Times Reader Beta now available

Why they think they need a separate application to display their webpage is beyond me. They could do the exact same thing on their website, not using Silverlight but html & AJAX (and/or SVG or Flash). This just seems like an utterly stupid idea to me that is destined to fail.

Yeah, I also don't understand the dissing of the New York Times. It's the world's largest newspaper for a reason: great writing.

I must admit: I'm a Mac fanboy AND a software engineer developing applications on the Microsoft .Net stack (including Silverlight). I have a love/hate relationship with MS. As much as I hate them (more specifically their OS), their development environment (.Net Framework, Visual Studio, etc.) is FAR better than any other development environment/language/etc. out there on the market today, IMO. Sadly, that's the one aspect which keeps me from developing on a Mac: from what I could read, Carbon/Cocoa just isn't as easy to work with and isn't as modern as the .Net platform. I've read that there isn't even a garbage collector - having to manage your memory on your own with malloc and calloc. As for Silverlight, it is truely quite amazing - the technology involved, that is. A slimmed down version of the .Net framework will install and run on the client (browser), without the need to post back to the server on every page. That makes it far more efficient. Additionally, it uses vector graphics (like Flash) so all text, lines, fills, etc., are crisp and look perfect, no matter how much you enlarge your window. It far exceeds Flash in it's technology and development environment. Like it or not, Silverlight is here to stay folks.

If you like this, check out the eerily similarly named and looking "Times" RSS reader app:
http://www.acrylicapps.com/times/

Looks the same, doesn't require a subscription and even scrapes the NYT website to get the full content instead of their puny RSS feed.

Um, no thanks. The last thing I want is another MS application or help advanced another monopolizing initiative.

I'm will never install Silverlight. But that's just me.

from past negative experience with MS technologies on my Mac, there's no way i'm installing Silverblight. i just don't trust MS.

What's wrong with the NYT? The only no-go is Silverlight.

This is great. I am a print subscriber so it will be free to me and now I can read the NYT offline on my MBA which I carry around everywhere. It really flows pretty well on my MBA, easy to use. I appreciate the NYT making this available to mac users. I have been waiting for this for months. Thanks for the TUAW post. ralph

Wow. I used the NYT Reader on Windows while it was still free, and it was absolutely a great way to read the paper. Everything flowed well, loaded instantaneously, and it was almost like reading the real paper, instead of a website.

I like how it uses Silverlight. I've already installed Silverlight to use on some Silverlight-only sites, and it's kinda cool. It's like Flash, but better. I don't know why anyone would be "bemoaning" this. It really isn't bad. Maybe you haven't tried it?

Hopefully the NYT Reader for Mac won't go final for a long time. :^)