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NewsGator releases iPhone app/feed stats
NetNewsWire was one of the first native applications on the iPhone to read RSS feeds. Today, NewsGator released some astounding statistics about their application and users. One of the announcements was that NNW on the iPhone has over 200,000 users. Some of the other interesting stats they're talking about are: 115,000 users have signed up for the iPhone version in the past 30-days Average NNW for iPhone users subscribe to 26 feeds (I subscribe to over 115 -- just sayin') One NNW for iPhone user subscribes to over 2,800 feeds (and how does this person read all of the newsies coming over the wire?) NetNewsWire is a free application for the iPhone that can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store (iTunes link). You can celebrate with the NewsGator folks on their blog. Be sure to take part in our poll to find out how many RSS feeds you subscribe to. %Poll-20095%
NetNewsWire vs. Vienna
var digg_url = 'http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/10/netnewswire-vs-vienna/'; RSS (or Really Simple Syndication) is becoming an ever more popular way to read online content quickly and without having to visit individual websites. As RSS feeds becomes more popular, so do the RSS readers that allow you to access the feeds. In my opinion, the two best RSS readers on the Mac are NetNewsWire and Vienna. Now that NetNewsWire costs the same as Vienna (i.e. nothing), what better time to take a look at what each has to offer?
Newsgator turns NetNewsWire free for everyone
Wow. I don't know who hadn't bought NetNewsWire yet, but if you haven't, consider your wait vindicated: most of Newsgator's products, including NNW, Newsgator Online, and FeedDemon (the Windows version of the popular RSS reader) have all gone free with version 3.1.Brent Simmons, NNW's creator, is reportedly happy about the change, to say the least, and Newsgator isn't any less thrilled themselves-- they say that not only are they excited to spread the love around to everyone, but that they'll also be using "attention data" collected from the software (which hopefully sounds more ominous than it is... right?) to "deliver a better experience for everyone." Not so happy might be the folks who've paid for the products in the past-- Newsgator is offering an automatic refund to anyone who purchased them in the past 30 days, but anyone before that just has to live with the fact that they paid $30 to use the software at the time (not that it was a bad deal back then anyway). Those who subscribed to the Newsgator Online service will run out their current subscriptions, and then continue on without charge.Version 3.1 of NetNewsWire features an updated interface with new toolbar icons, some performance and memory enhancements, and the ability to archive news items as HTML files, viewable in any browser. It is now available, for a completely free download, over on Newsgator's site.
Newsgator mobile for iPhone
A while back David opined about eight apps he wanted on the iPhone and number one on his list was a old TUAW favorite, rss reader NetNewsWire. Well that hasn't happened yet, but Newsgator (which owns NNW) has announced an iPhone optimized version their web based newsreader at http://m.newsgator.com. What's significant about this, of course, is that like the regular web based Newsgator, this mobile version can be synced to NetNewsWire to preserve your feeds and read/unread state. So if you're an iPhone using NNW junkie you may want to check it out.[via Ranchero]
TUAW Automator App: Export NetNewsWire feeds
Not many people are familiar with how flexible and shareable your NetNewsWire / NewsGator subscriptions are, so I thought it was time to elaborate a little and play with Automator again. First on our sharing list: the ability to embed an automatically updating list of your NetNewsWire / NewsGator subscriptions into your website or blog. To enable this, simply sign into your NewsGator account (if you're using NetNewsWire 2.1.x or 3.x I believe you automatically get at least a 1-year NewsGator subscription) and go to Settings > Edit Locations. Assuming you have syncing with NewsGator enabled, you should see at least one location related to your NetNewsWire feeds which should have a 'Blogroll' option listed. Clicking on that will give you all the options you need to embed a small snippet of code in your site to create a list of the subscriptions you want to share publicly. There is another way to share your NetNewsWire subscriptions in a handy-dandy file format, easy for friends, family and visitors to download and import into just about any newsreader they use, including NetNewsWire, Google Reader and even Vienna (this is technically referred to as an OPML file, with the extension .OPML). NetNewsWire offers a File > Export Subscriptions command, but there are a few options involved and this isn't very automation-friendly. If you want to make your subscriptions available to, for example, website visitors or simply back them up on a regular basis, I put together two very basic, two-step Automator apps (packaged as zip files) that can work fine on their own or easily be incorporated into larger workflows.
WWDC Video: TUAW interview with Brent Simmons
Brent Simmons has earned a spot in our docks for years now with NetNewsWire, perhaps the premiere RSS reader on the Mac. But Brent loves developing Mac apps, and he's a big fan of the platform in general. Funny how that works. Mr. Simmons was kind enough to sit and chat with Scott about the WWDC keynote, his competition and some cool new features in NNW3.
NetNewsWire 3.0a8
We here at TUAW are unabashed fans of NetNewsWire, the best of class newsreader for the Mac. That much you probably knew already, however, you might not know that NewsGator has just released an Alpha of NewNewsWire 3.0 (which brings us up to 3.0a8). Check out the release notes to get the full run down on what's new in this version. My favorite new additions? Here they are: Send to Twitterific for posting stuff to Twitter (another TUAW favorite) Microformats support (very cool) Performance enhancements (it is fast I tells ya!) Remember this is a piece of Alpha software, and there are bound to be bugs.
