SlideReader RSS App out

[nanohits]

I find this app quite good actually. Its called SlideReader and available just for the iPad. Just released today.

Check it out. http://itunes.apple.com/app/slide-reader/id385143297?mt=8

 

[shadowness]

Looks good! Google reader support is good, but is it import only or full sync capable?

 

[SlideReaderTeam]

Hi Guys, thanks for trying out the app. At the moment we support only feed import from Google reader but in the future versions we're looking at having full sync support. We thought we'd start with this.

The Slide Reader Team

 

[nanohits]

Hi Guys, thanks for trying out the app. At the moment we support only feed import from Google reader but in the future versions we're looking at having full sync support. We thought we'd start with this.

The Slide Reader Team

One thing I would like to see is when first imported form Google Reader it puts everything in an uncategorized folder which sucks. When you have a lot of feeds , its not very good and organized. It should show each feed as a folder.

 

[SlideReaderTeam]

One thing I would like to see is when first imported form Google Reader it puts everything in an uncategorized folder which sucks. When you have a lot of feeds , its not very good and organized. It should show each feed as a folder.

Nano, if the users Google feeds are categorized (with folders) then the app keeps the same structure while importing. There won't be any rearrangement.
Reg: your experience, we'd love to take a better look at this, if your feeds were re-arranged in anyway. Also, if this is repeating for others. As far as we've seen, there is no re-arrangement in any way.

 

[Scott56R]

Purchased... love it

Very very slick interface, beautiful icon.

Works perfectly with Google Reader but needs to sync back and forth.

 

[SlideReaderTeam]

Scott56R, Thank you and glad you liked it.

We're working on the Google reader sync feature already, and is hoping to make it available in the future updates. This is one feature we're really excited about.

Also, did you try the themes feature ? We're looking for some feedback on it. Hope you like it.

Thanks

 

[Phil Lee]

I've just bought the app. The killer feature for me is profiles. I have two Google Reader accounts, one for motorsport and one for everything else to avoid spoilers if I have to record races. To be able to view both profiles in one app is great.

My first comment for you would be on the positioning of the toolbar. It sometimes appears on the right hand side and other times it appears on the left. I'd like to be able to chose which side it appears. For example, if I have the app in portrait mode and touch a story, the story enlarges and the toolbar is on the right. It stays on the right if I rotate to landscape with the feeds view on the left and story on the right.

The situation changes if I start in landscape. In that view, the feeds are on the left and article list on the right. If I click on the article on the left, it appears on the right with the toolbar there. If I click on the list, the article appears on the left with the toolbar on the left. If I then switch to portrait view, the toolbar stays on the left.

I think the toolbar should remain on one side and the user should be able to specify which side that is through the program settings. There could of course be a third option for the app to behave as it does at the moment.

My reason for wanting the toolbar in the same place all the time is that is like to flip through stories quickly, marking interesting ones as I go to read properly later. The arrow buttons are perfect for this but they need to stay in the same place.

My second comment is that there needs to some form of image caching, so that I can flip between stories quickly without waiting for images to load.

Both of these comments come from a person who uses Reeder for 99% of their RSS reading.

 

[SlideReaderTeam]

I've just bought the app. The killer feature for me is profiles. I have two Google Reader accounts, one for motorsport and one for everything else to avoid spoilers if I have to record races. To be able to view both profiles in one app is great.

My first comment for you would be on the positioning of the toolbar. It sometimes appears on the right hand side and other times it appears on the left. I'd like to be able to chose which side it appears. For example, if I have the app in portrait mode and touch a story, the story enlarges and the toolbar is on the right. It stays on the right if I rotate to landscape with the feeds view on the left and story on the right.

The situation changes if I start in landscape. In that view, the feeds are on the left and article list on the right. If I click on the article on the left, it appears on the right with the toolbar there. If I click on the list, the article appears on the left with the toolbar on the left. If I then switch to portrait view, the toolbar stays on the left.

I think the toolbar should remain on one side and the user should be able to specify which side that is through the program settings. There could of course be a third option for the app to behave as it does at the moment.

My reason for wanting the toolbar in the same place all the time is that is like to flip through stories quickly, marking interesting ones as I go to read properly later. The arrow buttons are perfect for this but they need to stay in the same place.

My second comment is that there needs to some form of image caching, so that I can flip between stories quickly without waiting for images to load.

