I am mostly happy with the new version of Safari. Mostly. I am also stunned and dismayed that they have removed the support for RSS feeds. Yes, stunned and dismayed.
No more will I have a little notification right in my browser that someone has left a comment here at Muddled Ramblings. And Apple seems to have completely forgotten this use-case: When I read my comics in the morning, some of them have feeds and some don’t. Now, to take advantage of the feeds in some, I’ll have to read the comics in two different apps. (Or, check for the availability in one app and have it switch to my browser to read it, then go back to the previous app for the next comment and so on. Yuck.)
Sure, the Safari implementation of RSS has some issues, but it was right there, where it was most useful.
Something important has happened in the
Media Empire!
You see how simple and unobtrusive that is? Not some feed that shows me big blocks of info, just a number in a place I’m likely to notice. Not in some other app that I need to check periodically.
With a heavy sigh this morning I set out once more to find an RSS reader that doesn’t suck. I couldn’t find one. Out of the pile of newsreader apps I waded through, they ALL failed on at least one of these criteria:
- Synchronize across my computers without a google reader account. I am NOT giving them a list of the things I subscribe to. The same sentiment applies, with less vehemence, to any that require a subscription to some service out there on the Web. This is what iCloud is supposed to be for.
- Built-in Webkit. I should at least be able to see the site without switching back to a browser.
- Let me organize feeds and don’t bother me with noise. There are a bunch of ticker-style apps that constantly show the latest from your feeds. Which, if you follow news sites, would be a constant distraction, and I’d be constantly wondering what has gone off the list that I might have been interested in. Gah. Just let me see a compact list of feeds organized how I want them, when I want them.
Note that “Free” is not on the list of requirements. I’d pay (a bit) for something that didn’t suck. I’d especially pay (a bit) for a Safari plugin that put the functionality back where it belonged.
If I didn’t work for Apple, I’d probably be coding something up right now.
For now, I’m giving Vienna a go (nice clean interface, no synchronization) on one computer, and I’m probably going to install Shrook on this machine. If I can stand its interface and lack of built-in page viewing (as far as I can tell from the limited description), it might become my choice.
Update: Shrook was a bust. The synchronization feature required a paid subscription to their service. No promises of better privacy were mentioned. Come on, developers, this is what iCloud is for!
Ick. RSS in Safari is a major part of my workflow. It’s how I got here, for example. (Haven’t upgraded to Mountain Lion yet.)
Safari 6 is THE worst and it used to be my MOST LOVED! I freakin hate it now! Seriously, I can’t stand to use it anymore! The unified address bar with the grayed-out URL, gayest progress indicator ever created (they had to have contracted that one out to Microsoft), and the bloated suggestions that are spewed out whenever i try to type anyting.
Well, I actually said, “it’s about time” when they unified search with the address bar, and the progress indicator doesn’t bother me any more than any other useless eye candy does.
In the time since I wrote this complaint about RSS, I’ve become increasingly annoyed with the developer tools in Safari 6. I’ve gotten used to the way they’re rearranged, but there’s functionality that’s simply not there anymore, and a heaping helping of bugs as well. So now I often fire up Chrome to debug code that only has to work on Safari.
I can see how the developer tools might be superior someday, but I think they shipped them before they were finished.