Quick Update on Version 1.3
February 8, 2009 — Mike (admin)With version 1.22 we introduced some really big changes on the backend. The entire system of saving and accessing feeds and feed items was redone from the ground up. So far the transition has been very smooth with just one bug that popped up that we have already fixed. We also found a little bug with the InstaPaper support that we have already fixed.InstaPaper will now work like so: if you are viewing a description and you touch the InstaPaper button you will be sending the feeds items permalink to InstaPaper along with the feed items title. If you view a page in the built in browser and touch the InstaPaper button the currently viewed webpage will be the one sent to InstaPaper.
A minor tweak to the UI will makes it’s way into the next release as well. We moved the ‘Add Feed’ button from the top left to the bottom left. This is to avoid accidental touching when going back from your feed items. As always, keep the feedback coming. As you all know, your feedback is what drives future development.
This is a bug report (I’m not sure where to send this information, so I’m posting it here).
1) According to iTunes, I’m running version 2.22. But this site suggests that the latest version is 1.22. Is this a problem?
2) I have observed the following odd behavior: If I pick an unread item in a feed to read, the “unread” bullet for that item disappears as expected. However, if I exit and re-enter the feed, the unread bullet re-appears. The only way to permanently clear the unread button is to “mark all as read.” BTW, I normally refresh a feed by entering the feed and pressing the refresh button. Also, all my feeds are organized into folders.
3) This is more of a hint then anything else. I have an app called “Free Memory” who sole purpose is to ensure that there is at least 20 MB of free memory on my iPod Touch. I have found that liberal use of Free Memory vastly improves the stability of Feeds.
@Fred,
1. The version number in iTunes is a build number. The build number is 1 higher than version number so build 2.22 is version 1.22.
2. I am guessing you are using Feeds integration and not Google Reader. The bug has been fixed and sent to Apple with the new update. In the meantime you can mark an item as read by swiping from left to right when on the feed list (not the feed description). This will properly mark the item as read in the database.
3. Free Memory, iStat and the likes technically shouldn’t improve performance too much (according to Apple). The applications are a bit gimmicky in that all they do is use up a whole bunch of memory which automatically causes other memory to be purged. Basically, (again, according to Apple) this is all handled automatically by the iPhone and memory is freed up as needed. That being said, I use iStat and Free Memory myself on occasion as well to keep tabs on memory usage.
Mike
Hope you don’t mind me continuing v1.22 feedback in here.
Everytime I run Feeds, hit refresh I see no unread counts. I just close Feeds and load it again, the unread counts then appear without me having to do a 2nd refresh.
The disappearing feeds bug also happens everytime I use it and it seems to do one of two things:
1) after hitting the Mark all read button in one particular feed as it returns you to the list of feeds within that folder you SEE it blank out those feeds.
e.g. From main screen I go into my “Gadgets” folder where I see 2 feeds: Engadget.com and Gizmodo.com
I visit Engadget, hit Mark all read which returns me to my list of 2 feeds.
I visit Gizmodo, hit Mark all read BUT as it returns me to my list of 2 gadget feeds you then see both those lines go BLANK!
if I return to the main screen no matter which folder I choose to view you have that blank area where you can’t see anything. If you touch where you think the feeds are listed it shows you the feeds fine but EVERY folder is blank until I quit and go back in
2) similar to the above, I come out of my Gadgets folder back to the main screen and no matter which folder I then choose it shows me the Engadget and Gizmodo feeds listed!!
So, instead of every folder being fixed with blanks it is fixing every folder with whatever was in the list when the bug happens.
In a nutshell, once it has happened you either go into any other folder and see the same broken BLANK list or the same broken list populated with feed names from another folder.
Hope this helps.
@Anyone with the disappearing feeds bug,
When the items disappear, are you using WiFi (cable model, NOT DSL) or 3G/EDGE/DSL? I think I may have found the problem and need to confirm.
