“Times” RSS Reader Released Today
Today, Times, the newspaper-like RSS feed reader, has been released.
A few days ago we gave you an in-depth preview of this application from Acrylic Apps and are excited to see it finally released.
Be sure to take a read through our review of the app and then go download the free trial.
Times is $30 for a single license and $75 for a 3-person family license.
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Nice, but $30 for a news reader? It’s going to be a tough sell.
Sadly, it still seems to be fairly unstable, and I don’t think importing from NetNewsWire works, either (at least, I didn’t see my feeds when I used the import feature). It took a minute to finish drawing the pretty effects and do its processing before I was able to navigate without “jumpy” animations. It isn’t clear how to delete the provided feeds in the drawer – they have several feeds that I really hate and wanted to remove, but it wasn’t readily clear until I clicked on one (it turned blue), and then I hit the delete key.
It still needs some smoothing around the edges, mainly in figuring out the initial jump when you first open the app… pre-cache those animations, offer the ability to be guided through the import process, and prove to the user that it’s better than another reader like NetNewsWire (I’m still not sold, especially on the $30 part). Is there syncing? Maybe through .Mac? And how do I customize the categories? I’d rather have Local News, and I don’t care about Entertainment or Sports. Yes, I see that it’s in there now, but it took forever to figure it out.
NetNewsWire is still the big player in this area (*cough* FREE *cough*), so they have a long way to go to beat them. And it seems like they focused more on the visuals than on functionality or clarity in the interface. Don’t make us play the “Delicious Generation” card again, guys.
@Jason: importing feeds works when you buy the app. The trial has some limitations, like this. I bought the app and just found out.
Customizing your feeds goes pretty smooth after that, you can create different pages for your different categories. I wish however, that pages woul be created from the categories from my NNW feeds or an OPML file. Now I have to design them by hand.
It isquite unstable I must say. App crashed several times when I did some rearranging of articles. The visuals are magnificent, really, wow!
Finally, I agree about the price. 30 CAD (about 19 euros) seems like a lot for a newsreader in a field where most other apps are free.
I was gonna say that $30 was a little bit expensive even if that’s only €19, but after a quick look at the demo I’m impressed.
Visually it looks really cool with the page turning effect and such.
I might actually buy it…I’ll definitely buy it if it was $20.
Didn’t really do anything, except kill NetNewsWire after trying to import, forcing me delete my NNW prefs. Buggy. Not ready for prime time. Trashed. That said, I wish it worked because it looks cool. I will try it again in a year (if it makes it).
I think I’m the only one not having any problems :P
crashed several times in a row when I tried to delete a feed. Looks cute, but not ready.
30$ and this “crashy-not-finished-yet” app is even not localized, do they take to us for idiots or what?
Would have rather waited another month or two for all the bugs to be worked out…Nice looking, but its functionality is not great. Wish you could customize the size of the titles for each section. If you combine 2 or 3 into a pane, it’s hard to tell where 1 ends and another starts.
I’d certainly consider purchasing the next version, as long as all the kinks were worked out. Great idea, nice appearance, but needs some work.