Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone, App Store
First Look: NetNewsWire for iPhone
Probably the single most used application on my Mac is NetNewsWire, and so I've been really looking forward to on the iPhone optimized version. It has now appeared and on first glance it appears that developer Brent Simmons has built yet another class leading RSS reader.Like the desktop version NetNewsWire for iPhone (iTunes link) syncs with the Newsgator servers for your subscription list, clippings, and read/unread status. And like the desktop version it's free. However, if you're like me you're not going to want your entire feed list on your iPhone. Fortunately, there is a way to use a desktop browser interface on Newsgator.com to select only a subset of your feeds to appear on your iPhone. Brent explains how to set this up at his site.
Check out this gallery for a a quick tour of this great mobile version of NetNewsWire.
Gallery: NetNewsWire iPhone
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
emil said 9:16AM on 7-11-2008
Google reader kicks the pants off of this app.
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Jash Sayani said 9:34AM on 7-11-2008
Is it there in the AppStore...?
emil said 9:38AM on 7-11-2008
http://www.google.com/reader/i (iPhone beta reader)
or
http://www.google.com/reader/m (Mobile reader)
neil said 9:55AM on 7-11-2008
when google reader can work underground like this NetNewsWire app does - then you let me know.
It works underground cause iPhone apps can save the data to your device, allowing you to read your feeds without a signal and then it syncs up when you have an active connection again.
Much easier to get through my 1000+ unreads.
Neil said 9:19AM on 7-11-2008
As much as I love NNW on my Mac, I think this is a shoddy iPhone version that they have produced. It is incredibly slow, even over WiFi and when it does manage to load things it doesn't display the unread count properly. I also read a bunch of news on my iPhone this morning which I had to mark as read again when I got to my computer.
Over EDGE (or in many cases GPRS if you're on O2) it seems incredibly slow to retrieve data. I figured that this probably has something to do with the phone itself having to go through your list of feeds and refresh each one. They had an iPhone web app previously which seems to work better than this native one does, probably because a web server went through your feeds, refreshed them and then produced a page of all the updates for you.
I hope they can fix this.
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tevetorbes said 10:53AM on 7-11-2008
I haven't experienced any of the problems that you are describing. I just double-checked, but both of mine are sync'd and displaying the read/unread count properly.
As well, I haven't had any speed issues to speak about. Granted, YMMV as I sync 33 feeds, you may sync 133 or 1333, so I can't really comment on the speed comparison. Once it retrieves all the data, its DONE and you can read everything instantly (even on EDGE) in my experience.
Maybe you should try uninstalling/reinstalling. Some people also report that restarting their iPhone after an app install helps with dodgy apps, but I don't know if I believe that or not.
Another Neil said 9:30AM on 7-11-2008
Is this an offline reader? I'm a touch owner who's often away from WiFi.
If not this one, is there a good offline reader in the App Store?
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Jash Sayani said 9:34AM on 7-11-2008
Can I import my feed urls from xml file..?
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Jono said 9:45AM on 7-11-2008
Yea, it looks promising but I definitely think it needs more work to make it great.
I was expecting feeds to that have been read to clear/disappear, but they stay there making it seem cluttered.
I also thought it was quite slow, even though I've only tried it over wifi.
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Dave said 9:53AM on 7-11-2008
I played with it and removed it. It's so slow that it's unusable. My Google Reader icon is safely still on my screen.
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Rick said 10:19AM on 7-11-2008
I was a huge NNW fan, but just found it really hard to share articles with social networks. I recently switched all my feeds to Google Reader (made a Fluid SSB for it) and love how easy it is to share items, which automatically show up in my Facebook Newsfeed. My Google Reader SSB seems way faster than NNW, and Google's iPhone version also seems faster than the iPhone NNW. Now, if there could be a way to view gReader articles on my iPhone while offline...
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punkassjim said 10:55AM on 7-11-2008
I'm trying to give it a fair shake, as it seems to get quicker once you've synced a few times, but it may just be slow when you've got a huge number of inbound feed items.
I love the fact that it's an offline reader, and I appreciate that that means it's downloading a whole lot more data at every sync, but I've got a feeling there's room for speed improvement.
The only UI problem I have with it is the fact that it doesn't rotate into landscape mode. In terms of kick-back reading comfort, the Newsgator web app has this beat...until Brent implements landscape mode. I'm sure it's on the horizon, though.
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Anthony Baker said 11:00AM on 7-11-2008
While I love Google Reader, I do dig the idea of a native app for the iPhone like NNW. I've got nearly 300 feeds on GR, and had to do the hack with Newsgator Online to pare down the reading list to something anywhere near manageable.
