine for me. If you are not using Google Reader for syncing we HIGHLY recommend that you do. None of our new features are being added for the old style of syncing. Setting up a Google account is very quick and free if you don’t already have one.
I’ve been looking everywhere for a way to retrieve unread #’s for Google Reader for push notifications but I turned nothing up. That’s a shame.
Hi Mike,
Just purchased your app to replace NetNewsWire. As per other users’ requests that I’ve seen in these comment threads, please add an option to hide Feeds/Folders if they do not contain any unread articles (only when the “show only unread” option is enabled). Adding that option would make Feeds a 5 star app in my book
Thanks!
@Stuart, we have the hiding of folders/feeds with no unread items on our to-do list. It should make it in a future update.
Thanks for fixing the sensitivity – driving me nuts!
Just installed Feeds. Had a quick look. Very nice except :
1) for the three first items (starred, all and shared), would be great to have a “all unread items”. A badge icon could also show the unread items for all categories (starred, all, shared and all unread).
2) if nothing in “starred” and “shared”, do not show those categories and make “all” and “all unread” optional in preferences
3) as already mentioned, possibility to not show the feeds without unread items (high priority)
4) new option in preferences to not charge pictures of feeds, very useful when abroad
5) for the first page of the app, I would like to see the icons of the websites and a nicer badge notification icon for unread items
Thank you for your great work.
@Mitch, thanks for the feedback. To address your suggestions:
1. It seems like adding unread badges to starred and shared items doesn’t make much sense because if you shared it or starred it you more than likely already read it.
2. We are considering some changes with regards to the All Items, Starred items and Shared Items sections but have not yet made a decision on what we will do with them.
3. We will have this one ready soon. It is our highest priority item right now.
4. This is available in the update Apple is reviewing.
5. Getting the website icons would be a nice touch. We have that already when not using Google Reader for syncing. Google doesn’t provide us the information but perhaps we can come up with something…
Hi again Mike!
Thanks for the response to my query regarding hiding of items with no unread articles. Glad to hear it’s now a top priority feature!
Just wanted to add that I agree with Mitch’s feedback, especially points 3 (obviously) and 5. I’d really like to see the specific Web Site Icon rather than the generic RSS feed icon. Maybe when you first set-up Feeds, it can connect to the websites and download and then cache the web page icons? Same goes for when adding new Feeds. I guess you wouldn’t want it to do it every time you refreshed the feeds though! Like Mitch, I’d also like to see a nicer unread count badge. The current badge looks a little hand-drawn and ugly (no offence!) . Have a look at the unread count badges in the Net News Wire iPhone app… they look really smart!
I’d also like to hide the Starred, All and Shared Item entries in the main screen if they don’t contain any articles! Less scrolling is good
Thanks! Keep up the great work.
Just like to thank you for this app, but add my #1 priority is also to hide feeds with no-unread items AND/OR (not sure what you think?) but maybe show all feeds but allow sorting by unread items first.
PS. You guys really, really need to mention your company name and web site on launch screen or settings, it took me ages to find your site as searching Google for “feeds” doesn’t really work!
@Geoff, the next update (after Apple finishes reviewing version 1.7) will hide folders and feeds with no unread items. We have been testing it for a few days and have to say we wouldn’t want to go back to the old way.
Glad to see some of the updates coming. I was beginning to wonder if you were still around after the original blog address (feeds.prime31.com) didn’t work and even started looking for a new rss reader. Feeds is by far the most used app on my phone and it has been getting a little frustrating at times. The swipe sensitivity issue has been a little hard to handle. Are some of the OS 3.0 changes addressing the speed and crashing issues? I am regularly getting kicked out of the app right from the splash screen and it tends to move quite slow, especially when looking at a feed while it is still syncing. I have to start up the app and let all the feeds sync before trying to read anything. I have also noticed an issue (only has happened a few times) where the button bar at the top of the display disappears after changing the orientation of the device and only a restart of the app will allow me to back out of a feed. Hope to see these important stability issues addressed. Thanks!
