(Credit:
Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)
There are already several news apps available in the iTunes Store for iPhone and iPod Touch. Some bring you the headlines, while others bring you video, while still others get you the latest images in the news, but there aren't very many comprehensive news apps that bring you everything. Just today, CNN released its CNN App ($1.99) that not only brings you headlines, video, and images, but also adds other useful tools so you can remain in the know wherever you are.
The CNN App interface is immediately impressive upon launch, with sleek white text on a black background and breaking news stories with images. You get story highlights right below the images for quick headline scanning, but you also can scroll down to get more details about a specific story. Flick your finger from right to left to move on to the next headline. If you want local news, simply let the CNN App use your location and you'll get local headlines along with traffic updates and weather info. The overall feel of the app is elegant, with an interface that helps you get to the news you want to watch and read.
Flip through videos by swiping your finger or choose categories at the top.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)For video headlines the CNN App uses a Cover Flow-like interface letting you swipe your finger to browse from video to video. Across the top are headings so you can quickly view several categories including Top Stories, CNN TV, and Most Popular stories, but you can also browse categories like Tech, Health, Travel, and many more. The CNN App attempts to optimize video for your connection, with passable video using the Edge network, on up to high-quality streams using Wi-Fi. We have yet to test the app on the Edge network, but 3G and Wi-Fi video is of good quality. But probably the most impressive video feature is the ability to watch live streaming video for breaking news stories. You can configure the app to push notify you on specific stories you're following or when live video is available.
Following stories for the latest updates is another cool feature. Simply hit a button in the upper right corner of the interface and select "Follow story" to get breaking news for that story as it becomes available. You can then flip to My CNN at the bottom of the interface to browse stories you're following and get the latest updates for each.
Share your stories and news photos from where you are and submit them to iReport.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)For those without a reliable connection (or no connection at all like when you're flying, for example), the CNN App offers the capability to save stories and video to your iPhone so you can watch them later. Even when you're commuting to work and know you'll pass through tunnels or hit dead spots in your connection, you'll be able to read stories and watch video you previously saved.
Perhaps one of the best features that's been added to the CNN App is the capability to report your own news stories on iReport.com. In this section you'll be able to add images with your iPhone 3G or video with your 3GS and submit your story to iReport.com. CNN regularly checks the iReport site for quality stories and additional footage it can air on television, so you may have the opportunity to see your video or images on the network.
Overall, while there are other news apps out there, we think the CNN App offers a nice-looking interface with more features than most apps in the iTunes Store. At $1.99, this app is definitely worth your money if you like to follow breaking news stories in detail or just want a way to quickly scan the headlines for the latest news.
FeedDemon 3 is ready for public use, after months spent in a beta version that saw a confusing migration from proprietary online syncing to Google Reader.
That rough patch sorted, FeedDemon remains one of the best desktop RSS and Atom feed catchers. This version contains a lengthy list of changes, including greatly enhanced Twitter connectivity, a tweaked interface that's a bit easier to use, and better tagging and sharing.
My Twitter stream in FeedDemon 3.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)FeedDemon has dumped its proprietary synchronization site, Newsgator.com, in favor of syncing with Google Reader. New users won't notice, but older users are likely to lose many unread feeds, since Google can't import feeds with more than 10 unread items. Once synced with Google Reader, unread feeds can again include more than 10 items.
There's also a new, persistent ad placed in the lower-left corner of the interface, and FeedDemon's performance could be a lot better--RAM usage was hefty, and 3GB of RAM didn't prevent occasional program hang-ups.
Twitter feed reading has been baked in because FeedDemon supports authenticated feeds. Hyperlinking and short-URL expansion are automatic, and if you use Twitter as a live news stream, FeedDemon's Twitter link sharing should appeal to you. To set that up, you need to subscribe in FeedDemon to your Twitter feed here.
Tagging, tag clouds, and item sharing get a massive overhaul in FeedDemon 3, with all three features added to the item view and a tag cloud added to the Subscriptions Home view. The interface will look similar to FeedDemon 2.8, but there are many little tweaks to improve its usability.
