Apple Mac HQ

Despite the amazing functions and styling of the iPhone, some people still aren’t happy. In todays web-centric world, where do people go to vent their frustrations? The internet of course!

Please Fix The iPhone is a website dedicated to those who want to tell Steve Jobs and Apple what is lacking from their favorite mobile phone. The website allows you to vote on existing wishes or submit your own wish. Wishes range from the obvious MMS and copy & paste, to “files and folder management”.

The website is beautifully designed and easy to navigate. You can navigate the wishes by searching for your wish, browsing by tags, viewing the most wanted wishes, and viewing the most recent wishes. “Fixed” wishes are also kept on the website, though some of the “Fixed” wishes are people that are requesting functionality that already exists or things that would need to be fixed by parties other than Apple.

As you would expect, Please Fix The iPhone has a iPhone optimized version of the website. Just visit the site in Mobile Safari to view the iPhone optimized version.

If you want to make your iPhone wishes known, Please Fix The iPhone is a great place to do so. The big question with the website is, is Apple listening? The folks behind Please Fix The iPhone are basically doing free market research for Apple, so it would be wise of them to listen. I already voted for my wishes. I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll see copy & paste by software version 2.5!

Popularity: 2% [?]

If you’ve spent any time on the Mac, no doubt you have seen the icon to the right. NetNewsWire has been around for over five years and was one of the early RSS readers available for the Mac. NetNewsWire was originally shareware, but went freeware earlier this year.

For the first time, the Software Pick Of The Month is actually multiple applications. Collectively, all applications are from NewsGator.

I’ve talked about NetNewsWire many times on this blog. If you have used Mail.app, you know how to get around NewNewsWire. On the left is a list of blogs, on the top right pane is a list of posts, the bottom right is the text of the currently selected post. You also have something called clippings, which is kind of like an inbox for posts you want to come back to later. The UI is clean and a search box allows you to easily find a post within a feed. You can see a small screenshot of the application below.

Up next is NetNewsWire. Again? You bet, NetNewsWire for iPhone (iTunes link). Basically NetNewsWire for iPhone is a scaled down version of the full blown Mac client. The best feature of NetNewsWire for iPhone is that you can use it offline, just like the Mac version. While the iPhone version isn’t perfect, it’s pretty good. It would be great if you could mark posts as unread and if pictures were downloaded with the post so you can see them while you are offline. Despite those two gripes, NetNewsWire is a great addition to any iPhone.

In addition to a Mac and iPhone client, there is also a web application. NewsGator Online allows you to view your feeds online. It’s features are similar to many online RSS readers so I won’t bore you with the details. One very handy feature is that you can manage which feeds show up on the iPhone client. If you only want to see your must read feeds on NNW for iPhone, it’s easy to do so with NewsGator Online.

Last but not least, NewsGator online mobile edition. NewsGator mobile gives you a slimmed down version of NewsGator Online. You can visit NewsGator mobile on any phone. If you visit it on your iPhone, you’ll automatically be redirected to the iPhone optimized version. I still use NewsGator mobile despite having NNW for iPhone installed too. Why? NewsGator mobile allows you to view a post, but not have it marked as read until you click the “Read” link. This is handy if you encounter a long post that you want to come back to later. Viewing the post on NNW for iPhone marks it as read.

So why on earth did I choose all these applications for the Software Pick Of The Month? It’s all about one word really, synchronization. While you can use these products by themselves, they are designed to be used together. NewsGator has designed a powerful synchronization engine behind their product lineup.

Once you sign up for NewsGator Online (top right corner), you are ready to enter RSS reading bliss. Within both NNW for Mac and NNW for iPhone, you sign into your NewsGator account and the client will download all the feeds you are subscribed to. When you mark any post as read, that change is synchronized across all other NewsGator clients that you are using. When you delete a feed on one client, the feed gets deleted on the others. I can read a post a work, home, or on the go and the change is reflected on every NewsGator product I’m using. There is even a RSS reader for Windows from NewsGator called FeedDemon.

Simply put, if you read RSS feeds from more than one location, you’re missing out if you aren’t using NewsGator’s products. I simply can’t recommend their products enough. If synchronization matters to you, check out the products mentioned in this post. If you aren’t using NewsGators products, what are you using and why? Let me know in the comments.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Even though the iPhone 3G launch is just days away, we shouldn’t forget about those great iPhone optimized websites. Some of these iPhone optimized websites may be shuttered in favor of an iPhone application, but some might stick around. I’ve been meaning to write about the following iPhone website for nearly a year now, but I’m just now getting around to it. I’ve used this website for nearly the entire time I’ve had my iPhone.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of NetNewsWire. I’ve written about it many times before. One of the reasons I love the application is the accompaniment of several other ways to access your feeds beside the Mac desktop application. The folks behind NetNewsWire, NewsGator, have a Windows product, a mobile application, a web app, a mobile web app, and an iPhone specific web app.

The iPhone web application (pictured here) syncs with all the other NewsGator RSS products, so any changes to your feeds using the iPhone optimized website are reflected in whatever other NewsGator products you are using. This syncing ability is the main selling point for me.

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Popularity: 15% [?]