Both of these comments come from a person who uses Reeder for 99% of their RSS reading.

Hi Phil,

Really valid suggestions there, and thanks for being very precise about it, we appreciate it.

1) Reg: the toolbar position
We've put our efforts into figuring out what works best for the user, to ensure an easing, rich reading experience.
And this option we believe will be a huge help - the feature of being able to decide where the toolbar appears. We are seriously considering this in the next update. Our development team is already dissecting your idea.

2) Reg: Caching
We hear you. We'll be implementing offline image caching in the next update which will ensure you faster loading images and a better reading experience.


And glad you liked the Multiple profiles feature, we've been getting a lot of applause for this feature.

Thanks much for the valuable feedback Phil, feel free to contact us on facebook or twitter if you have more suggestions.

Will be great to connect with you.

Thanks

http://facebook.com/slidereader
http://twitter.com/slidereader

 

[SlideReaderTeam]

I've just bought the app. The killer feature for me is profiles. I have two Google Reader accounts, one for motorsport and one for everything else to avoid spoilers if I have to record races. To be able to view both profiles in one app is great.

My first comment for you would be on the positioning of the toolbar. It sometimes appears on the right hand side and other times it appears on the left. I'd like to be able to chose which side it appears. For example, if I have the app in portrait mode and touch a story, the story enlarges and the toolbar is on the right. It stays on the right if I rotate to landscape with the feeds view on the left and story on the right.

The situation changes if I start in landscape. In that view, the feeds are on the left and article list on the right. If I click on the article on the left, it appears on the right with the toolbar there. If I click on the list, the article appears on the left with the toolbar on the left. If I then switch to portrait view, the toolbar stays on the left.

I think the toolbar should remain on one side and the user should be able to specify which side that is through the program settings. There could of course be a third option for the app to behave as it does at the moment.

My reason for wanting the toolbar in the same place all the time is that is like to flip through stories quickly, marking interesting ones as I go to read properly later. The arrow buttons are perfect for this but they need to stay in the same place.

My second comment is that there needs to some form of image caching, so that I can flip between stories quickly without waiting for images to load.

Both of these comments come from a person who uses Reeder for 99% of their RSS reading.

Hi Phil,

Really valid suggestions there, and thanks for being very precise about it, we appreciate it.

1) Reg: the toolbar position
We've put our efforts into figuring out what works best for the user, to ensure an easing, rich reading experience.
And this option we believe will be a huge help - the feature of being able to decide where the toolbar appears. We are seriously considering this in the next update. Our development team is already dissecting your idea.

2) Reg: Caching
We hear you. We'll be implementing offline image caching in the next update which will ensure you faster loading images and a better reading experience.


And glad you liked the Multiple profiles feature, we've been getting a lot of applause for this feature.

Thanks much for the valuable feedback Phil, feel free to contact us on facebook or twitter if you have more suggestions.

Will be great to connect with you.

Thanks

http://facebook.com/slidereader
http://twitter.com/slidereader

 

[Zimmy68]

Is there a rule somewhere that RSS app developers have to charge $4.99 for their apps?

To me, no RSS reader should cost more then $2.99.
It would be like a company charging $5 for a web browser.

Just once, I would like to see someone wise up and undercut everyone else.

 

[shadowness]

Is there a rule somewhere that RSS app developers have to charge $4.99 for their apps?

To me, no RSS reader should cost more then $2.99.
It would be like a company charging $5 for a web browser.

Just once, I would like to see someone wise up and undercut everyone else.

I totally agree with you!
First it was newsrack, when no other app was there!
Then came pulse with just 20 feeds to boot!
And then long awaited reeder reigned the ranks of the app store,
Now flud is flooding the rss users iPad! Yet to prove it's worth (other than being a pulse clone? ), and now
Slide reader vying to slip in between the cracks with additional functionality!

Sorry for the pun! But I have already invested unto 20 bucks on just rss readers and I am totally unrelectant to shell out another 5 bucks to try out the new kid on the block, even if it looks like a superstar.

Slide reader definitely looks good and is rich feature wise! But still does not woe me away from reeder, even though it has more features than reeder, for just one simple reason, I am not willing to add yet another 5 bucks to the rss category!

Sorry for the rant!

