NNW booted from my Dock, long live endo!

Scott posted on endo yesterday, and today I am happy to report that NNW has gone to that giant "poof" in the ex-Dock sky. Sure, endo has some minor "it's a 1.0 release" quirks, but this is the newsreader I've been waiting for. After putting it through its paces last night I was happy to dethrone NetNewsWire's place in my Dock, and here's why.

First and foremost is NetNewWire's age. Version 2.x is old, and it's starting to feel like it hasn't been touched in a while, possibly due to it's dominance in the newsreading market or the NewsGator buyout. Now I don't mean any disrespect; Ranchero is a great company and NetNewsWire both initiated me into and carried me through the newsreading market for a couple of years now. endo simply feels like it pays a little more attention to the market and is aiming to evolve with it, as it offers some really slick integration and headline organizing options. Headlines can be added to a del.icio.us account right from within endo, without the need for snarky applescripts that make me leave the app to do the actual bookmarking in a browser.

On the topic of feed management, endo is very customizable, with the ability to set refresh rates for each group and/or feed (and disabling them altogether) and even the ability to colorize particular feed's headlines so they're easier to pick out in a crowd. endo also offers a Growl-like notification system, toggled per feed, that allows you to sift through snippets of new headlines and short summaries while leaving endo minimized or even hidden. The headline column on the left is also quite tweakable, as summaries and tags can be displayed in-line with the headlines, or you can completely turn off both of those items as I have in my screenshot. To round up the feed management angle: for all those times when you can't get online, endo has the ever-obvious "offline" option.

Another key endo feature is the endoBot, an optional stand-alone download manager that's actually a manager. It doesn't just show a list of what enclosures, podcasts and apps I am presently downloading, it sifts through all the feeds and presents a list of everything that is downloadable. This lets me grab what I'm looking for a lot more quickly than sifting through 250 feeds for that one appcast update or the podcast I've been waiting for all week.

Honestly I could go on and on about features like selecting feed groups simply by typing a few letters of their name or the ability to sync subscriptions with Kula's servers or .Mac, but if any of this praise for endo is piquing your interest I recommend simply taking the plunge and playing with a 21-day demo. No, Kula didn't pay me to say all this, but once I finish this post I'm heading off to register a copy.

Sorry NetNewsWire, you are now the weakest link. Goodbye.
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