Mike
Here’s a few things I’ve noticed using Feeds 1.2.2 and Google Reader sync:
1) I’m not sure if this is a bug or a purposeful “feature,” but with 1.2.2 and Google Reader, there are “new posts” that appear on the main screen, but don’t show in the New Items screen (perhaps they would show if I dig way down). I have to go to the individual feed, and then drill down to find the unread item. It’s possible that the nagging item’s date may be older causing it to appear below already read items, but its appearing below some items I read hours ago. It would be nice to have all new, unread posts appear above the read posts (regardless of the actual date/time of the post). This has happened about each sync with at least a few items.
2) When “Show read items” is selected for Google Reader, there is a long lag between selecting “all items” and the appearance of the feeds.
3) You can’t unstar a post after Feeds has synced with Google. You mention this is a limitation in the Google Reader API, but other Reader apps. like Byline and BoltReader allow this. There has to be a way to do this, such as sending the status of just the one changed item back to Google?
Thanks, and I look forward to future updates!
@Jeff, number 1 on your list can happen depending just as you guessed when an older item is unread. The faster updating feeds can get the older items pushed down a bit. If it fits your reading style, you can use the ‘show only unread’ option which will not display any of your read items while viewing feeds (unless they are in starred/shared). 2, all items can be a bit slower when filtering only the unread items. This will depending heavily on how many feeds you have and how many items you have Feeds set to store for each one. 3, The limitation is that you can’t mark unread an item if you already sync. You can unstar an item at any time.
Mike
I’m using Wifi over a cable modem.
Do you want me to try using Feeds with Wifi off i.e. 3G/GPRS only?
Btw, in the Feeds google settings I chose the option to Reset on next start and now the unread counts are working with only one refresh instead of two.
Wifi with a cable modem here.
I still get the blank or disapearring feeds problem. For me it is also happening when I view “all items” within a catagory then choose the mark all read option.
I was really surprised that all you caught was a minor bug because the app has become a lot more unstable again. I’ve had it crash during a feed sync which went away completely in the previous build. FYI, I don’t use reader sync.
Mark an item as starred. Go to the starred list. Drill into an item, mark unstarred, try to go back to starred list and app crashes almost every time. If app doesn’t crash, drill into the next item to discover the instapaper and star icons are missing and will remain that way until you leave and come back to the Feeds app.
Swiping to mark something starred/unstarred doesn’t seem to work.
If you’re in the starred list and use the up/down arrows they take you to a page marked (null).
If you email the link to an rss item it appends “#rss(null)” to the end of the URL.
@John Shkolnik, syncing when using Feeds (not Google Reader) is currently down due to our server maintenance lasting longer than expected. Marking an item as starred/unstarred with a swipe is currently only supported with Google Reader as your integration method. I will most certainly look into the other issues you are having and they will be fixed.
Mike
@Ryan, I’m guessing Mike’s problem is related to our Wifi Cable speeds?
I’ve left Wifi OFF and used Feeds 3 times since my last post over GPRS and had nothing disappear on me so I will continue to use it like this the rest of the day.
I’ll post back my findings Mike.
Everything I reported is from prior to the downtime. Thanks.
Update: now gone nearly all day just using GPRS instead of Wifi and not seen any disappearing entries – just coincidence or is this what you thought the problem may be Mike?
Its really great to see so much support over an iPhone app!
I have just brought this app after using ‘Feeds’ so have basis for comparison. Although both are good apps this one is slightly better due to the fact that it syncs with Google and displays images others may not.
If I had my two cents I would love to see the following two main improvement:
1. Feed Icons – This is the only one out of the 5 I have tried that doesn’t display the relevant icon.
2. When it displays the image (if there is one) within the feed it display the full dimensions. If you click on that image then it seems to display that image again but this time scaled to fit. This would be good to have it the other way round because there is never a reason to want to view a picture that is far bigger than the iPhones screen.
