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So I went and bought River of News, since it's on sale for $2.99 currently.

It's definitely much better than the disappointing Pulse.

However, there seems to be some problems here. The unread number seems to be stuck on 10 for all feeds.

And a small feedback: the buttons on the sidebar (the list of feeds), in my opinion, doesn't feel deep enough when pressed. Perhaps make the selected feed a bit darker?
 
What you are describing is how Google Reader handles newly subscribed feeds. The website does the same thing and I debated whether I should change it but decided that Google is kind of my "system of record" when it comes to subscription data and I was going to present what it stored. Once you mark all as read one time it will be normal for the future.

Thanks for the feedback.
 
Version 1.2 has been submitted to the app store. Let's hope this one doesn't stall for 2 weeks in review.
Seems like your hopes have not been met. I'm eager for the update. Did they send it back to you, or is it just taking longer than it should?
 
Oops, I never followed that up. 1.2 was approved quickly by Apple and it's been live for a couple of weeks.
 
How can River of News be better? I created a brief survey to collect feedback. It's anonymous and will take about two minutes. I respect your time.

This survey is for those who use and don't use River of News. Of course I want to hear from my happy customers. But if you didn't buy it or bought it and didn't like it I want to know that, too.

http://goo.gl/OfbD


I've also provided details about the upcoming version on my blog.
http://blog.riverofnewsapp.com
 
It'll be updated to work with 4.2 by the time that version is publicly released.
 
It seems like it was mentioned somewhere you can change the UI background colors, is this true? thanks
 
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River of News 1.3 is live.

* iOS 4.2 compatibility
* Save Images
* People you follow in Google Reader
* Open links in Instapaper Mobilizer
* Show unread badge in portrait view
* Show unread badge on home screen
* Email contents of an article
* Set a default To: email address
* New icon
* Assorted bug fixes
 
It seems like it was mentioned somewhere you can change the UI background colors, is this true? thanks

Sorry, the article fonts can be customized but not any of the app's colors.
 
Sorry, the article fonts can be customized but not any of the app's colors.

No worries, I bought it and the colors are good. The only minor things are I just wish there was a way to switch the background of articles that pull up full page after clicking headers. NYtimes articles are so stark white. Would be cool if there was a "readability" function on the full page preview as well.
Having said that, I've been using RSS since the start of Bloglines, but I'd go weeks without checking feeds out. Newsrack and Reeder were OK, but River of News is REAL good - I've been getting a lot out of it. thanks
 
In the River of News section of the iPad Settings app you can turn on Instapaper Mobilizer. Then links will open with that by default. It's really nice. I'd never used Mobilizer before until people asked me to put it in the product and it's now my regular setting.
 
In the River of News section of the iPad Settings app you can turn on Instapaper Mobilizer. Then links will open with that by default. It's really nice. I'd never used Mobilizer before until people asked me to put it in the product and it's now my regular setting.

For some reason I thought you'd jammed all the settings in the app itself. Mobilizer support is killer. :eek: If the API allows it, adding the ability for instapaper dark mode as default would be cool. Ability to send text to Evernote would be great as well. Saying that, phenomenal work, I'm loving it.
 
Don't get me started on Evernote. I spent a bunch of time getting an integration working without realizing that you can't send generalized HTML with their API. Evernote uses some proprietary subset of HTML and strictly enforce their syntax. RSS feeds are full of markup. It's not practical for me to scrub them down to whatever format Evernote has made up. If I send the text without markup, a lot of feeds will come out as unformatted goo and that would be the worst thing I can do because I've led you to believe you saved it when, in fact, it's not readable.

So.... the best solution is to get your special email address from Evernote that drops notes in your account. Oddly, this service will accept general HTML and take care of reformatting it. With River of News you can email the contents of an article and even set up a default address in the sharing list so you don't have to type it in each time.
 
Don't get me started on Evernote. I spent a bunch of time getting an integration working without realizing that you can't send generalized HTML with their API. Evernote uses some proprietary subset of HTML and strictly enforce their syntax. RSS feeds are full of markup. It's not practical for me to scrub them down to whatever format Evernote has made up. If I send the text without markup, a lot of feeds will come out as unformatted goo and that would be the worst thing I can do because I've led you to believe you saved it when, in fact, it's not readable.

So.... the best solution is to get your special email address from Evernote that drops notes in your account. Oddly, this service will accept general HTML and take care of reformatting it. With River of News you can email the contents of an article and even set up a default address in the sharing list so you don't have to type it in each time.

Ironically I'd filed away into Evernote that you can use a special e-mail address to send to - this works great with your app. Also, about the ability to change background after the instapaper mobilzer page is solved by pressing down and selecting the page so it goes a darker shade of blue. This works decent at night when I don't want to look at white backgrounds and mess up falling asleep. 5 stars. thanks
 
iOS 4.2 provides quick access to the hardware brightness slider which I think will be the best solution for night time reading. Even if I provided a way to dim River of News I can't control the status bar or the overall backlight level. That can only be done by Apple apps. Apple's hardware control also has the nice effect of increasing battery life when dimmed.
 
A serious suggestion: With the advent of iOS 4.2, you *really* should consider removing the in-app browser and just open Safari when a link is clicked. In my experience, *all* of the crashes in the River of News app is related to the in-app browser.

Begin a YouTube video. *crash*
Begin a YouTube video... it plays... I switch orientation. *crash*
I scroll down the page filled with images too fast. *crash*
I scroll down, then switch orientation. *crash*

See the pattern?

Also, can you fix the awkward behavior when switching orientation? Currently the top bar switches, then the app does. Looks horrible.
 
That's a good idea. I'll make it an option. The in-app browser is a pain in the ass. It may seem like my fault but there is really nothing I can do about how crashy it is, especially with YouTube. I have absolutely no control over YouTube playback or how a web view renders general websites. I would love to wash my hands of that problem.

4.2 trades the old crashy YouTube problems with new YouTube display problems. *sigh* It's no fun getting blamed and spending tons of time working around problems that are part of the OS.

I also have no control over the how iOS moves the status bar when changing orientation.
 
iOS 4.2 provides quick access to the hardware brightness slider which I think will be the best solution for night time reading. Even if I provided a way to dim River of News I can't control the status bar or the overall backlight level. That can only be done by Apple apps. Apple's hardware control also has the nice effect of increasing battery life when dimmed.

Yep sbsettings brightness control is the only reason i'm jailbroken. I'll go back to stock after the brightness update. Left you a good review
 
Few thoughts

Thanks for the great app.

Not sure if these have been discussed already but I ask anyway.

Scenario: You open an article which includes a video and you start to watch it and then you push close button. Pushing close button doesn't shut down the video or at least the sound of it but leaves it playing in the background and I haven't figured out how you can go back and turn it off. Is this a feature I don't know how to use or a bug? :)

Also a question, is there a plan to make an iPhone version? I like Reeder but I would prefer more sophisticated GUI of RON also in my iPhone.
 
Oh, YouTube how I hate thee. YouTube playback is handled entirely by iOS and I have no way to make it better or worse. It's been buggy since the beginning. iOS 4.2 fixes some of the old problems but trades them for new ones. I wish I could do something about it.

Version 1.3.1 has been submitted to Apple to address a freezing problem in iOS 4.2.

http://blog.riverofnewsapp.com/2010/11/minor-update-coming-soon.html
 
In the River of News section of the iPad Settings app you can turn on Instapaper Mobilizer. Then links will open with that by default. It's really nice. I'd never used Mobilizer before until people asked me to put it in the product and it's now my regular setting.

Any chance you could build in Readabilty support, in addition to Instapaper Mobilizer?

Thanks.
 
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