Edit:
Just so to agree with zimmys idea, I wanna bring to notice camera+'s sales strategy, even though a feature rich camera replacement app, with more added functionalities both in camera controls and in image manipulation just sells for 2 bucks! Heck I have even bought the app on the iPad just to try for my future iPhone 4 (or is it 5, by the time it launches here in Dubai). That's strategy and in turn huge cash flow! The records speak!

If the developer feels his product has good value, you definitely sell you apps for a lower price and a lot of users would not think twice buying a feature rich app!

Disclaimer:
I have no connection whatsoever other than a buyer/seller relation with any or all application developers mentioned in this rant! I have no idea of what the slide reader team has done in terms of market research or sales strategy for their product! Whatever is said in this post is my thoughts alone and based on facts or what I thought were facts based on online news sources!

 

[nanohits]

If you can afford between $500 and $899 for your iPad then surely $4.99 is not too much to pay, even if you tried 4 or 5 readers.


Rant ...
You have no idea of what it takes to develop these do you? You think it takes a few mins to develop this? Imagine a team behind it and months in development. Easier said than done to say why charge so much for this. If you cant afford it, then dont buy it, simple as that rather than whine about price. I reckon stick with Reeder. Its a good program too.

Ok Rant over for all the cheapies...

 

[shadowness]

Yes I totally agree with you! But then adding the cost of all the apps even though they are all trickle sums, it adds to the cost! I have spent at least an additional of 300 bucks on apps and accessories which brings the cost of the iPad well over a 1000 bucks! That could buy me a MacBook at least!

Talking about the cost of the apps and accumulation of a number of apps in the same category on ones idevice, by no means makes us cheapies!

like you said when we can buy an iPad we could well buy tonnes of apps to go along with it! It was more of a suggestion or feedback for the developer. Its upto the devs to take it or leave it!

Nobody here is undermining the efforts of the developers in any way! And almost every one knows how hard the devs work on bringing a product out to the masses! I was pointing out to products by other devs who have also put in similar kind of effort and hardwork and yet chose to price their apps lower and got good returns on their choice!

A lower price point would attract a lot more demography. That's all there is to it.

I have seen a lot of members saying they are happy with one app or the other! So they would naturally think more about buying yet another app for the same purpose! A lower price point would induce more buyers!

 

[SlideReaderTeam]

Its interesting to see the discussion here, especially seeing that its going "the price tag side".

Let's clarify a few things here.

1. Reg the price
Be it Slide Reader or any other app, there is a lot of effort and work that goes into making such useful products. There is often a team involved, resources,talent and a lot of thinking that goes into the process. Lets say its a team effort. And the primary objective of any app is to provide a good user experience, to fulfill a need to be useful to someone. And this involves various inputs and hence the price tag.

2. Reg: competition
We do not want to comment on the other apps out there, and speculate on whether they are good or bad. In fact, they're all good. They're all built with the motive of helping someone, making our lives easier. We've used most of them ourselves and the need of creating another app came out of it. There were certain things we needed to tweak, certain features we wished for, and certain things we thought would be cool. So we build an app around it and voila ! We have SlideReader.

3. The SlideReader price
When pricing this product we really thought about a lot of things. The most important one was NOT about competition but about how we could make this app better than the ones out there. Not surprisingly, we figured out that to offer a rich and pleasurable experience, we had to get more resources, more time on the codes, more time and energy - on an ongoing basis. Clearly, we didn't want to compromise on the quality of the app, the features or the overall experience. We wanted to give all we could to make this product a better one if not the best out there.

And we hope we've done a decent job at it. We use other apps too, and we understand why some of them are priced lower while other not. Its all based on the resources,time and energy that goes into the overall quality of the product.

We strongly believe that Slide Reader's price is justified, and are sure that we'd put in the maximum efforts from our side to ensure the best experience for our users.

We're excited to hear from our early users that they're proud about buying Slide Reader, and the price is justified for the product. We're here to do our best to make sure they get the best experience out of it with more features, more tweaks, more functions and a better experience.

Thanks all for the support and inputs. Appreciate it.

 

[Zimmy68]

If you can afford between $500 and $899 for your iPad then surely $4.99 is not too much to pay, even if you tried 4 or 5 readers.


Rant ...
You have no idea of what it takes to develop these do you? You think it takes a few mins to develop this? Imagine a team behind it and months in development. Easier said than done to say why charge so much for this. If you cant afford it, then dont buy it, simple as that rather than whine about price. I reckon stick with Reeder. Its a good program too.

