TUAW's Daily App: Times for iPad

My main complaint is the price. A cool interface isn't worth paying 8x as much as other reader apps.

Where the hell did *that* come from?

"Hey, let me tell you about this iPad app."
"Sure, but first, global warming isn't real! LALALALALALALALALALALA I'm never going to die it's not our fault science isn't real people are special god protects us the media is evil AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"

(Not going to argue global warming with morons.)

Anyway, Times on the Mac is really nifty and I love it a lot, but it's riddled with bugs right now. It's easy to see what it's supposed to be, which is exactly what I want and nothing I don't.

Personally, Google Reader sync is not an issue. I don't use it. If you're someone who has fifteen RSS feeds to which they subscribe or constantly pester their Twitter friends with articles or endlessly flag and star and mark unread, don't look for something like Times. Go with something more industrial.

But if you're someone who doesn't like to read a physical newspaper, but still wants to keep up-to-date on recent happenings in the world, Times will be perfect. I have two standard news feeds, a photo feed, and three tech/entertainment feeds. Times is perfect.

The Times' headline in the screenshot should read:
Global warming threat completely specious, everybody but the media has figured that out.

I think the idea is ingenious .. but the actually implementation falls quite a bit short (talking about the Mac Version, but judging from the comments in iTunes it is pretty much the same for the iPad version).

I am pretty limited in terms of customization and layout .. well there is on layout and a set of sections .. and then you can sort your feeds in that scheme or die .. no chance to add, remove or change anything.

I am going to wait for version 2 .. maybe the got all that and Google implementation fixed ..

T.

Hey guys - Times doesn't actually integrate Facebook or Twitter into news feeds, though you can share articles with both. Might want to fix this in the article.

It says right at the bottom of the developers website that the 2.0 version of Times for Mac will support syncing with the iPad version. I have Times and have used it every so often, but haven't really been able to get it set up in a way that I really want to use it. Hopefully the 2.0 update will change all of that. I just hope I don't have to buy it since I got the app from MacHeist in the first place. We'll see

I want to like this. I really do. But there is a rather major feature missing from this app, and one that seems to often be overlooked by developers of apps like this: Google Reader sync. I think it's safe to say that most people these days who are aware of RSS feeds probably use Google Reader. And if they do, they are probably quite fond of the fact that their feeds, along with the all important read/unread count and starred items, sync anywhere they are. They probably also make use of the Like and Share features. I know I do.

Since most of the time I spend reading RSS feeds is at a computer and through the GReader web interface and making use of these previously mentioned features, I can't be bothered with an app that doesn't support them. All of these apps, Pulse included with it's limited GReader sync (20 feeds? Really?), seem aimed at very casual users, who have perhaps never even heard of RSS until they bought an iPad and browsed the App Store.

Maybe most iPad users are even okay with this lack of sync with a major RSS platform, and that's fine, but why not offer the option for those of us that do? Really, it's just more sales in their pocket since it broadens the app's appeal.