Pluses on the NNW side:
* Really dig the display of the feed entries. The text is of a healthy size and the presentation, IMHO, is better than GR at the individual entry level.
* Same with the feed list -- again, nice, clean display
* Browser support is nice, though the implementation used by Twitterific is a tad better
Issues I've got with it:
* Clippings feature doesn't seem to sync/work -- big problem for me if so
* Not clear how long old entries stay around (24 hours?)
* No sharing -- send by email would be awesome
* No "by folder" view, which GR supports and is my method of choice
* Slow to load
Areas where GR still kicks butt:
* View by tag (folder)
* Excerpts easily viewable along with entry titles
* Faster -- especially on the non-AJAX, low band mobile version (which I prefer, even on the iPhone)
* Starring (essentially clipping that works)
* Sharing
* Links kick off to mobile version (parsed by Google) of whatever site you're linking to; often faster rendering than the standard HTML version (though you can still get to that)
* 100% seamless integration with the standard web version
GR allows me, as a heavy reader, to be highly productive in my feed reading. Also, the GR experience is done so well overall that I now do most feed reading ON the iPhone. It also works fast enough on Edge (especially when viewing the original low-band mobile version -- the AJAX flavor is slow enough to be annoying for me).
This all said, I'm still open to someone doing a formal app-based feed reader well, and do think that there's opportunity in the space.
As to whether or not NNW takes this on successfully, that's another thing altogether.
One other note: I'm a big fan of Evernote now (over del.icio.us, which I used forever), and clipping from Evernote via the NNW desktop app is a pain in the arse. Given GR displays in the browser, the FF or Safari clipping capability Evernote offers takes care of things nicely.
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Chris said 4:08PM on 7-12-2008
I really like this app so far. Makes it really easy to read all my feeds. I like the integration with the desktop client. The offline reading is very nice. I wish that it would display unread feeds via the icon ala Mail, SMS, (like the desktop client does)
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rvr said 1:23PM on 7-17-2008
yeah, really disappointed in this. i've been using netvibes for quite a while and love their standard web app. the presentation of a group of feeds as boxes with each one containing the latest headlines from a source is great--i can scan all my sports sources, or mac sources, very quickly. the netvibes iphone web app is good too, though it's too slow, lacks some usability touches i think it needs, and obviously doesn't provide offline reading.
so i figured i'd give nnn a whirl. it's considered best of breed in desktop rss clients, so i set it up, imported my feeds, etc. the desktop client is nice, for sure, but lacks the great scanability of netvibes. you can see all the unread headlines in a group, but they aren't visually grouped in a useful way, so it's hard to use it that way. otherwise it seems very solid, and i love the built-in browser feature.
but this was about the iphone app, so i fire that up. no feeds. i had a newsgator account. i was logged in. i had synced my feeds from the mac. after going through the newsgator web app and doing something in locations settings (still not sure exactly what i had to do) my feeds started showing up on the iphone. the newsgator web app, btw, is pretty bad. does not hold up well against netvibes, nor would it against google reader, i would bet. bummer.
now that i had my feeds on my iphone i could really check out the app. a few minutes with it and i knew i wouldn't be using it regularly.
- it's kind of slow
- the worst thing is the information hierarchy: all my feeds on the main screen, grouped into lists
- the groups are alphabetical, which is not how i want to view them
- each source only shows the number of unread items
- i can tap on a group, but i get the full list of items, no indication of which item belongs to which source
- i can tap on a source, and see the unread items, but no date info, no lead-in text, etc.
in a word: FAIL. oh well, it was free, aside from my wasted time. back to netvibes and keeping a lookout for something better.
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tim said 7:01AM on 7-19-2008
Me too :)
Incredibly slow!!!
I've cut down my number of feeds from 1300 to 500 and it is still unusably slow. From clicking on the heading on screen to opening the news item takes maybe 20 seconds. Completely useless. Even the Newsgator mobile web version is orders of magnitude faster, how can they release this useless piece of software? I now see why it was free, if they were charging they'd be flooded with support emails right about now...
Faithful OS X NetNewsWire reader for years now. Very disappointed in this iPhone app.
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fox said 1:42PM on 9-15-2008
i also experience frustration with different 'unread count' between the iphone app, web version and mac app.... very annoying, since the entire concept is to not be exposed to the same feed more than once...
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Designaholic said 12:12PM on 9-23-2008
NetNewsWire is ok, it's just a shame once you have read a new article it disappears.
As I mainly use Mac Mail to read my RSS feeds on my desktop, so I tend to use NetNewsWire to just sync RSS feeds that are important to me when on the move.
Hopefully Apple would integrate RSS and syncing for the iPhone Mail app at some point in the future.
Also, what's the deal with the NetNewsWire iPhone app logo? it looks nasty!
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