To give you an example feed if you want to see what I mean – http://www.cuteoverload.com/atom.xml
I know that the images are massive and takes a while to load but that it is only a minor thing that would be nice to see changed.
Other than that it is a great program…keep up the good work but more important the excellent support you seem to be providing.
Chris
I just found another bug. I synced my feeds, drilled into a particular source, read the first item, and then navigated using the arrows through the remaining 8 unread items. When I was done, I backed out to the list of feed sources. On the way out I saw that all 9 were showing as read but when I got back to the base list it said I still had 9 unread items. I drilled back in and they were all unread again.
I’ve just moved to Feeds 1.22 from NetNewsWire. I had tried a few other RSS apps but most were too buggy to be useful. First, let me congratulate you on your nice, responsive UI and so far I have no desire to go back to my old RSS app.
The only downside with Feeds is that I find it crashes often. In almost all cases I get crashes when using the nav button in the upper left to go back out of articles/feeds. Hopefully this is a known issue and luckily Feeds is fast to launch which makes the crashing more bearable.
Really looking forward to seeing how Feeds develops over the next couple of versions…
@Brent, thanks for the feedback. The bug that you mention has already been fixed and sent to Apple for approval. In the meantime, if you turn off feed previews (if they are on) and restart your iPhone you should see much less crashing. Our next 2 or 3 releases are going to be only bug fixes and performance improvements so hopefully Feeds will be rock solid and fast when we are done.
Mike
Update2: Still no blank feed problems since using only GPRS/3G but I have seen no.2 that I posted about above where no matter which folder I go into it lists the SAME feed for every folder.
Was the clarification of Wifi-Cable and my testing of GPRS only of use to tracking down the blank/stuck feeds?
Keep up the good work.
@Federov, I had a hunch it had to do with timing of the requests being sent to the server. I haven’t pinpointed it exactly yet, but I am getting closer and closer.
@John, If you are using the normal Feeds syncing (not Google Reader) the bug is already fixed and has been sent to Apple for review.
Mike
I’ve been having crashing issues with Feeds as well. However, of more concern is “read” feeds regaining their “unread” dot upon reentering the app (I use Google Reader integration). This is since the 1.22 update. I just bought it recently prior to 1.22 to replace the free NetNewsWire and was loving Feeds. However, since the update I have started using Google Reader via the web app until Feeds is updated and the oustanding issues resolved.
@Jeffrey, if your crashing is when hitting the back button from a feed description the update is already in Apple’s hands. We are not aware of any issues with read/unread items using Google to sync. If you can reproduce the problem please let me know the steps so that I can fix it ASAP.
Mike
Re: Read/Unread issues using Google Reader
I simply read my feeds and close out of the program. Upon checking my feeds later, the read feeds from earlier are marked as unread upon reentering the program. Unread feeds also show up as should be expected. After marking them as read again (for a second time), the read status “sticks”. After reinstalling the app this morning, though, I have been unable to duplicate the problem. Ever since the update, it had been doing it (I had even restarted the iPhone after the update). I’ll update you if I run into the problem again, but for now I am glad that it seems to be fixed. Maybe removing it completely and installing it again fixed whatever error it was having with me.
Feature Suggestion: Smoother implementation of themes. I use the black theme and when it loads you still see the default theme until the black one loads. Is there a way for y’all to make it so that it uses the chosen theme from the get-go?
Maybe a poll needed but my guess regarding the theme color is that most of us use black as per most iPhone apps. So may I suggest you initially draw Feeds in black and you may get less people asking about the delay when changing from green
@Jeffrey and Federov, If only Apple would let us change the splash screen it wouldn’t be an issue. Maybe I’ll just make the top bar black and the bottom bar green that way at least half of the people will be half happy.
Mike
I vote for leaving the green as default.
By the way, I was having major issues with slow performance and crashes. I deleted it from my iPhone and reinstalled it from the iPhone app store and it is much snappier. Still, I am eager for version 1.3.