@Erick, we have one more update just about ready to go. Apple is excruciatingly slow with updates right now so we are backlogged quite a bit. We have not been able to get Feeds to crash with the new version (1.7+). If you are getting crashes, I would recommend using the ‘Reset on next launch’ setting to clean out the database. If you have a reproducible issue please let us know how to make it happen and we will fix it ASAP.
Mike, will that next version have hide-unread as a user-selected option? I often refer back to already-read feeds and I’d hate to have them hidden.
@Joe, the current version has hide-read-items as an option but it only works for the articles, not folders and feeds. The next version (after Apple gets 1.7 out) will then have hide-read-items working for folders and feeds with no unread items. You can very easily toggle the setting by just shaking your iPhone on the main feed list or going into the Settings.app.
Hi Mike, Just to add to the existing report. I have also experienced the bug where the button bar at the top of the display disappears after changing the orientation of the device and only a restart of the app will make it reappear. Because the navigation buttons are gone, you can’t actually navigate back to the main Feeds screen. This seems to happen when quickly switching the screen orientation multiple times.
Can you give the community some information on when push will be available. Would love to see the numer of unread feeds without starting the app before
@lala, Feeds will never support push notifications as long as we support Google Reader sync. For us to support push we would have to store your Google username/password which we have no intention of ever doing under any circumstance.
Are there any plans to add the capability to post/refer articles through Twitter?
@Stef, post to twitter is in the works and should be coming soon (well, as soon as Apple gets moving on our update). We have another update ready to go when Apple finishes the current one so it shouldn’t be too much longer now for Twitter integration.
@Mike did you note that thing about it being very hard locate your blog/site via either the app or from Google due to the highly generic name? Perhaps put a link in the settings or the URL on the loading splash screen?
Also right now if I hit refresh feeds without viewing the folder the number just changes randomly, so it will say 57 unread items, instead of opening folder I hit refresh again and it changed to 10! Can anyone replicate?
@Mike: Thanks for the respone and for your explanation. Good to know that there is an active community behind the app. Will keep it on page 1
Mike,
What is Apple’s deal?!?!?!?! You might want to try contacting them – aren’t they supposed to be reviewing in two weeks or less?
@Victor, unfortunately calling Apple is about the biggest waste of time for any developer. They do what they want to do on their terms. When Feeds was not even in the App Store a few weeks ago due to an Apple issue they still had nothing to say except the usual “we will escalate your concern”.
Extremely unfortunate, and precisely why I, along with many others (probably mostly tech-y people) will think twice before buying another iPhone, or any Apple product for that matter. Their communism when it comes to their products has gotten a little out of hand. Sorry for the rant, but I’m almost completely fed up with it. Not your fault, obviously, keep up the good work.
@Victor, we feel the same way with probably even more gusto. Our last application was finally rejected after over 4 months even though it had no private API calls and didn’t violate anything written in Apple Human Interface Guidelines AND there are apps in the App Store that do the same thing (some recently updated so they are still accepting them). The only reason we stick around is because those pricks at Apple put together a damn nice phone that even 2 years after it’s release has not been equaled. It was definitely ahead of it’s time and still is in a lot of ways. So we deal with their communism and stick to making only apps that can’t possible be rejected for any reason.
How secure is my google username/password if I entrust it to this app?
@caa100, your Hoogle username/password is never, ever sent to our servers. We only send it to Google via secure (https) protocol.
Thanks, Mike. Bought it, love it.
I think I will be spending a lot of time in this app! Way easier on the eyes than the tiny font in the Google reader web app, and offline capability is awesome. I’ll put in an app store review soon.
Feature requests:
- Would love a toogle to display/hide read items
- Would love a “mark all as read” option that only applies the currently displayed items, rather than all items in the feed or tag.
@caa100, thanks for the feedback!
As for your requests, for number one you can either shake your iPhone on the main feed list to toggle the ‘show unread items only’ setting or you can open the Settings.app on your Springboard and set it manually.
For request number 2, just open the Settings.app and in the Google settings section you can choose to have it either ‘Mark all as read’ or ‘Mark these as read’.
thanks, mike, I guess I should have RTFM!
