Category Archives: rss

ZenProphets – ZenNews

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ZenProphets – ZenNews is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

ZenNews in a simple yet powerful, beatifully designed news reader app for iPhone and iPod Touch. If you are tired of those news readers with the same bleak appearance, same old features or developers that focus on features you couldn’t care less about, you will love this app! ZenNews is under active development and the features come from the users (from You!). Even as you are reading this, a new version is on it’s way so join the ZenProphets community by sending your feature suggestions through the application or via www.zenprophets.com. Come experience the future with us!


State

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State is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

State allows you to see all the information most relevant to you at the same time. You can see the weather in various places, read the last news from your favorite feeds and see the next events in your calendars.

Monitors:

Weather
* 5 days forecast
* Contition
* Maximum and minimum temperatures
* Wind speed and direction

News feed
* Supports RSS y Atom
* Allows to share news by email and opening them in Safari

Calendar
* Today and tomorrow events
* You can choose specific calendars or all at once


Times for iPad Review

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Times for iPad Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: ACRYLIC APPS
Price: $7.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Device Reviewed On: iPad

iPad Integration Rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Re-use Value Rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.58 out of 5 stars

I’m at a crossroads. I genuinely am. I want to like, if not love, Acrylic Software’s new Times for iPad app. It’s gorgeous. It’s sleek. And it’s just the sort of app that will make your non-iPad owning friends drool with envy. At first glance Times for iPad appears to be the second coming of RSS readers – a reader for the rest of us, formatted in slick newspaper style that’s hard not to like.

There’s just one problem. It doesn’t do some things I expect any RSS reader to do.

Once you get beyond the very palatable aesthetics (and they are a powerful sales inducer, no doubt), you discover that the core reader functionality just doesn’t measure up to other, similarly easy to use readers. Want to save an article to Instapaper or Read It Now? Nope. Want to import and sync your by-now-highly-curated Google Reader feeds? No can do. In today’s app store economy, these are as close to deal breakers as you can get. Without these kinds of features, Times for iPad is just another pretty but limited RSS reader. The developer told us that a direct sync with Google Reader isn’t in the works due to the very different way Times and Reader handle RSS feeds.

I should, of course, balance this review by stating what this first version of Times for iPad CAN do. It can organize by categories across the top of the screen, making it easy to transition from one area of your virtual newspaper to another. It can also save articles to a shelf for later reading if time is tight. This isn’t Instapaper, but I can see where it could be a solid replacement eventually (and you wouldn’t have to quit one app and open another just to read a story). Times for iPad also has a built-in web page viewer so you can view the article in its original format, and you can share any article you access via email, Twitter and Facebook. These last features are pretty much standard in every app these days, even quite a few games, so they don’t exactly make Times for iPad stand out from the crowd.

What DOES make Times stand out is its look and feel. There is no denying that this is a pretty app, and I’ve actually found myself wondering about moving all of my Google Reader feeds to Times, but it just doesn’t seem like it’s ready yet.

Those who already own Times for Mac OSX, however, might find this a welcome purchase, as you can sync your feeds between your desktop and iPad with seeming ease (once Acrylic releases version 2.0). The Mac app currently will import from other RSS apps and OPML files, so a Google Reader import is at worst a few steps away. This would make Times for iPad a better value, especially with the desktop sync feature.

For the moment, if you’re looking for a similarly-styled RSS reader as Times, I suggest you look at Early Edition, which WILL sync with Google. As for me, for the moment, I’m sticking with Reeder.

[ Times for iPad Review is a post from 148Apps ]


Five For Friday: August 13, 2010

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Five For Friday: August 13, 2010 is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! Make sure you keep your teenagers locked in tonight, and don’t let them talk to anyone named Jason. With that warning out of the way, here’s your weekly dose of what’s new and interesting in the App Store.

The Incident – A severely polished and classy take on the sky is falling genre. Dodge wave after crazy wave of falling cars and major appliances, only to use those same items to climb ever upward to your destination, the stars.

$1.99

The Incident

+ Universal App – Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-08-10 :: Category: Games / Action

Ninjump – Jump like a ninja (because that’s what you are) up through the levels, between buildings and over laundry. Attack various creatures in match three stealthiness for stupidly awesome score and height boosts. Brag to all your friends.

FREE!

NinJump

iPhone App – Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-08-12 :: Category: Games / Action

Ghosts N Goblins Gold Knights II – Capcom brings the sequel to its hardest game ever from the 1980s direct to your iPhone. You think you have what it takes? Well, do ya?

$4.99

GHOSTS’N GOBLINS GOLD KNIGHTS 2

iPhone App – Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-08-12 :: Category: Games / Action

Times for iPad – Takes your RSS feeds and turns them into a lovely newspaper-style layout. If you long for the simpler days of flimsy newsprint paper and fingers stained with ink, this may be the app for you.

$7.99

Times for iPad

iPad Only App – Designed for the iPad
Released: 2010-08-10 :: Category: News

Slate Magazine – In a world of iPad apps that continually ask you to pay more for their content (I’m looking at YOU, Wired), Slate asks you to read their magazine, for free, on your iPad. What more can you ask for from their asking of you? Wait, what?

FREE!