@Mike
Any news on the disappearing feeds bug? It seems to be happening a lot, and it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the particular category or feed, because it’s done it for me on several of them. And it seems to only happen when trying to “Mark all read”.
Understood.
Why was View Page (in app) changed to View in Safari (closes app to open in Safari)? This is a dealbreaker imo.
@Ryan, There is a possibility that it has been fixed but I am not quite prepared to say for sure. So far testing has been positive and it has not cropped up but it is a bit elusive.
Mike
@Jeffrey, you get to choose either view in safari, view in feeds or you can set it to allow you to choose each time. Open the Settings application from your Springboard (desktop) and you will find the setting in there.
Mike
Ah when I reinstalled it must have reset. I must have set that the first one without remembering. Thanks for putting up with me lol
Idea- the splash screen could be a cool Feeds graphic. If this slows loading though, nix the idea.
@Jeffrey, we actually had a splash screen that was the Feeds logo but due to user demand we removed it. It doesn’t slow loading in any way though the perceived loading time may be a bit different if the splash screen looks like the first screen that gets displayed.
Mike
Hi,
I like the changes you’ve been making. Keep up the good work.
I can’t seem to get InstaPaper to work. I also can’t find any place to set my account credentials, so that might have something to do with it.
Roddy
@Roddy, in version 1.22 InstaPaper will only work if you touch the ‘View Page’ button before pressing the I. In version 1.3, you won’t have to navigate into a feed with the ‘View Page’ button and InstaPaper will still grab the feed’s perma link.
Mike
@Mike
Do you know what release the possible fix for the dissapearing bug will be in?
In the last few days, I’ve experienced another new problem. Certain feeds in which everything had been marked as read, suddenly show 100 or more posts (dating back several days) as suddenly being unread again.
@Ryan, If all goes well the disappearing bug should be fixed in the version that Apple has right now. Since implementing the fix I have not successfully gotten Feeds to make a list disappear. But, I am still not 100% confident yet so don’t quote me on that.
Mike
@Michael, are you using Google Reader for syncing or Feeds? If you are using Feeds, we had some server maintenance issues the other day that would definitely cause items to be re-marked as read.
Mike
@Mike
Thank you for your care and attention to this issue. Feeds is a really great product, I will look forward to the update and let you know if the problem still crops up. Great work so far!
I loved feeds until 1.2.2 – the crashing bug was discouraging, but turning off previews fixed it. I’m looking forward to 1.3.
Who uses black or green? Blue is where it’s at. I’d rather see you add more colors; specifically more muted colors.
Thanks for the the great app and the great support.
@Ron, we apologize about the buggy version. It was entirely our fault. One bad decision. We got the rejection from Apple and instead of pulling the old version out and just changing it we released a version that did not go through a vigorous enough testing process.
Mike
Mike,
I just bought your app. I’m a Doppler user, but yours has some interesting features. If you don’t mind, I’d like to see if some features of Doppler can be implemented on Feeds.
1. On Doppler, when you finished reading all articles and return to the feed preview page, Doppler immediately returns you to the main page, as there is no need to be on the feed page when there is nothing to read. That makes easier to go to other feeds.
2. The font on the preview pane is bolder, more readable on Doppler than in Feeds. That’s make reviewing the headlines easier.
3. The images, when you read an article, are bigger than the width of the screen. I really wish that you can adjust the images to the width of the screen, as scrolling is more erratic as text moves sometimes trying to adjust to the image width.
4. It would be a good idea, as Doppler does, to show how many unread articles are left on the feed when you are reading each article. This can help you know how many articles are left to read without going to the main page.
5. I’m not seeing the favicon of each feed. Do you know if it is a problem with my Greader account or a problem with Feeds? Is there a way that I can retrieve the favicons?
6. Other feature that Doppler has is the ability to show on the home screen icon the number of unread post, as the Apple apps to in email, for example. It would be a good idea to implement.