Flags have been renamed Stars for Google Reader consistency, for example, while the Home page features videos, pictures, and content from your feeds. One smart improvement over Google Reader is that you can view your starred feeds in the folders they came from, instead of in a single "starred items" folder.
We'd like to see performance addressed in future versions, but overall, FeedDemon remains a favorite option for desktop feed management. Let us know your thoughts on the new FeedDemon in the comments below.
Adobe AIR applications are typically well designed. They feature a sleek look and relatively fast response times. TweetDeck (Windows | Mac), a popular Adobe AIR app, has put the platform on the map. It has caused some developers to view AIR as a viable alternative platform to building a Web site.
Nomee (Windows|Mac), a company that helps users see what celebrities, prominent figures, or their friends are up to online, is one such app.
The basics
Nomee is based on "cards." When you first sign up for the site (you can use OpenID if you don't want to create unique Nomee credentials), you'll be presented with celebrities and prominent figures who currently have cards on the site. But before you start thinking that there are scores of celebs on Nomee, think again: for the most part, those cards were created by Nomee users, not the celebrities themselves.
When you view a card, it displays an image of the person, followed by several sites or services that are related to them. When you click on one of those services, you'll be brought to its respective Web page. For example, if you click on the Twitter logo on my card, you can view my Twitter page.
That's me on Nomee, even though I didn't create the page.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)If you like what you see, you can "add" the card to your Nomee Dashboard. From there, Nomee will track all the card updates. It will alert you when there's something new for you to check out.
Nomee's Newstream lets you view all the updates from every card you follow. Thanks to such a nice design and some filtering options, you shouldn't have any trouble finding exactly what you're looking for. It's arguably Nomee's best feature.
The Nomee Newstream in action.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Card creation
Of course, Nomee isn't just a place where you can see what your favorite celebrities are up to. You can also create your own card to share with friends. Those same friends can create cards and share their social profiles and links with you.
RSS and Atom feed catcher NewsGator has published a pre-release version of their long-awaited and controversial FeedDemon 3.0. The update to one of the most popular desktop feed readers is abandoning the NewsGator proprietary synchronization site at newsgator.com in favor of syncing with Google Reader, and the transition--along with the forced obsolescence of several features that aren't available from Google.
To synchronize a FeedDemon folder with Google Reader, users must go to the folder properties window.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Overall, FeedDemon 3.0.0.27 offers the smoothest synchronization experience yet, but it's still rife with problems. Because of a Google Reader limitation, feeds will only sync the most recent 10 unread items. If you've got 11 or more unreads in a single feed, the process will mark the oldest one as read. Once a feed has been synced, then its unread count can climb above 10.
The synchronization of FeedDemon's "flags" to Google Reader's "stars" has been imperfect, as well. The sync is imperfect, with some flagged items not becoming starred when they appear in Google Reader. Also, the newly imported starred items in Google Reader lack the tags that associate them with your folder structure, forcing you to manually tag each one according to the folder name you want it to appear in.
Although those are big problems for the synchronization process, it's a definite improvement from the previous beta versions, which encouraged readers to convert their feeds while a bug-crippled conversion process was still in place.
There's more in this pre-release version than syncing improvements. A new Quick Tag menu for assigning post pre-existing tags on the fly has been added, as has the space bar as a keyboard command for advancing to the next post. As previously announced, this version removes automatic feed pre-fetching as a feature, and other stability and bug-fixes. This version feels like it starts up a bit faster, too.
If you're new to FeedDemon and like keeping browser resources down, the synchronization between Google Reader and FeedDemon should be flawless, or at least nearly so. Pre-existing FeedDemon users, however, face an uphill and tedious battle to everything that should be synced into Google Reader before Aug. 31: that's when newsgator.com stops syncing.
As FeedDemon closes in on finalizing the code for version 3, FeedDemon 3 RC 4 abandons its proprietary online synchronization at newsgator.com. The fourth release candidate syncs only with Google Reader, as FeedDemon's creator Nick Bradbury announced it would last week.