TUAW Podcast #18: Macworld interview with Brent Simmons and Paul Kafasis
On Friday of last week at Macworld 07, Brent Simmons (of NewsGator/ NetNewsWire/ MarsEdit fame) and Paul Kafasis (of Rogue Amoeba/Audio Hijack/Airfoil fame) were kind enough to unite their powers and sit down with me for an interview. For just over 20 minutes we discussed Macworld, the iPhone, the state of Mac OS X, being a developer, whether competition or web services are slowing them down and a whole lot more. The interview turned out great, but the audio needed a little cleanup. My XtremeMac MicroMemo usually does a good recording job with my iPod, but we did the interview in the large press room hall at Macworld so it picked up some background noise. It sounds pretty good now (thanks Mike!), and it should be a good listen for anyone interested in a perspective on the state of Apple and their products from two influential 3rd party developers.This TUAW Podcast #18 weighs in at just under 21MB, and can be had from this direct link, our iTunes Store Podcast directory or our own podcast RSS feed. Enjoy.P.S. - On a related note, our TUAW podcast is now listed in the digg podcast directory. Why not head over and show some love by digging our podcast and your favorite individual episodes?
NetNewsWire 2.1 released
After all the beta releases, the testing and the blood sweat and tears, NetNewsWire 2.1 has gone official. In case you've been living under a rock the past few months, this long-anticipated release of the most.popular.newsreader.evar includes major new features like syncing with NewsGator, posting to del.icio.us, emailing articles, printing and an interesting new sorting paradigm: by attention (has anyone heard anything about how well that one's actually working?).With this release, NNW is also now a Universal Binary and has received some major performance boosts on both Intel and PowerPC-based Macs. This is a free upgrade for owners of NNW 2.0, so what are you waiting for? Go get a copy.Ranchero notes that NetNewsWire Lite 2.1 is still in beta. Also, from what I remember, now that NetNewsWire 2.1 has gone official, I'm pretty sure that sale they had running is over.
NetNewsWire 2.1b36 fixes server/network, news updating issues
As if Ranchero employed hundreds of little coder gnomes who work around the clock, the company has cranked out yet another beta release of NetNewsWire 2.1 to fix news updating issues. Turns out NNW's ability to grab news might experience some quirks if NewsGator syncing became flaky, so this release is targeted at fixing the issue.By now you probably know the drill; you can grab your copy at their beta page.
NetNewsWire 2.1b33
Hot on the heels of NetNewsWire 2.1b32, Newsgator has released NetNewsWire 2.1b33 which crushes some syncing bugs, and some combine view bugs. It also fixes a problem where the demo would think that the trial period had expired (even when it hadn't).If you're a fan of NetNewsWire and beta software, go give it a whirl.
Latest NetNewsWire beta enables 2-year Newsgator subscription
The latest beta of NetNewsWire, 2.1b32, enables the two-year Newsgator Online Premium account that comes with purchasing a copy of NetNewsWire. Once you install/upgrade your copy of NetNewsWire to this latest beta, you will be prompted with a dialog about this new account, offering to create one or, if you're already syncing with a basic Newsgator account, simply notifying you that your account has now been upgraded to the Premium version, which includes all sorts of extra features such as: NewsGator Mobile HTML Reader NewsGator Email 20 Keyword search feeds 2 URL search feeds 2 Email feeds Along with this highly-anticipated premium syncing goodness is a fix that makes sure you don't receive an error message when Newsgator can't be contacted if you're offline. After all, being offline isn't really an error... or is it?
NetNewsWire 2.1 public beta offers Newsgator syncing, more enhancements
It's been a long time coming boys and girls, but Ranchero has unveiled a public beta version of their much-anticipated 2.1 update to the most popular RSS reader out there: NetNewsWire. As Scott's preview earlier this month mentioned, the most buzz-worthy new feature by far is headline syncing with Newsgator (the app's new overlords). However, the change notes for the update list a whole new set of features that I find more interesting like posting to del.icio.us, emailing headlines and an interesting new ability to sort subscriptions by "attention." This means NetNewsWire can sort headlines according to statistics like how often they are opened, posted to del.icio.us and more. The overall performance and responsiveness of NetNewsWire has dramatically increased from a number of enhancements, one of the most notable being that it is now a Universal Binary.The NetNewsWire beta is at 2.1b17 as of this writing, and it is a free upgrade for registered users. As far as I know, the free Newsgator account compatible with syncing is not available yet. One final word of caution if you decide to make the jump: back up your NetNewsWire support folder just in case something goes wrong. After all, it is a beta.I played around with the beta on my PowerBook and must say: NetNewsWire has gotten a lot zippier. Things like marking large amounts of headlines (600-1000 or more) as read are much faster, and the UI has received some welcomed polish. Even with these updates, however, my newsreading still belongs to endo. At the end of the day though, it's great to see newsreading apps as a whole pushing the medium and offering useful features that get everyone's RSS feeds flowing.
MarsEdit 1.1fc1
I'm as giddy as a school girl. It looks like MarsEdit 1.1 will soon be upon us as a final candidate release has just been announced. I blog a lot and most my time blogging is spent within the confines of MarsEdit, and I have been watching the development of the 1.1 release very closely and I am excited.Here's hoping that they never change the icon, I really like that rocket ship.
MarsEdit 1.1b6 public beta
We knew that development of MarsEdit was continuing, but the good news of the weekend was that 1.1b6 public beta of MarsEdit is now available: "This release updates the French localization and fixes a few bugs, including a work-around for a time zone problem with some weblog systems. (More details are on the beta page.)" Not much really new about it, but cool nonetheless. Get it.
