Feeds Version 1.22 Nearing Completion
January 24, 2009 — Mike (admin)We have been busy adding the most asked for features into the next version of Feeds while still trying to keep it simple and easy to use. The last update included a new method for syncing with Google Reader that greatly sped up the network connection and sync time. This speed increase introduced some other unexpected consequences. The worst of which was having Feeds freeze for up to a few seconds (usually just a fraction of a second for most people) when it added all of the downloaded RSS feed items to it’s internal database. We didn’t like the way things worked when downloading a lot of items so this week we rewrote the entire internal database system to make sure it never, ever slows down the user interface. Feeds is much smoother now.
As soon as we do some more testing we will be releasing the update to everyone. Such a massive change will require a lot of testing and we want to be as sure as possible that we didn’t miss anything.
In it’s current state, Google does not yet provide us a way to get the order of your RSS feeds without some ugly hackery that we don’t want to take part in. That is the reason that you cannot sort you feeds when syncing with Google Reader yet. The best we can do for now is to sort your RSS feeds alphabetically. This will also go out with the next update.
Update: Version 1.22 had a small bug that occurred when you try to add a feed when you are offline. We fixed the bug and the update should go live in the App Store in a few days.
Thanks Mike for your previous speedy reply.
Personally speaking, just because I’ve seen a couple of lines of preview text I do not consider the article as “read”. So being able to mark it as read I don’t consider high priority. Newsstand has a nice simple route whereby you just touch the blue Unread icon on the left side of the preview and it removed the icon and unbolds/fades the article as READ. Seems to work nicely
I noticed the freezing of the screen when using Google sync. I turned Google off and manually added my feeds to test the add URL feature which is great.
I love the speed of your product using the non-Google route so far!
I’ll be certain to test the sync when you get this new version out though.
Best regards.
Hi,
I just want to make a comment regarding the preview suggestion. I too like the idea, it is nice to see a preview.
But, to me it is more important that the title NOT be limited to one line. I mention this because of the readers I’ve looked at, the ones that show a preview also have just one line for the title which causes longer titles to be truncated.
If you can do both, I’m fine with that. But if you can’t, my vote is to leave it as you have it.
Roddy
Agree, I mainly use landscape view purely so I can see the full title.
Newsstand with it’s options to set how many preview lines is very good. I have it set to 4 so in portrait mode you get 2 bold TITLE lines if it’s a long title and 2 small non-bold preview lines, very nice!!!
Shorter titles only take up ONE line and it then shows 3 preview lines to make up the 4
You can also set the size of the fonts used for this.
It’s certainly useful now I have ByLines, Newsstand and Pro Rss Reader to compare with…
Mike, one nice feature of Pro RSS Reader when viewing an article it downsizes the images to fit the width, you can also double-tap the text to make it fill width and even pinch zomm in/out safari-like.
Roddy and Fedorov, we will certainly try out a few of the ideas presented here and a few that we have come up with as well. We are currently feature complete on the next 2 updates so we won’t be able to put it in until after that. We are working hard on optimization and stability with the next 2 updates then it’s back to features again.
Mike
Hi Mike, just wondering whether pre-loading of images would be a feature you would implement soon. Personally, it’s a very important feature (and i think that’s why another RSS iphone reader is ranked much higher up the list because it has image pre-loading, even though that reader has much less features than Feeds). I’m sure most iphone RSS users reads engadget/gizmodo, and having image pre-loading would attract those people… that’s my 2cents worth… (i’m already using Feeds, but would use it alot more if it could preload images)…
Mike,
Just posted this to “report a problem”via the App store: I am asked if I want to “buy” your most recent version of Feeds, despite the fact that I have already done so. This most likely is an App Store issue, but can I be sure that I won’t be billed if I select “buy” to access the upgrade?
Cheers,
Jerry
Hi,
First off, I love feeds- everything about it. Unfortunately 1.11 locks up on me. It takes forever to sync and just seizes up the phone. I end up having to start to shut down the phone to snap it back. I’ve restarted and rebooted the phone. The only thing I haven’t done is to reinstall it. I don’t know if anyone else is experiencing this, and I’m sure it will get worked out. Thanks for your great work on this nicely evolving app!
Regards,
Scott
Yep – same problem here with 1.11. It’s basically totally unusable right now. Looking forward to 1.22 very soon.
James.
Sorry- I did a reinstall and that fixed it, but good. My bad.
Scott
Jerry, It definitely sounds like an App Store issue. Hopefully they will get it resolved for you shortly.