FeedDemon 3 RC 4 syncs with Google Reader faster and more cleanly than RC 3, but users with high unread counts will still lose most unread feeds.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Bradbury has stated in blog posts and forum messages that he hopes this will open FeedDemon to a wider audience, but the road to prepare FeedDemon for Google Reader has not been a smooth one. Many fans of the program have expressed frustration with the loss of features such as authenticated feeds and synced clippings.
In FeedDemon 3 RC 4, the synchronization scripts have been re-written to be faster and more accurate, and those changes show when compared to the third release candidate. The fourth RC only used 42 MB of RAM, as well. However, the conversion process won't be able to handle large numbers of unread posts, and limits the unread count to 10 per RSS feed. This is because Google Reader is limited to considering only 10 feeds unread from the past 30 days when subscribing.
Most of the other improvements in this release candidate are geared towards streamlining the conversion process to Google Reader. There's a new startup option to convert NewsGator subscriptions to Google Reader, and there's a link to create a Google Account from the Google Account window. Tags have gained prominence over clippings in the new version. Clippings will exist only if grandfathered in from a previous version.
The publisher of popular RSS readers FeedDemon and NetNewsWire is ditching its proprietary online RSS synchronization in favor of Google Reader. Newsgator's eponymous online service will cease on August 31..
Soon, Google Reader will be the only online synchronization option for Newsgator users.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)When the beta version of FeedDemon updated earlier this year with the ability to synchronize to either Newsgator or Google Reader, fans of the program rejoiced. Google Reader synchronization, the company says, was one of the most requested features for the Newsgator desktop clients. They have instructions for users who need to move their feeds to Google.
Google Reader may frustrate some, but it has far more users than Newsgator. Newsgator says that this was the main impetus for ditching the Newsgator synchronization for Google, but it's also using the opportunity to revamp its product line.
Along with Google Reader synchronization for FeedDemon, NetNewsWire, and the NetNewsWire iPhone app, Newsgator will discontinue Newsgator Online, Newsgator Go!, Newsgator Inbox, the Newsgator browser toolbar, and the desktop notifier. Several features in the desktop apps that depended on the proprietary syncing service will also cease to function at the end of August. If you use the blogroll, ratings or headlines features, Newsgator recommends removing them from any Web site they're used on by August 31. The shared clipping feature will transition into Google Reader's analogous feature.
Despite its popularity, one feature that Google Reader doesn't support that Newsgator does is authenticated feeds. For people who used Newsgator solely for that feature, their opprobrium on message boards and in comment threads is palpable. Interestingly, the last answer in the Newsgator transitioning FAQ points to another reason for the switch: a growing emphasis from the company on their enterprise-based business.
Newsgator recommends that all FeedDemon and NetNewsWire readers upgrade to the beta builds before August 31, since only those latest versions contain the Google Reader option. It gave no word on when the beta builds would finish development, but readers who want the current stable builds can get them for Windows and Mac.
(Credit:
CNET)
How long does it take you to sync your iPhone? I have the 16GB 3G, about 9GB of music, almost 2GB of apps, and about 60 photos. My "Other" category shows up as more than 2GB (!) in iTunes, but that might be worthy of a separate post. In any case, from start to finish, syncing my iPhone on my Windows PC (it's where my music library is) takes almost an hour. A lot of that time is spent backing up or transferring purchases, but it just doesn't seem right that it should take that long.
A friend of mine uses his Mac for syncing his iPhone and he says it takes less than 10 minutes. Please let me know in the comments how long it takes you to sync your iPhone and what type of system you're using. Any tips for speeding up the process would be greatly appreciated by me and anyone else who suffers the same problem. Now, on to this week's apps!
This week's apps include a new (to me) news feed aggregator and a brand-new game from Freeverse that's on sale for a limited time.
Headlines and descriptions make it easy to find the stories you want to read.
(Credit: CNET)Fluent News (free) is a recent discovery for me and well worth the download if you're looking for a better way to get your news. Fluent News grabs exclusively mobile news content from all the top news sources including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and CNN. Unfortunately, the app is primarily U.S.-centric so international users won't get the news they're looking for. But among the news apps available for iPhone, this one just might be the best I have seen yet.
