Feeds Version 1.81 Ready for Apple
January 24, 2010 — Mike (admin)The long awaited update to Feeds is heading out to Apple tomorrow morning. Not too much as changed in this one but there were two handy items…well, for most people just one handy item. The second item is aimed at Feeds blind users and those with accessibility requirements.
First up, accessibility. We added a new toggle to turn ON/OFF accessibility features. We will add more as our blind users let us know what makes using Feeds a better experience for them. This release will remove the date field so that Voice Over doesn’t waste your time reading the date for every item and you can get to the important information faster.
Next is the long awaited search feature. You can now filter your loaded articles on the fly. This one has come in handy for use while testing a lot. Sometimes you want to pull up an article you read earlier in the day and now all you need to do is remember a word or two from it. Below is a screen shot of the search.
Apple has been pretty good with the updates lately so hopefully this one gets through fast.
Any plans for iPad?
@Steven, we are definitely open to getting Feeds and an as of yet unannounced application of our on the iPad. I just downloaded the simulator and it is looking really nice. We have some good ideas to adapt Feeds to the larger viewing area.
Hi Mike
Looking forward to the new version of Feeds. Any chance we could get the option to hide the Shared/Starred/All Items sections? I do use Starred but I would like to hide the other two options as I never use them and they utilise valuable screen space. Also I noticed that the ‘tap top of screen’ to scroll to the top of the view still isn’t working in the current version’s article view and built-in browser.
We will see what we can do about getting rid of the shared/starred/all items sections. I don’t really use them myself except for the very rare starred items check.
Thanks Mike. And the update is out on the App Store already. Pretty quick turnaround for once! Nice one Apple
1.82 is out and it seems to break Google Reader completely. Is there a way to roll back?
@Nate, we actually didn’t change anything that could affect Reader integration. It looks like something changed on Google’s side of things. Feeds can’t seem to authenticate properly. I am monitoring the situation closely and it looks like Google got things fixed up. Give it a try now and see if it works.
It is working again. Thanks for the quick feedback and a great app.
I have had Feeds for over a year and love it. The only thing that would make me love it even more is the ability to cache Feeds (like Byline does). This would enable me to read the whole stories when I am outside a Wi-Fi network.
@Pete, glad you like Feeds! Feeds will cache all your RSS articles but not the websites they link to. We do integrate with both Instapaper and ReadItLater which are the best of the best for offline web browsing. Because they both exist and are so solid we opted to do what we do well: the RSS end of things.
I tried to leave this on the “Contact Us” link, but it said the message could not be delivered.
I have an RSS feed that I custom-wrote as an activity indicator for my web site. There are always 5 items in the feed, and they always have the same titles:
* Total Accounts
* New Accounts
* Expiring Accounts
* Visits
* Sales
Basically the problem is that these items never get updated on my iPhone with Feeds. They are always updated on the Mac’s Mail RSS reader, for example.
These items *always* have a new ID (auto-generated GUID) when you ask for the RSS feed, and they always have a “last updated time” that represents the current time, so these should show up as new items every time, but unfortunately they do not.
I hope you can fix Feeds so that it’s not so worried about the title of a Feed item, but looks at the other elements as well.
Chris
@Chris, does the RSS feed work properly in Google Reader? Feeds just pulls directly from there. We fixed the contact us page so if you would like please send the feed URL so that we can take a closer look.
Very heavy feeds user here. I own several other RSS readers, but keep coming back.
Here are my top 5 requests:
1. Ability to increase font size on lists (not just article text.)
2. Ability to send LINK by email (rather than full story)
3. Overhaul offline reading: make it work when “unread only” is selected, allow use of “mark as read”.
4. Ability to toggle between New Items/All Items using a button (not shaking) and from any screen.
5. Easier access to “reset” feature, perhaps within the app itself.
And here is one more for good luck:
6. For the internal browser, allow the
“back” button to take you all the way back to feeds standard display, rather than stop with the last web page. (This will be useful for stories with pictures — sometimes you tap them by mistake and they come up in the feeds browser. You have to go back to the list, and then back to the story, which is especially a pain if you are set up for “New Items” only.)
utton work here.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE feeds.
@Chris, thanks for the feedback! We will add your suggestions to our list except for number 6. We have an update just about ready that will go out next week if all goes well.
Hello, new user and very impressed. Have tried most of the other RSS apps but someone missed yours.
Quick question…..Is it possible to mark an article as unread?
@Bryan, glad you are liking it! You can mark an item as unread only if you do it pretty quickly (I estimate within about 5 minutes or so). To mark as unread, in the list of articles swipe from left-to-right. You can also swipe right-to-left to star/unstar an item.
Hope that helps!
I really like Feeds. Here are a few suggestions for enhancements:
1. Give preferences for large fonts for list of folders view and list of articles view. This is by far my number one request. For me, these views are just a bit small and hard to read. The ‘large’ font setting in an individual article works perfect for me.
2. Add ability to mark a read article as unread. I asked about this above but after using Feeds more I don’t see this capability.
3. Toggle btwn all unread and all articles
4. Not that big a deal but it would be nice to have the preferences in the app not Apple’s settings.