You heard it here first.
Check for updates — if your preferences are set for test builds — or download the latest.
Changes since 5.1:
It’s out! Check for updates, or download it directly. Requires macOS 10.15 or newer.
This release brings parity with the iOS version. Changes since 5.0.4:
Important note! If you were using a previous 5.1 test build, you may have to set up your accounts again.
Or you can migrate — see the end of this post.
Either way, we apologize — this is totally inconvenient, and we didn’t want for this to happen.
This is because we turned off sandboxing in this build, and sandboxing (and turning it off) changes the location of your data.
(We turned off sandboxing due to crashes we couldn’t investigate and fix in time. We’ve postponed that feature to a later version.)
To get the latest: check for updates — if your preferences are set for test builds — or download the latest.
Changes since 5.1b1:
If you were using a 5.1 test build, you can find your old data at ~/Library/Containers/com.ranchero.NetNewsWire-Evergreen/Data/Library/Application Support/NetNewsWire/Accounts/
If you take that Accounts folder, and copy it into ~/Library/Application Support/NetNewsWire (replacing the Accounts folder in that location), then you’ll have your data from 5.1 test builds.
It’s in beta now. But it’s still pre-release software, and if you’re wise you’ll never run anybody’s betas. Not ours, not Apple’s, not anybody’s. Running beta software is free labor for other people — and it’s not always that fun, since bugs can be pretty darn frustrating.
If you still want it…
Check for updates — if your preferences are set for test builds — or download the latest.
Changes since 5.1a2:
It’s not beta yet! If you’re concerned about running pre-release software — and you really, really should be (we are!) — then you might not want to run this. 🐣
If you still want it…
Check for updates — if your preferences are set for test builds — or download the latest.
Changes since 5.1d3:
NetNewsWire 5.1d3 has all kinds of good stuff in it — but it’s not a beta. It’s not even an alpha. It’s a “d” build — which means development but could just as easily mean don’t or dangerous or demons live in this here code.
If you still want it…
Check for updates — if your preferences are set for test builds — or download the latest.
Changes since 5.0.4:
NetNewsWire 5.0.3 for iOS is up on the App Store. Enjoy!
Changes since 5.0.2:
We just released NetNewsWire 5.0.4 for Mac — it’s a bug-fix release with a nice performance enhancement when fetching articles.
But the question on your mind probably isn’t “When are you going to make NetNewsWire even faster?” — it’s probably “When is Feedly sync coming?” or “When is iCloud sync coming?”
Here are our current plans:
This release will include Feedly syncing. It will have feature parity with NetNewsWire for iOS, including a reader view and a few other features that haven’t made it to the Mac version yet.
We can’t give you an ETA, but we can say that it’s next. We’re working on this release. Once test versions are available, we’ll post a note on this blog.
(This release will require Catalina. It will run on Big Sur, but won’t be updated for Big Sur.)
This Mac and iOS release will include iCloud syncing, user interface updates for Big Sur, and a bunch of other new features (including, hopefully, support for other additional syncing systems).
(Our current plans have us supporting Catalina and Big Sur in this release, but we’re not 100% sure about Catalina support yet.)
More… things?
Don’t know. Good stuff!
(There’s a good chance there will also be 6.2, 6.3, etc.)
This will be the SwiftUI release, where the user interface code will be shared across Mac and iOS versions of NetNewsWire. We’re hoping to be able to do this after the SwiftUI updates coming in WWDC 2021.
We could almost do this now, but there would be too many regressions. We’ve done a ton of work on this, but we’ll just hold on to it for a year.
This isn’t meant to criticize SwiftUI or to say that it’s not useful yet. It’s awesome, and many apps could be written using SwiftUI right now. But NetNewsWire has some special considerations. We’ll write more about what we’re missing in a future blog post. Our view — that SwiftUI and Combine are the future of Mac and iOS development — is unchanged.
(This release will require the Mac and iOS OSes presumably coming in 2021.)
Check for updates, or download the latest.
Performance enhancement: fetching articles is faster and uses less memory
Changed the retention policy to match iOS
Feeds view: fixed bug where multiple sequential deletes could mess up the current selection index
Article view: dealt with Twitter change that caused Twitter embeds to get cut off
Article view: properly size emojis that are actually graphics (from Wordpress, for instance)
Article view: stop playing any audio if the window is closed
Article view: don’t let line lengths get too long
Article view: fixed display of BandCamp widgets
OPML export: use an accessory view instead of an intermediate sheet
Add Folder: disable Add Folder button when text field is empty
Feed icons: get more icons from Feedbin; get favicons from some tricky cases
Add Feed: now allows IPv6 literal URLs
Feed discovery: give less weight to feeds with the word “podcast” in them, because they’re probably not what we want
Refreshing: fixed bug where automatic refreshing might not happening after the computer wakes from sleep
Preferences > Accounts: Renamed “Create” account button to “Add Account”
Fixed bug where a Feedbin article could stay unread right after you select it
Fixed bug where folder names with double quotes would have the quotes replaced with the HTML entity for quote
When importing from NNW 3, the app now ignores script feeds (since we don’t have that feature yet)
Fixed bug where, right after initial launch, the spacebar might not work to go to next unread article
Pressing return now opens the selected article in your browser
Check for updates, or download the latest.
Changed the retention policy to match iOS
Performance enhancement: fetching articles is faster and uses less memory
Check for updates, or download the latest.