The interface is easy to use, with tabs across the bottom for Top News stories and sections organized by category. But the layout is what makes Fluent News a standout app. Each story has the headline, which source the news came from, related stories, and a brief description of the story (like many desktop RSS readers). Even better, all the news stories are in mobile format so they're easy to read in the app's included browser. If you find a story you want to share, you can easily post the link to Twitter or Facebook, once you connect to your accounts in the settings menu. Overall, Fluent News is the best free newsreader I've found so far, and it's definitely worth a free download.
Hitting an ammo dump with a grenade or rocket launcher results in impressive explosions.
(Credit: CNET)Warpack Grunts (99 cents for a limited time) lets you command a squad of four tiny soldiers for shoot-'em-up action in a top-down perspective. Touch the screen to move your squad around the map and double tap to fire your weapons. A few early tutorial missions help you get accustomed to the control system and the different weapons you'll find in the game. As you progress through missions, the game gets harder with more enemy squads to battle and other dangers like snipers and mounted machine guns. As an added bonus, you can play this game in landscape or portrait mode--Warpack Grunts easily switches views on the fly.
Warpack Grunts, like many titles from Freeverse, offers comedy relief with funny voices and sounds to keep the game lighthearted while remaining challenging. There are several items to find in the game like rocket launchers and sniper rifles, along with items that replace downed units (to bring your squad back to four) and increase your health. The missions are quite difficult later in the game and offer unique challenges to keep the game interesting. You can also choose the Zombie Survival gametype to blow away wave after wave of shambling undead. With a ton of missions to explore and the extra game type, Warpack Grunts is definitely worth more than the introductory price, so grab this one while it's still cheap.
What's your favorite iPhone app? Do you have a better newsreader than Fluent News? How long can you last in Zombie Survival mode? Got a secret way to make iPhone syncing faster? Let me know in the comments!
Newsgator pushes its popular RSS reader FeedDemon into release candidate status, introducing some new features and fixing bugs from the previous beta version.
The big news for FeedDemon 3 came with the fourth beta, which introduced Google Reader synchronization. That feature did not come without bugs, and continued to be refined through the beta development. Several fixes in the release candidate fix Google Reader synchronization bugs, including properly marking starred items as flagged in FeedDemon, syncing tags, and marking feeds disabled. Another big repair to FeedDemon's Google Reader behavior fixes an error that prevented users who had nonalphanumeric characters in their Google password from logging in.
One useful new feature in the release candidate is a hot key for e-mailing an item. Hit "E" on your keyboard when reading an item, and FeedDemon will open up a new message window in your default e-mail client. I found this integration to be smooth and faster than I'd anticipated. FeedDemon fans will notice that this feature takes over the hot key for opening an item in an external browser, so the new hot key to do that is "X."
FeedDemon 3 RC1 can also be set to launch when Windows loads, and the installation process gains an "express" mode for quick installing. After using the FeedDemon 3 beta for the past month, I've found it to be work well for a beta, with few crashes and a faster overall experience.
The changelog for FeedDemon 3 can be read here.
(Credit:
CNET)
Have you ever used an RSS newsreader? Though you can surf to your favorite sites using your Web browser of choice, RSS readers bring all the news to you in a simple format that's conducive to getting more information quickly. The best RSS readers make it easy to add your favorite sites so you can quickly sift through headlines. When you find something of interest, you can often expand the story in an RSS reader or go directly to the site to read more. If you spend a lot of time on the Web, RSS readers are a great way to find the stuff you want without having to load a bunch of Web sites.
RSS readers come in a lot of flavors, including some that are browser plug-ins, others that offer a standalone desktop app, and still others that behave almost like widgets.
(Credit:
CNET)
KlipFolio offers a unique RSS experience, giving you a personal dashboard that you can customize with news headlines, your favorite blogs, weather feeds, and tons of other information. The program sits on the side of your desktop and it's skinnable so you can customize it to your style.