7. Other feature that I believe would be fantastic to have, is the ability to retrieve just the feeds that you want to read on your ipod. I share my iPod with my wife and kids and I don’t want that my children have access or know that I’m subscribed to TMZ feeds, Perez Hilton or some other political or adult oriented feeds thay I read on my PC at work.
Thank you very much for listening.
GB
@Gerardo, thanks for the feedback. If you have read any of my previous posts you would know that Feeds development is 100% driven by user requests sorted by the number of requests for each item. That being said, all of your requests are in the pool for consideration. To touch on a couple of your requests: number 3 will be a Setting in the near future. That one has been requested quite a bit. 5. Google does not provide favicon links yet so we don’t display them for Google. Number 6 you will find in the Settings. It is listed as ‘Display Unread Badge’.
Mike
@Mike
I’m not using Google Reader. Also, the system is not re-marking items as read; it thinks that previously read messages are now unread. But it hasn’t happened again since my initial post.
Thank you for your answers.
Number 6, I haven’t noticed the option. Now it is marked as “on”.
Number 7 is a must have for me. Is there a way to hide those feeds? Maybe a “Hide” option on the “Edit” menu, along the delete option.
But anyway, thank you for listening. I always try to help great developers like yourself, that are willing to hear opinions. Thank you for that. I spend a lot of time reading RSS feeds and your app is really helping me.
gb
Fedmeds has great potential, better than Byline, but it still has a long way to go. It crashed a lot, although the source seems to have been identified but we are still waiting fir the fix.
But what us most worrying is that it seems to have problems to keep in sync with Google. I see it reported a lot above but no solution seems to be near.
I also tried to move a feed from one folder to another. End result was that the feed is now present in both folders in Feeds
I haven’t checked in google yet.
The user feedback when syncing, or doing anything, is poor. Sometimes you do not know what the app is doing. This improved with 1.22 but it still leaves a lot to improve.
In the end I hope you continue to improve your app, and hopefully have better luck finding crashing bugs before shipping.
PS: your iPhone theme on this blog “sucks” when writing a comment
DS.
Sorry for the spelling errors in my previous comment but it is not possible to scroll properly in the editing window on an iPhone…
Any update on when Apple might release the next version? I really want to be able to use Feeds properly again
Also @Gerardo if you have a set of feeds you don’t want to appear on the device, why not use a second Google Reader account to read them?
I suppose Feeds could have an ignore list, and once it’s got your list of subscriptions you say “don’t send me any new articles for x y and z”. That might be handy for feeds that are high volume but not the sort of content you read on a mobile device.
Oops. Spoke to soon. Last night, when I went to read my feeds, two different feeds suddenly had 100+ “unread” posts, even though I’d read those posts and marked all read earlier in the afternoon.
@Roger, can you please describe in a bit more detail what you mean by “seems to have problems to keep in sync with Google”? Are your starred items not getting starred, shared not being shared, etc?
Moving one feed to another folder isn’t really moving one feed to another folder. Google Reader has no concept of ‘folders’. All you are doing when you do that is applying a new ‘tag’ to the feed. If you want the feed to only be on one ‘folder’, after adding a new tag to the feed, just remove the current one and that should do what you are describing.
Mike
@Dan,
I guess I could create a new Reader account, but I was just letting Mike know of features Doppler has over Feeds. Within Doppler you can update the feeds you want. You can select just one, all or a few. It is your choice, and you don’t have to create a new Reader account. I guess it should be easy to implement.
I also have the same bug others are reporting. When you mark a feed as read and return to the main page, all feeds are blank and you have to left the program and relaunch. I hope this can be solved on v1.3
GB
Sure, I will try and give you more info.
I know Google doesn’t use folders but that is how it appears so that is how I describe it. If it isn’t possible to “move” a feed from one “folder” then you either have a bug in your UI or you need to update your UI.