Mike
Richo, We are considering image downloading but have not yet implemented it. There are quite a few considerations with such a feature. The first is that we have to parse every single feed item that we download and look for images. Then we have to send out a request for each image and save it to disk. Our main concern is keeping the application running quickly and it gets a bit tricky when we have to send out so many requests and parse so many feeds. That being said, it is definitely something that we are seriously considering as soon as we get through the next few updates and get everything as fast and stable as possible.
Mike
James, did you try a reinstall like Scott did? Sometimes the updates get corrupt when downloaded and a reinstall is necessary to get thing going smoothly again. Before you do that, try the ‘Reset on next start’ option in the Settings. That will clear out a bunch of saved files that could possibly be corrupt from the update.
Mike
Hi Mike. Thanks for the tip – resetting worked perfectly. Feeds is back to normal. Thanks.
James
Hello, just bought Feeds. So far, not bad. A few things:
1. Would love preview like in Free RSS. Would love it!
2. Annoying that when you email an article you have to then exit mail, reopen Feeds and then go back and find your place. Any way to automatically send you back after you press send?
3. I thought there was a way to only view the unread articles of your feeds?
Steve
Very minor, almost-beside-the-point request: could you add a setting for locking the screen orientation? I’d love to be able to set it to portrait and leave it..
That small quibble aside, I love Feeds. It does everything I need and does it well. I find myself using it multiple times every day.
I’d like to see a way to reorganize the order in which Google Reader items appear (like you can do through Feeds normally).
Also – do you know why certain feeds update quicker through Feeds w/ Google Reader than through Feeds alone?
For example, http://www.fborfw.com/strip_fix/index.xml updates first thing in the morning with Feeds/Google Reader. With Feeds alone, it won’t pick up the daily new feed until late afternoon.
Thoughts?
Steve, We are looking into a nice way to get number 1 in there. Number 2, there is nothing we can do the way the iPhone is setup at this time. 3, viewing only unread currently only support group views such as All Items and any folders that you created. We are going to make it work for all feed items shortly.
Neal, Locking orientation sounds like a pretty simple adjustment. Expect it in an update.
Mike
JP, The normal Feeds updating (non Google Reader) will definitely have some items come in slower than others. The less popular feeds are not as aggressively refreshed so on occasion it takes a bit longer to get the update. We do not have many plans to change the server-side Feeds sync at this time due to the overwhelming amount of people that are no longer using it. Our focus has become mostly on the Google Reader portion of things because that is what users are asking for. As always, if we hear requests from enough people we will add just about any feature that makes sense. The users are the main decision makers with where things go. That and our commitment to keep the app simple enough for everyone to use without a manual of any kind.
Mike
Well I’ve been using Feeds for the best part of a week now and my only complaint is one I and others have mentioned regarding preview text, I just find the titles list on Feeds to be too big a font size and no preview lines shown.
Surprising how many times I’ve had to go and view an article just to disregard it when I could have saved time by seeing the first 2 or 3 preview lines.
I know you are going to improve this so I shall continue to be patient.
Other readers will also shrink-to-fit the images and let you pinch-zoom, double-tap zoom/unzoom, are there plans for this in the near future?
I’ll be perfectly honest with you Mike, Feeds is VERY stable and for that reason I want to use it knowing you update this product so often. If it weren’t for the stability and the fact that Pro RSS Reader crashed too much I’d be using Pro RSS right now purely on the nicer/smaller/bold use of fonts and preview text and also the shrinking of the images to fit either portrait or landscape.
REALLY looking forward to the next few updates!
Federov, We have a few more stability and speed updates to make before we add any major features. We do have image reformatting on our list as well as the preview text so rest assured it will get in there soon.
Mike
Thanks for your speedy reply.
Is there a way to reorganize the order in which Google Reader items appear (like you can do through Feeds normally)?
JP, We face a bit of a dilemma with reordering feeds with Google: we can change the order but Google has no way for us to actually get the correct order to start with. They are actually planning on releasing a true API for accessing Google Reader shortly so we are hoping they will include a function to get the sort order. I have already put in a request with them for it.
Mike
One last question…
When using plain ol’ Feeds, some sites show up as complete articles. For example, Lifehacker’s posts are readable in their entirety.
When pulling up Lifehacker through Feeds/Google Reader, however, I only get an abbreviated version of the article.
It also seems that some updates are actually showing up *sooner* through Feeds.
Could you explain?
@JP, Don’t quote me on this but I am guessing that Google is truncating the articles for some reason that we will never know. Feeds syncs get their data from 2 different sources: either directly from the feed itself or through a little service we created. I would have guessed that Google would get the updates faster than Feeds through as we don’t have anywhere near the computing power of Google. Very odd indeed.
Mike