We never stop talking about RSS.
A new app was released by Terry Godier the other day, aimed at “calm, clarity, and relief from the pressure to stay current on everything”. Look, I admire the effort. Get rid of the email triage view, go for a paradigm de-emphasizing unread counts and folder/individual feed hierarchies.
It’s not the first time something like this has been done, but it is an elegant one (designating each feed an attribute based on its timeliness, and fading ease the frictions is clever). Other exemplary mentions:
- Silvio Rizzi’s Reeder did it a few years ago with the app reboot
- Richard Smith tried it years ago
- Iconfactory has Tapestry
- Dave Winer probably has messed around with this more times than you can count
Great — RSS is an app design playground again. I love that. And I have no beef with any of these design directions, but as someone who went 100% into the new Reeder in September 2024, I have come to realize that the experience of reading via RSS should be inclusive of varying consumption styles. After using Reeder’s unified “river” concept for a year and a half, and having previously used the email columns concept for over two decades, I see applicability for both (one interaction paradigm doesn’t suite all RSS types). I recently switched back to NetNewsWire (which revamped their design to accommodate Liquid Glass), and have enjoyed the switch. For now.
🤷♂️
I’m not sure of the right way to declare this, but I like app experiences that Reeder and Current offer, but the pain is missing out on a favorite writer in the midst of a single feed. Yes, there are ways to back into Voices (on Current) or individual feeds (on Reeder), but when you start doing that, it defeats the purpose of “no unread count”, because now you’ve got FOMO, and your behavior isn’t much different than before. Can the configuration of Current actually be both? Time will tell.
But at least we all have immeasurably talented RSS app authors and feed management solutions that keep on keeping on, and hell yeah, RSS is forever, no matter how you want to consume it.
