[Macworld]

Post your comments for Review: NetNewsWire for iPhone and iPod touch here

[Walt_Basil]

I love it in my 1st gen iPhone. Even over edge is fast enough. Only 30 some feeds though. Only thing I would add is emailing links.

[natmusak]

"The difference is that you can leave the Mac version running so it can perform checks/syncs in the background. Since iPhone apps quit whenever you switch to a different app, NetNewsWire has to wait until you launch it to perform a check/sync, so it feels slower. This is one of the limitations, for third-party developers, of the iPhone OS: programs can't access the Internet—or even run—in the background. That said, the current version of NetNewsWire for iPhone feels considerably faster than the initial version thanks to a number of tweaks NewsGator has implemented."

Couldn't this problem be solved by NetNewsWire using Apple's forthcoming Push Notification Server? Or would that only increase the application's number badge and then when opened it would still have to download the new articles?

Also, an unrelated question about reviewing applications in general: considering you guys probably don't have the time to re-review apps with every incremental update...well...what's the point? :D Or at least, what's the point of giving them a number score - in Macworld's case, a mouse rating? These aren't hardware products that remain pretty much unchanged through their life, they're all works in progress.

Maybe a better question is, how do you decide which version to review? NetNewsWire is at v1.0.7 Why wasn't it reviewed at 1.0? Or 1.0.9? I sorta understand the opinion/judgement of the app - it has to be reviewed at some point. I don't understand the rating.

Thanks. :)

[Dan Frakes]

Walt_Basil said:

I love it in my 1st gen iPhone. Even over edge is fast enough. Only 30 some feeds though. Only thing I would add is emailing links.

Have you downloaded the latest version (made available yesterday)? As noted in the article, it does indeed let you email links :)

[Dan Frakes]

natmusak said:

Couldn't this problem be solved by NetNewsWire using Apple's forthcoming Push Notification Server? Or would that only increase the application's number badge and then when opened it would still have to download the new articles?

This could (should) indeed change when Apple makes the notification feature available to third-party developers. But right now, it's a limitation imposed on all third-party apps.

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Also, an unrelated question about reviewing applications in general: considering you guys probably don't have the time to re-review apps with every incremental update...well...what's the point? :D Or at least, what's the point of giving them a number score - in Macworld's case, a mouse rating? These aren't hardware products that remain pretty much unchanged through their life, they're all works in progress.

The same could be said for any software product ;)

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Maybe a better question is, how do you decide which version to review? NetNewsWire is at v1.0.7 Why wasn't it reviewed at 1.0? Or 1.0.9?

We review whatever is current, although if we know a new version is coming that is significantly different, we will sometimes wait for that version to be released.

[natmusak]

Dan Frakes said:

This could (should) indeed change when Apple makes the notification feature available to third-party developers. But right now, it's a limitation imposed on all third-party apps.

Awesome. :D Yeah, I read that the PNS isn't out yet. Hopefully it'll get here soon.

Related question: If the NetNewsWire team takes advantage of the PNS, does that mean as soon as a site publishes an RSS article, it will immediately be pushed to the iPhone (immediately meaning 15-20 seconds)? Or, do RSS feeds update on their own given interval? Safari, for instance, checks every 30 minutes. If that doesn't make sense, I'll use Macworld as an example; I'm actually a subscriber to your main news feed. :D

When you, Dan Frakes, publish a new article to the web, is the RSS immediately visible to RSS readers? Or are they on their own time-release interval? Sometimes I've noticed on news sites that a new story is visible on their front page and it has RSS, but it doesn't appear in NetNewsWire even when I click Refresh. Is that due to heavy traffic, poor connections, or are RSS feeds published independent of their full companion article on their own time interval?

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> Also, an unrelated question about reviewing applications in general: considering you guys probably don't have the time to re-review apps with every incremental update...well...what's the point? :D Or at least, what's the point of giving them a number score - in Macworld's case, a mouse rating? These aren't hardware products that remain pretty much unchanged through their life, they're all works in progress.

The same could be said for any software product ;)

Ha, yeah, I meant all applications in general, not just App Store apps. :D

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> Maybe a better question is, how do you decide which version to review? NetNewsWire is at v1.0.7 Why wasn't it reviewed at 1.0? Or 1.0.9?

We review whatever is current, although if we know a new version is coming that is significantly different, we will sometimes wait for that version to be released.

I see. Thanks for answering my many-tentacled questions. :)

[Walt_Basil]

Unfortunately, neither iTunes or iPhone tell me an update is available. Cro-Mag Rally is updated in iTunes, but iTunes won't update the version on my iPhone. Guess I'll have to do it via wifi on the iPhone.

[Adwiz]

Spoiler alert! Who would expect Macworld to offer up a spoiler! Here I am watching the afternoon coverage of the 19th stage of the Tour de France, deliberately avoiding sports news coverage all day so I don't know ahead of time who wins the stage, and then... wham! there it is in a Macworld article! You could have used yesterday's news, or something that wasn't so spoiler-sensitive.

[Walt_Basil]

Update: Still couldn't get new versions, so I simply deleted them all from my library and re-downloaded them all. This has definitely been the worst experience I've ever had with my iPhone as far as things acting like they should. Not upset enough to change to another phone though. ;-) I'll live. Oh, and I'm perfectly happy with this newest version of NetNewsWire.

[bigcloits]

Syncing of item read/unread status has been flaky for me. I really hate that.

[BillPetro]

I have found the NNW iPhone app virtually unusable beyond a handful of feeds -- even with WiFi. I've installed and uninstalled it half a dozen times, cut my number of feeds in half, twice, but it still takes over 20 minutes to download the articles.
I waited expectantly for this app, but have had to drop back to the iPhone-optimized web version of NNW.

[Dan Frakes]

There's definitely something going on there. I tested it -- and continue to use it on a daily basis -- with well over 100 feeds, and it takes ~40 seconds to download feeds and sync status over WiFi. What happens if you change the Location name in NNW on your iPhone, and then go to the NewGator site and edit your Location settings for the phone?

[BillPetro]

Dan,



Thanks for your help. I did check, and while there was a spurious version around, I eliminated it and made sure the iPhone Pref and the Newsgator webversion had the same name. Still at least 20 minutes to sync. I deleted and re-downloaded NetNewsWire several times from the App Store, but no joy. I've moved back to Google Reader, which is much faster, though it doesn't cache articles off-line as NNW does :-(