Slate Magazine

iPad Only App – Designed for the iPad
Released: 2010-08-10 :: Category: News

[ Five For Friday: August 13, 2010 is a post from 148Apps ]


NetNewsWire Premium Review

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NetNewsWire Premium Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: NewsGator Technologies, Inc.
Price: $4.99
Version: 2.0.3

Design Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Features Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Integration Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 2.67 out of 5 stars

NetNewsWire operates in conjunction with Google Reader, a website that allows you to compile a list of RSS feeds into one simple list. This application pulls the unread content from Google Reader and provides it in a simplistic way.

The design of NetNewsWire is really, really simple (like RSS itself). The front page provides starred items, a list of feeds and all of your unread news. Here lies the first point of confusion. NetNewsWire says that this latest news is all in the past twenty-four hours, but this isn’t the case – it was every unread item. Of course this is preferable, but I don’t understand how a deceiving error on the front page could go unnoticed.

One neat feature that no other Google Reader application I’ve tested has is the ability to hide feeds. This is an easy way to filter your feed without actually removing the feeds itself, something that makes looking for specific news a lot easier.

The article directory is clean, with approximately four articles visible without the need to scroll. The only button on screen is “Mark All as Read”. Articles themselves are equally plain, but disappointingly there is no built-in browser, meaning every time you want to read an article in full the application closes and Safari opens. Integration for Instapaper (to read later) and Twitter (to share) is provided.

There are other problems. Most notably, you can’t see your read items – your feed is limited to unread only. There’s no search either, a limitation that a number of NetNewsWire’s rivals also suffer from. With no icon badge for the home screen, you won’t know how many unread articles you have until you open up the application.

Overall, NetNewsWire feels unfinished in comparison to its rivals like Byline and Reeder. Until its current problems are resolved, I’d try an alternative.

[ NetNewsWire Premium Review is a post from 148Apps ]


Byline Review

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Byline Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: Phantom Fish
Price: $4.99
Version: 3.2.1

Design Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Features Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Integration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.67 out of 5 stars

Byline is a third party Google Reader application, allowing you to read the latest news via RSS feeds in Google Reader. RSS, or really simple syndication, is a web feed that allows you to pull content from a website automatically (148Apps has multiple, see here). Google Reader allows you to add multiple RSS feeds into one, easy to view list of headlines. If you’ve got a Google account already, you’re good to go.

The design of Byline is slick and polished. It has folders integration, something that a number of rivals lack, allowing you to view a specific set of feeds that can be customized and organized online. The front page provides a list of folders, where a single tap will reveal its contents. Unread items are numbered according to each category as well as a general “unread” number at the top. Content can be viewed through each specific feed, by unread only and by oldest first.

The article directory is similar to Apple’s Mail application, with a blue circle at the left signifying unread content. The circular “>” chevron button to the right will forward you to the original article through Byline’s built-in browser. You can view a text-based summary of the article without having to load anything by tapping on an article. It is a limitation of RSS providers, rather than Google or Byline, with regards to not being able to view an entire article without going to the source directly.

Articles can be starred as favourites and notes can be added – both update on Google instantly. Byline provides Twitter, Instapaper and ReadItLater integration, allowing you to share articles to others or save them for future reading elsewhere. Additionally, articles can by sent by e-mail.

Orientation lock is provided for those whose iDevices were not compatible with the recent iOS4 update. Byline caches its articles and respective web pages whenever opening the application, meaning even if you have no data you’ll still have full access to your read. It didn’t cache all articles on our test, but those that were cached worked fine without any data connection.

Disappointingly, there is no search and, like other clients, you can’t add or remove feeds through the application. Other than this, the only problem I encountered was that the setting “Reformat [web pages] for Mobile” didn’t work on any of my feeds – a superficial problem that is bypassed by the original page loading.

Byline offer a free version of their application that is worth trying out first, as there are no limitations between it and the premium version. The only difference is the existence of ads. Overall, Byline is crisp and clean, providing you with an instant way to know what’s happening and where.

[ Byline Review is a post from 148Apps ]


Byline Updated To Make Use Of iPhone 4 Retina Display

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Byline Updated To Make Use Of iPhone 4 Retina Display is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Joining the swathe of apps updated for iPhone 4, Phantom Fish has enhanced its Byline newsreader app to make use of the iPhone 4’s Retina display. The app also takes advantage of multitasking in iOS4.

Byline takes news from sites listed in your Google Reader account and makes them available on your iPhone using their RSS feeds. The app allows users to view pages without an internet connection with its offline browsing feature and syncs with your Google Reader account so that your news is always up-to-date. The app is also compatible with Twitter, Instapaper and Read It Later.

Version 3.2 is available now on the App Store and brings high-resolution graphics for optimum viewing on the iPhone 4’s Retina Display and uses multitasking to complete syncing and caching of feeds in the background.

Byline is available for free with advertising or at $4.99 for the advertising-free version.

FREE!

Byline Free

iPhone App – Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-06-04 :: Category: News

[ Byline Updated To Make Use Of iPhone 4 Retina Display is a post from 148Apps ]


Byline Updated to Accommodate iPhone 4 and iOS 4

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Byline Updated to Accommodate iPhone 4 and iOS 4 is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Available In: App Store       Price: $4.99  

Byline Byline, a sweet RSS reader, received an update to version 3.2. The update adds a few new features to accommodate the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 including; high-res graphics and multitasking. Check out the What’s New section below for full list of the new features.

Byline
… [visit site to read more]