DominoKeys.com

For a LONG time, I’ve been a huge fan of the RSS reader program (for the Mac) NewsFire. Its such a simple, elegant application. In a world of complicated software layouts, this one was only as complicated as it absolutely needed to be. It was also fast and well designed. Considering the number of RSS feeds I follow, I never felt overwhelmed when using this application – which is pretty impressive!

A couple of years ago, a friend tried to get me to switch to NetNewsWire. I tried it for a few days but felt that everything was the opposite of what I loved about NewsFire. This tool had a busier layout, too many panes and suddenly left me feeling like I was following way too many RSS feeds, despite the fact that I exported the list from NewsFire and deleted the default set that comes with NetNewsWire when you install it.

However, there’s been a tipping point: iPhone compatibility. This application not only gives you a great iPhone optimized version of the software, but also uses their synchronization services to keep your iPhone and Mac versions of the software in sync with each other. That one piece of functionality has been the tipping point that has caused me to now exclusively use this software over the other (NewsFire).

What’s more, if you read the reviews of it in the App Store in iTunes, you’ll see that people have complained about its performance and limited functionality (compared to the full-blown application). I understand those comments, but the sync utility it provides makes me simply not care.

Its a great tool. I suggest trying it for yourself!

Tags: iphone, mac, rss, software