(Credit:
CNET)
Sage is a basic RSS feed and news aggregator for Firefox. With this add-on, you can navigate the latest newsfeeds right in your Firefox sidebar. The interface is extremely easy to navigate, with a top panel for headlines and a bottom panel if you want more information about a story. If you're looking for the easiest way to break into RSS, Sage is a good place to start.
(Credit:
CNET)
RSS Bandit is a standalone reader that has many attractive features, allowing a user to merge news headlines from multiple sources onto a single page, and organize articles based on keyword, read/unread status, and date. The built-in tabbed browser allows you to read a full article and then switch to a different story without closing out the original article. If you like to open and read several stories at once, this is the reader for you.
(Credit:
CNET)
Snarfer is a top-notch feed reader that will devour your RSS and Atom feeds, but more experienced RSS junkies might find it too basic. An uncomplicated, uncluttered interface follows a generic app design of left-side listed entries with a right-side preview pane. Experienced users will miss customizations like changing fonts and preview pane location, but if you want a simple way to get your news in one place--without an overwhelming amount of settings--Snarfer might be the right choice for you.
(Credit:
CNET)
FeedDemon is a well-crafted, standalone newsreader that makes for an ideal choice for both novices who've never heard of an RSS feed and advanced users looking to put some oomph and flexibility into their reading habits. FeedDemon also features a Watch Channels option to search for news items containing user-specified keywords and places them in a separate group so they're easier to find. If you're looking for customization and flexibility, FeedDemon delivers.
(Credit:
CNET)
Some people can get by with using their bookmarks to save their favorite sites. But if you spend a lot of time on the Web and want a way to get the latest news from several sites, any of these programs are up to the task.
FeedDemon 3 will synchronize your feeds with Google Reader.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)RSS aggregator FeedDemon and e-mail client Postbox both have released recent updates to their not-quite-ready for prime-time programs.
FeedDemon 3.0.0.20 beta 5a continues to build out the feature set of the popular RSS and Atom feed manager. FeedDemon 3 is shaping up to be a must-grab improvement on the last stable release, version 2.7.
FeedDemon 3 is able to synchronize feeds not only with FeedDemon's own Web site, NewsGator, for online news reading, but it can also talk to Google Reader. I jumped away from Google Reader because at the time it was sluggish and I wanted to get my podcasts out of my music jukebox, but I've always regretted losing the convenience of having my e-mail and my RSS reader online and smoothly talking to one another. Google Reader integration means that users will have more flexibility in how they use the program and should broaden its appeal. Beta 5 synchronizes Google Reader and FeedDemon tags as well as the feeds themselves.
FeedDemon 3 comes with a slight interface refresh, too, although it's mostly done in service to the new features. The aforementioned tagging is new, bringing a bit of modern convenience to those who use keywords. Sharing has been made easier with a new Share icon, and shortened URLs such as bit.ly or TinyURL support mouse-over tooltips now.
This is becoming a must-have security feature as phishing attacks adapt to more pernicious methods, and works well in FeedDemon 3's stronger support for Twitter. Author names, replies, and hashtags are automatically linked, and profile pictures also appear. Fun stats such as how many unread items and how many flagged items you've got are surfaced, too.
If you do decide to try out the FeedDemon beta, back up the current version first. Go to File, Manage Cache, Backup, and create a back up folder to deposit the backups in. Full release notes for v3.0.0.20 beta 5a can be read here.
Postbox beta 12 for Windows and Mac updates the well-received remix of Mozilla's Thunderbird. New features include search suggestions when you're typing and smoother integration of folder search with global search. Switching between the two is now marginally simpler. The inspector pane on the right side of a message has been tweaked, as well. Sender details, image thumbnails and dimensions, and the revamped search options for messages, images, links, and attachments have been rolled into the pane.
Mac users should find better support for native Mac address books and Growl notifications. Firefox 3.0.10 bug-fixes have also been integrated into this version of Postbox.
Postbox beta 12 is a small update overall, but because of the bug- and security-fixes that have been implemented I'd strongly recommend upgrading. Full release notes are here.
