NetNewsWire review

Ever since Google Reader was discontinued, I have been using Feedly to follow my favorite writers online. There have been a good collection of high quality RSS-reader apps on the Mac and on iOS that supported Feedly. Among them, I used ReadKit on the Mac and Unread on iOS for the most part of the last decade.

That is until I stumbled upon NetNewsWire, made by Brent Simmons. The app has an interesting history; Brent initially developed it and sold it to BlackPixel which then after several years sold it back to Brent. After acquiring NetNewsWire again, Brent decided to start rewriting the app from scratch while making it open source. It is impressive to see how the app is made in the open — including the planning, design and related discussions, all on Slack.

Anyways, the point of me writing this post is to say how happy this app makes me. I thought about the reasons why this app feels good to me and some of them are:

• Almost everything that this app does is fast. It loads fast, stays out of your way and just lets you enjoy reading the content. No slimy pop-up interruptions.
• It comes with a default set of RSS subscriptions — most of them Apple-related, but they are the ones I enjoy as well. It is easy to add more subscriptions or to remove existing ones.
• It is minimal (in a good way) and presents content in a really elegant fashion.

I wish it had Feedly integration so that it syncs between my devices, but I learn that it is in the works, and will probably be released sometime this year. If you are at all into RSS (and you should be), definitely give NetNewsWire a try. I promise you will not regret it.