Feeds view: fixed bug where multiple sequential deletes could mess up the current selection index
Article view: dealt with Twitter change that caused Twitter embeds to get cut off
Article view: properly size emojis that are actually graphics (from Wordpress, for instance)
Article view: stop playing any audio if the window is closed
Article view: don’t let line lengths get too long
Article view: fixed display of BandCamp widgets
OPML export: use an accessory view instead of an intermediate sheet
Add Folder: disable Add Folder button when text field is empty
Feed icons: get more icons from Feedbin; get favicons from some tricky cases
Add Feed: now allows IPv6 literal URLs
Feed discovery: give less weight to feeds with the word “podcast” in them, because they’re probably not what we want
Refreshing: fixed bug where automatic refreshing might not happening after the computer wakes from sleep
Preferences > Accounts: Renamed “Create” account button to “Add Account”
Fixed bug where a Feedbin article could stay unread right after you select it
Fixed bug where folder names with double quotes would have the quotes replaced with the HTML entity for quote
When importing from NNW 3, the app now ignores script feeds (since we don’t have that feature yet)
Fixed bug where, right after initial launch, the spacebar might not work to go to next unread article
Pressing return now opens the selected article in your browser
NetNewsWire 5.0.2 for iOS is up on the App Store. Enjoy!
Changes since 5.0.1:
If you haven’t signed up for testing, see this page for instructions.
Changes since 5.0.2 build 47:
If you haven’t signed up for testing, see this page for instructions.
Changes since 5.0.1:
NetNewsWire 5.0.1 for iOS is up on the App Store. Enjoy!
Changes since 5.0:
Maurice Parker just updated NetNewsWire and our build instructions so that you can build the app more easily.
And, importantly, you don’t need a paid developer account. (You do still need a free developer account, yes.)
If you’re just curious about the app, or want to see if there’s something you can learn from it, that’s totally cool. If you think you might want to use some of the code in your own app, that’s totally cool too.
But if you think you might want to contribute, that’s awesome! We welcome everybody. If you’re a long-time app developer, that’s great — but we’d also love to have contributors who are brand-new to app development. (Even people who are new to coding!)
If you think you might be interested, read our page on contributing, which includes our code of conduct, then join the Slack group and get on the #work channel and say hello. Easy as that. 🐥
The launch of NetNewsWire for iOS has been going great! App Store Connect reports that it’s a 4.9-star app with 385 ratings worldwide, and it’s been downloaded 18,567 times. Our guess is it will have more downloads than NetNewsWire 5.0.3 for Mac within a few days.
There have been some reviews and articles in the press; we’ve been getting lots of feedback on Twitter, Slack, via email, and in our bug tracker. Almost all of that feedback is people asking for features — which is exactly what we hoped for. It means they like the app, but wish it did this thing for them.
That’s a great spot to be in. The alternatives are no feedback or lots of bug reports. We like feature requests. 🍕
Of all the reviews and press, one of our favorites is a review on AppleVis, which says that “The app is fully accessible with VoiceOver and is easy to navigate and use” and…
I was truly amazed how accessible this app was right out of the box on its opening day. You can really tell that accessibility was put into this.
We don’t talk about this often enough, but it’s important. Accessibility is one of those things that many people can overlook — except for the people for whom it’s the entire difference between a usable app and not.
In our App Store description, we write, above, the fold:
NetNewsWire is a free and open source RSS reader. It’s fast, stable, and accessible.
In other words: when we all talk about app quality, we should talk about stability and performance and accessibility. It’s just as important.
You can go get it on the App Store! It runs on iPhones and iPads and requires iOS 13.
It’s free and open source, and it includes support for Feedbin and Feedly syncing.
Just as the Mac version looks like a Mac app, this is very much an iOS app. It supports Dark Mode, context menus, multiple windows, Siri Shortcuts, and other iOS features.
Other features include searching, starred items, Today and All Unread smart feeds, Reader view, multiple accounts, hiding read articles and feeds, background refreshing, and more.
The app is designed to be stable and fast. (But note that an initial sync might take a while because there’s a lot of data to download.)
A few tips:
Though this is a 5.0 release, it really is a brand-new app, and this is just the beginning. Our amazing team is already hard at work on 5.0.1 and on updates to the Mac app.
For more info, see the NetNewsWire home page and Frequently Asked Questions.
Even though we’re pretty excited to ship NetNewsWire 5.0 for iOS in a few hours, we wanted to point you toward another great RSS reader on iOS — Unread 2 just shipped. Check it out!
We just put up a page for people running older versions of OS X — we’re making NetNewsWire 3.3.2 and NetNewsWire Lite 2.1.1 available.
NetNewsWire 5.0 for iOS has been approved by App Store review, and is now waiting for us to release it.
The release date is Monday, March 9. Or, really, late Sunday night, so it has time to propagate. In the meantime we’ll update the website and write some blog posts.
We pushed all the right buttons, and now NetNewsWire 5.0 for iOS is officially Waiting for Review. 🐣
Our hope is to ship Monday, March 9 — but you never know how things will go.
If you haven’t signed up for testing, see this page for instructions.
This is a final candidate release. We have no bugs left. 🎂
We’re looking for show-stoppers — for bugs so bad that we have to fix them and do another final candidate release.
We hope there aren’t any — but, way more importantly, we hope that if there are some, your testing will find it and you’ll let us know. 🍕
Changes since the last build on Feb. 12:
We finally got around to updating the Ranchero Software home page so that it reflects current status — Ranchero Software is the name of the hot team that makes NetNewsWire. 🐯
(This is all part of getting our ducks in a row as part of releasing the iOS app.)
We just redid the NetNewsWire home page as part of preparing the upcoming iOS app release. Please let us know if you see any bugs or if you have any feedback or questions.