If I edit an existing Feed which is in a “folder” there is a checkmark on that “folder”. If I choose another “folder” the checkmark is moved and only the new “folder” is selected. To me that indicates that it now should appear only in the new “folder”. If that is not the case then it’s a bug in the UI as I can’t know that I have to uncheck something that isn’t checked.
Regarding syncing you have lots of reports above about how Feeds looses track of the read/unread posts. As yet another example my Feeds currently shows all posts as unread although I _know_ I have read most of them. But Feeds seems to have partial knowledge about it because it’s unread count doesn’t match the unread posts. If I configure Feeds for manual sync I never know if it has synced, is syncing or just doesn’t care to sync.
And when I started feeds now it took a very loony time before it indicated how many unread items I had. The only visual feedback I got was the very small text at the bottom saying “syncing all items”. But I don’t know if it’s “thinking” or if it’s fetching data from the net.
I really like the idea and implementation about Feeds but after using it for a week and noticing how buggy and unreliable it is I’m soon forced to go back to Byline
@Roger, There are many settings to handle syncing to suit different users needs. We tried to accommodate all of the different ways people read RSS feeds. Feeds has no way to do a true sync with Google Reader. A true sync would mean that if you read an item in Google Reader, Feeds can just ask what items have changed since it’s last update. This is not and never will be the case. Feeds needs to know a bit about how you read your RSS feeds to keep the synced count exact.
Hopefully, my following explanation will be clear not just for you but for all users.
Check out this post for more information on syncing and the likes:
http://feeds.prime31.com/adjusting-feeds-settings-for-your-reading-style/
Mike
Hi Mike,
Firstly, thanks for a great app – being able to read my google reader feeds from my PC or iPhone is a killer feature. And your resposne to my questions last month about how my Google password is used was reassuring.
I haven’t looked through all the posts above, but just to let you know, here are the issues I see with v1.22. Hopefully these will help you find and fix some bugs. You don’t need to respond to this, I suspect you’re busy coding and testing!
Note that I’m using google reader integration. I have about 36 feeds.
- Feature: A nit, but it would be good to see the feed name (esp. when viewing all items in a category) and timestamp when reading an item. (It appears in the feed summary view, but not when rading the feed item itself.)
- Feature: I see others have asked for this too, but it would be good to be able to mark a subset of Google Reader feeds for sync with the iPhone. It would speed up the sync, and some feeds are not of interest on the phone.
- Performance/slow at startup and after sync: I don’t mind the 3-4 seconds it takes for the “Loading” message to pop up and disappear, but it takes a further 12-15 seconds before the unread counts appear. (Or, if I open a feed during this time, about the same time before the items appear.) Newsstand is a lot faster, so I think it should be doable. This delay also happen after a sync. And occasionally, the screen will freeze for several seconds (no response to touches or even button presses), although I can’t reproduce this reliably.
- Stability: There are some general stability issues. Often, when returning from an item to the feed summary, or back to the category or top level views, Feeds crashes back to the springboard. Again, it’s hard to pin down when this happens.
Thanks again,
Brian.
@Brian, to address your comments, all feature requests are added to the pot for either eventual inclusion in Feeds (if they are requested enough) or in a queue waiting for more votes.
- Performance/slow: When Apple finally finishes reviewing the current version you should see some of the performance issues disappear. The ones that will not are the download time. We can’t do much about that one. Screen freezing shouldn’t happen anymore with the update.
- Stability: the bug you mention has been wrapped up in the update as were a few other little tweaks. Since we have been using the update we have not successfully got Feeds to crash (and we try pretty hard).
Mike
And idea when the new version will be out? I constantly have crashes which make Feeds unusable in it’s current form. Every 3rd or 4th story I view causes it to crash back to the spring board.
@mP, that is the million dollar question. Apple doesn’t communicate with developers at all. Most of the time, we get emails from users saying an update came out before Apple sends the email to use letting us know it is live. We are hoping the update gets out there today…it has been a week now and we want this update out there more than any of you guys.
Mike