Amidst all of the hubaloo around Apple’s announcements, one of my favorite iPhone apps was updated to v2.0 today. Byline, by Phantom Fish is an RSS reader application. It’s big claim to fame is the synchronization/support of the Google Reader API. However, 2.0 has some other great new features.
- A new interface and icon
- Syncs with folders (tags)
- It now has a built-in web browser (more below)
- Allows note creation and deletion
- Allows you to email links
- Archives starred items immediately, with no refresh required
- No longer affects the performance of iTunes backups
- Pages archived for offline browsing no longer displace feed content
I absolutely love the new interface. The initial release of Byline was by no means ugly, although version 2.0 now has a warm wood-tone background and nicer icons. Further, the author has also made the list of articles much more readable (nice shadowing).
Byline new article list
One of the big items in this upgrade is the fact that backups are now much, much faster. Apple had improved backups with the iPhone 2.1 software update, but for me, the previous version of Byline (1.0.2) still caused my iPhone backups to be slow. Not anymore.
Another big win is the built-in web browser. No more waiting for Safari to open and then display the particular article. Now, I can read my feeds in one place.
When Byline was launch this past July, I was very excited that someone had built an app that would enable offline reading of Google Reader feeds (and synchronize the status of those read/unread items). What made me very unhappy was the price of the app — $9.99.
Well, for those fortunate souls, Byline is now a much more reasonable $3.99. This price is for a limited time, so if you want offline reading of your Google feeds, then get this app now. And, for those who already purchased, it is a free upgrade (thank you Phantom Fish!).
Yes, i must agree, this RSS reader is one of the best for iPhone. And what I absolutely like is, that Byline is like native google reader app, this synchro is really great and using of this app is much mor better and faster than google reader iphone web app. I can really recommend it to everyone who uses web based google reader.
I bought it for my iPod touch, primarily because of the Google sync and offline modes. Naturally with an iPod touch offline ability is a key determinant. I had been using a mix of Google Reader’s browser interface and flirting with NetNewsWire but as I use a PC at work, the NNW solution was just a pain.
[...] Tuaw made a small review of the new version of Byline, and it looks like they liked the new icons. The appleblog also made a really positive review. [...]
I just got it for my Touch, and love how quick and easy it is to move from post to post, and then jump to the full link when I want to. I agree with Denis — it’s a lot more robust than the web-based Google reader.
Thanks a lot for mentioning this. It’s faster and a bit more sophisticated than netnewswire, so i switched ;-)
can i use it without google reader account? i mean manualy add feeds or delete them?