Monday, June 17, 2013

River of News 2.0 will be exclusively for iOS 7

Google Reader shuts down on July 1. If history is an indicator, iOS 7 will be released in late September. That's a gap of about two and a half months. I've decided that River of News will be dormant for that gap.

I'm excited about iOS 7. The design looks great and there are new capabilities that directly benefit an RSS reader. It will be difficult to support both iOS 6 and 7 and will lead to a product that isn't as good as it could be if focused on iOS 7 only.

River of News 2.0 has a new visual design that I love... for iOS 6. It will immediately look old and tired on iOS 7. I want to make a product that I feel is great. The one I'm looking at now won't be great on iOS 7.

I'm sorry that you won't have a version of River of News to use for the next few months. I've received a lot of encouraging emails telling me they don't want the app to go away. But the reality is I don't have the time to make a polished product for iOS 6 and 7. I'm a one-man show for River of News and it's revenue is small. My time is mostly dedicated to developing products for the awesome Savvy Apps mobile agency and it's clients.

I know I'm going to lose some of you as customers and that makes me sad. I hope when iOS 7 comes out you'll reconsider River of News because you want an app that is designed exclusively to be great on that platform.

26 comments:

  1. Cant Like enough...

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  2. ipad1 = no ios7 = no more river of news :(

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  3. I can suffer through Feedly's overwrought UI for a few months while you get ready for iOS 7, seems fair enough. Can you confirm which gReader replacement will be supported? I've already transferred my RSS feeds to Feedly

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  4. Its a reasonable decision and makes complete sense since you are solo, you have to focus in something small and make it great for your audience. For me in other hand its a sad decision. In this gap months I´ll be using Feedly (witch I already use in Android and PC since Google Reader RIP announcement), then will be hard to move to River of News again (Feedly will sync the 3 platforms I use. River will cover only my iPad).

    It was a nice ride with iPad 1 and 3, and River of News.

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  5. Will there be an iPhone version for iOS 7?

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  6. If you had a beta program for developers with access to iOS 7, I'd love to test it out.

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  7. Im using Feedly too

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  8. Thanks for letting us know, Dylan, and kudos for make a brave choice that will produce the best experience for users. The current River of News rocks, and I will eagerly await v2.0.

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  9. The best things are always worth waiting for.

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  10. so feedly is the way people are going?
    I will upgrade to iOS 7 just to get River of News :-)

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  11. I've used different news readers ( including River of News and Feedly ) but my favourite is Feeddler .

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  12. Thanks, Dylan! I'll be bummed for a couple months but I totally understand your choice. I look forward to swimming in the River again in the Fall!

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  13. Hopefully this is not the path other developers will follow.

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  14. A tip for other RON lovers: don't delete the RON app from your iDevice. Hide it in some folder, if its gettin in the way this summer. Then, when Dylan releases the updated version after iOS7 debuts, you'll see the update in the App Store and it'll remind you to jump back into the River!

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  15. River of News being one of the best RSS clients I've had the pleasures to use, this is good news.

    Are you planning on this being a paid upgrade? It sounds like it'd be worth it for sure!

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  16. Really wish you would at least update RON to be compatible with "drop in" Google Reader replacements (e.g., BazQux, FeedHQ, etc.) so we can keep using it until 2.0 is released. It is my understanding that some services have made their APIs Google Reader-compatible to allow developers of reader apps to simply point the API endpoints to their servers instead of Google Reader. In fact, Mr. Reader is making the Google Reader API endpoints editable by users, so they can point the app at any Google Reader-compatible API.

    Please consider making this final change to RON v1, so your users can enjoy your great app while waiting for 2.0.

    Thanks!

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  17. Yes, please please please make that final update to RON v1 so I can use it with something else! Pretty please...

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  18. If there's any way to do a patch to RON 1 to accept a drop-in source other than Google Reader, that would be outstanding. Then the months you spend polishing the new version will keep us anticipating rather than getting used to something else and more or less forgetting about RON.

    I say that without any knowledge of how difficult such a thing is AND otherwise in complete agreement that iOS7 is what you ought to concentrate on if it'd take more than a day or two to do the drop-in.

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  19. dude, cmon. I'm jonesing for river of news already and though I don't feel entitled just because I'm a paying customer, I will make it a point to give honest feedback in the app store or any other venue that you don't support your users.

    First rule of customer service, if you treat someone badly they tell a lot more people about it than if you treat them well...

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  20. river of news > feedly or any other rss feed FML :(

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  22. SO how's the iOS 7 version coming?

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  23. Would love an update. Am anxiously awaiting RON v2.

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  24. Would love an update. Am anxiously awaiting RON v2.

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  25. Dylan, this is sooo sad :-( I think that updated RoN would be what people are waiting for. :-) Hopefully with Feedly support :-) Whats the matter with you guy?

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