@caa100, well, technically we still need to WTFM so it’s not all your fault…
Mike, you answered my question almost by accident. I had gone into Settings and chose the option to hide the read items, but occassionally I noticed that the read items were appearing again. I would then go into Settings and correct it. Now I realize I must have been shaking my device enough while on the home page to toggle the Read/Unread items. Makes it all better now!! Great app, definitely the best reader on the iPhone.
One note about getting the website icons. You stated that Google Reader doesn’t provide it, but when I used Manifesto solely with Google Reader providing the feeds, the website icons appeared. Well, for the majority of my feeds anyway. Not sure how Manifesto was doing it, unless they had some way of recognizing the feed and tying it to stored icons.
Keep up the great work, as I love the app.
@Frank, we put together a little something that will have the website icons appear in your feed lists. It will only be able to grab icons from websites that host their own RSS feeds. There are a few companies out there that host feeds for you and we won’t be able to get the favicons for those. This is already done and being tested along with a HUGE amount of changes coming in 1.8. Now if only Apple would finish reviewing the update….
I believe they (Apple) have forgotten about us…
I echo the request to hide folders and feeds with no new items.
I also have an annoying prob with old items showing up as unread. This only is at the level of the actual feed list. In other words my unread count agees with google but unread items fom several days back show up with a blue dot. I have “show unread only” tuned on and the shake feature turned off, and I’ve reset my google sync.
Any ideas?
@Tim, folder and feed hiding with no items is done and we have been testing it for over a week along with a ton of other updates. One day, Apple may actually finish reviewing version 1.7 so we can send 1.8 off to them and wait another month for them to review that update. I’ll post some pictures and a quick rundown on what’s new in a few days.
For old items showing up as unread it is almost always a case of your settings not being tweaked. Try changing the ‘interval to back sync’ setting to a higher number. The way that you end up with items that are unread in Feeds but read on Google Reader is when you open Feeds and sync up a bunch of items and leave some unread. If you then go and read them in Google Reader and then open Feeds at some point in the future further than ‘interval to back sync’ you will end up with stray unread items. The way to fix it is to set a higher ‘interval to back sync’ which will slow down syncs a bit but your unread counts will be more accurate.
We have been thinking about just automatically marking all items as read that are older than the ‘interval to back sync’ whenever you sync. This would solve the stray unread items at the expense of not being fully accurate. If we play around with it and it seems to work perhaps it will make it in a future update, but at this point it seems like a scary change.
Still loving feeds, and put up a positive review in the app store.
Wanted to note one thing:
Since I installed it, when I sync the iPhone using iTunes on windows, the backup phase takes WAY longer. (Used to be less than a minute, now can take 20 minutes or more).
I have heard that other apps that cache data have had this problem and resolved it (NY Times, ESPN, Facebook).
@caa100, Feeds shouldn’t add much time to your sync at all. We do save a few files when syncing but even in the worst of cases they shouldn’t be large at all. I would guess that if you have a ton of RSS feeds and you set the number of items to store at 200 it would still only be about 4 – 5 megs, which is pretty small. There are certainly tons of apps out there that save data in the wrong place causing syncing to be slow. We only save the necessary files for syncing.
So “interval to back sync” controls how far back in time the app looks when syncing?
@caa100, exactly correct. If you open Feeds at 6:00pm and your ‘interval to back sync’ is set at 2 hours Feeds will download all items since 4:00pm.
Just a little more clarification re: “interval to back sync”…is that unread items since the last sync or all items? Thanks!
@Tay, ‘interval to back sync’ is all items. Google doesn’t let us distinguish between read or unread items so we have to download them all and sort them out.
Have you tried re-submitting the app? Or better yet, just submitting 1.8? Or is that against Apple’s policies? This swipe to star sensitivity is killing me…
@Victor, re-submitting usually angers the Gods at Apple and they put you back to the bottom of the queue. We have been working hard on 1.8 in the downtime though and I just posted a post with some screenshots and a feature list at: http://www.prime31.com/iphone/feeds-1-8-sneek-peek-if-apple-ever-finishes-reviewing-the-1-7-update/
Thanks Apple … that too a while … v1.7 just appeared in the appstore for me, updated.