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Byline: Google Reader for your pocket

by Robert Palmer Jul 16th 2008 at 4:00PM

As someone who manages whole metric scads of information in Google Reader, I was excited to see Byline, from Phantom Fish software, in the App Store.

Byline, as you might expect, fetches all your subscriptions from Google Reader and displays them for you to read. It also keeps track of the items you've read and starred.

The greatest thing, though, especially for iPod touch owners and subway riders is this: Starring or Noting an item saves it on your iPhone or iPod for offline reading. If you star an item either using your desktop browser, Mobile Safari, or Byline itself, it saves it for later. Noting an item is even better, because you can save pages that aren't even in your RSS subscriptions for offline reading with Byline. They mention you can do this very easily with a bookmarklet.

Now -- I can hear you screaming: NetNewsWire does all this, and it's free! Without boring you with detail, it's worth ten bucks to me to keep my Google Reader workflow the way it is, rather than spending time changing the way I work. Agreed: it's probably too steep for people who aren't heavily invested in Google Reader already.

Additionally on the downside, Byline doesn't allow you to browse by tag, instead opting to lump everything together in one list by date. Phantom Fish says this is for performance reasons, as people with many feeds would experience sluggish behavior. They're looking into it, though, and I personally hope they figure it out.

Byline is $9.99, awesome, and available through the App Store.



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As someone who manages whole metric scads of information in Google Reader, I was excited to see Byline, from Phantom Fish software, in the...
 

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mr. O

I agree that this is $5 too much for my iPhone. Especially because he ain't gonna be alone in this category for long. At $5 instead of $10, I would have bought it without thinking twice. But considering there are an avalanche of programs waiting in queue at Apple, overpricing was not the best way to take advantage of getting in the store early. Greed can REALLY screw up a decent product launch.

...and I love the "stop complaining of $5-$10 apps" moron. Is it cool if we complain about $.99-$4.99 apps and anything above $10?

*doink*

July 19 2008 at 1:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Brooklynguy

What I can't figure out is how to mark an item "read" without going into it. Sometimes all I need is the title and the 2-line opening text--that's enough to know I don't want to read it. And some of these items take FOREVER to load over EDGE. Newsgator had a great way of handling this. Google News Reader online will even "mark as read" items as you scroll by them.

July 17 2008 at 10:40 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
David

"NetNewsWire does all this, and it's free!"

I disagree, as NNW doesn't offer a proper offline mode : images are not prefetched, and that usually degrades very much the feeds I read ...

But, there again, I wish there was a demo...

July 17 2008 at 5:36 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
James F. Heck

Why is everyone always complaining of the price of these apps. If you spent hundreds of hours developing a binary, wouldn't you expect some compensation as well.

I remember owning a Palm Vx back in 2000 and regularly paying $20-$40 dollars for apps.

Sure, this app isn't for everybody. Personally, as an avid Google Reader fan, this app works great for me and is well worth the price of a sandwich, chips, and a coke.

If you can afford the monthly bill that comes with owning an iPhone, stop complaining of $5-$10 apps.

July 16 2008 at 11:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Peter Payne

This app is pure silk. I mean, it pre-loads the sites you have in your feed (the starred ones, or all of them, depending on your setting). This is amazing, since they then load super fast. I can't say enough about how cool this program is, and the developer says he's going to add features like browse by tag, etc.

July 16 2008 at 8:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jeremy C

Does anyone know how this app handles your Google ID and password? I can't find any documentation on their Web site or the iTunes store. This is a question I have with a lot of apps. Is there a central document that explains these things that I'm missing?

July 16 2008 at 7:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jeff

A web app from the Reader page is totally working for me (on EDGE, too). I depend too heavily on tagging to manage my reading to use this app.

July 16 2008 at 6:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Big John

I'm not signal-starved enough, ever, that I need to use offline reading. Even if I was, it's not worth $10 to download items from a free service.

July 16 2008 at 6:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
muzo

oh, and no search?

July 16 2008 at 5:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
muzo

no tags, no cash.

July 16 2008 at 5:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to muzo's comment
Rick

I emailed the author yesterday requesting the view-by-tag feature. Here's his reply:

"I've had a lot of requests for this feature, so it is very high on my list of priorities. I hope to add it within the next month or to, so do check back — I'll post release notes for updates on the website."

July 16 2008 at 5:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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