Ok Rant over for all the cheapies...

I'm sure it costs MS and Google lots of money to develop Internet Explorer and Chrome.
Maybe with your logic, they should charge $15-$20 for it, right???
No one is saying they can't afford $5 for an app, I was just perplexed the glut of programs that basically take RSS content and display it a certain way all for the price of $5.
I would bet that a quality reader app that sold for half the price would sell well over 2x as much.
But for some reason, the magical $5 price point is chosen.
$5 doesn't sound like much but with no free versions and no way to get a refund if it doesn't fit your needs, you won't take as many risks.
As an example, I never touched the Pulse reader, they recently put it on sale for around $2, guess what??? I bought it.
Nothing against the developer, they can charge $100 for all I care, it just confuses me. If 8 stores at my mall sold the same hamburger for $10 and I was opening the 9th, I may just try to sell mine for $8, call me crazy.

 

[nanohits]

I'm sure it costs MS and Google lots of money to develop Internet Explorer and Chrome.
Maybe with your logic, they should charge $15-$20 for it, right???
.

Ok lets take your example.

1. Explorer: Guess what its integrated into every operating system of Windows, thats where the revenues come from.

2. Google: is more of ad revenue, thats how they make their money. If I was making money and lots of it via an ad system like Google ads or any other, then yeah I would make any app free as long as the ads were paying for all my staff and the entire team.

This is not the case with an app like slidereader or any other RSS apps, they are not ad based and dont force you to see ads. You also forget the fact that when an app is developed they dont just sit idly and watch the money roll in, they have to constantly keep updating the app because users get livid if there are no updates.

Do you complain when you just bought a $2000 laptop or computer and have to fork out few hundred dollars for MS office or over $600 plus for Adobe photoshop or any other software which these days sell for around $29 or do you complain when you go buy a $50 game saying why are they not charging $2.99 for this game?

At the end of the day all these things takes effort and resources and people have to buy it for them to make a living. $4.99 isnt much in the overall scheme of things considering how much one forks out for their Desktop or laptop computer.

 

[WytRaven]

Is there a rule somewhere that RSS app developers have to charge $4.99 for their apps?

To me, no RSS reader should cost more then $2.99.
It would be like a company charging $5 for a web browser.

Just once, I would like to see someone wise up and undercut everyone else.

..and then the next person undercuts the last and before you know it $0.99 for every app out there and devs make no money and have no incentive to make apps just so you can pay less for a piece of software than for a cup of coffee...Awesome.

 

[ThanatosId]

I'm sure it costs MS and Google lots of money to develop Internet Explorer and Chrome.
Maybe with your logic, they should charge $15-$20 for it, right???
No one is saying they can't afford $5 for an app, I was just perplexed the glut of programs that basically take RSS content and display it a certain way all for the price of $5.
I would bet that a quality reader app that sold for half the price would sell well over 2x as much.
But for some reason, the magical $5 price point is chosen.
$5 doesn't sound like much but with no free versions and no way to get a refund if it doesn't fit your needs, you won't take as many risks.
As an example, I never touched the Pulse reader, they recently put it on sale for around $2, guess what??? I bought it.
Nothing against the developer, they can charge $100 for all I care, it just confuses me. If 8 stores at my mall sold the same hamburger for $10 and I was opening the 9th, I may just try to sell mine for $8, call me crazy.

I stopped reading your post after you tried comparing an independent, small developer with MS and Google! People, please! If someone has a strong point of view with logic to back it up, this community would love to read and respond intelligently. If you are cheap and want to gripe to the developers that spend countless hours creating great software that adds usabilty and value to your device, please go elsewhere. This app is well worth the $4.99 that they are asking and really stands in a class of it's own.

 

[ThanatosId]

..and then the next person undercuts the last and before you know it $0.99 for every app out there and devs make no money and have no incentive to make apps just so you can pay less for a piece of software than for a cup of coffee...Awesome.

Great post WytRaven. Very good point!

 

[GaresTaylan]

Am I missing something or is ther no way to mark all feeds as read? One feature I like about news rack and many other readers is you can mark everything as read and when you do so it takes it off the screen. That's a deal breaker for me.

 

[SlideReaderTeam]

Hi @GaresTaylan - This feature will be included in the next update. Its already on the roadmap. Thanks for asking.