Newsfire USD $18.99
Website: newsfirerss.com
I never really saw the value of using an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) reader or aggregator, but with the strong recommendation from a friend and the desire to spend less time browsing digg I decided to give NewsFire a chance. At the time I started using NewsFire my default BitTorrent client was Xtorrent, another Mac application by David Watanabe. My previous experience with Xtorrent gave me high expectations for the design and simplicity of the application, and in those terms I was definitely not let down.
NewsFire appropriately touts itself as "The 'Anjelina Jolie of applications'" on its home page. Using the slick brushed look of applications Apple's Safari, NewsFire looks like it belongs on your Mac. When a RSS feed is updated the feed entry swoops to the top of the list, grabbing your attention with a simple animation. While it doesn't offer many unique visual features, fitting into the operating system so well goes a long way for any application.
Also helping it blend into OS X, NewsFire allows you to set groups and labels to manage your content and even includes Spotlight integration. NewsFire can organize your content so you only read the things you care about. With the "Smart Feeds" feature, anyone familiar with iTunes will know what they are doing immediately. You can quickly make a "Smart Feed" based on combination of attributes like date, author, description, or type of file attachment. "Search Feeds" allow you to make a custom feed to pull from specific search terms on certain websites, which can be very useful if you find yourself repeating the same searches often.
The only problem I have so far, is that I wish there were more features. If NewsFire integrated tabs for the sake of having multiple feeds open and visiting links within the same application, the experience would feel much more streamlined. However, David Watanabe has developed an application so beautiful, simple, and stable that it feels like a feature Apple just forgot to include with OS X. Considering the current USD $18.99 price tag and the fact that it just feels to be missing a little something extra, it might not be the perfect application for a casual user.
NewsFire, being one of the few applications I always leave running, gets four stars and a whole-hearted recommendation to anyone who is looking for a simple RSS reader.
Originally Published on The MacCast
