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NewsFire 1.1 beta (v31)

I’m pleased to announce that NewsFire 1.1 is now available as a beta download. This is a beta release, so all the usual caveats apply.

The changes are pretty straightforward, actually – NewsFire 1.1 is all about podcasts. While 1.0 supported podcasts/audio enclosures using an embedded QuickTime widget, version 1.1 builds on a substantially enhanced download and play mechanism that can essentially be described as a fusion of an iTunes/QuickTime player interface with a Safari-esque download window (see: screenshot). The great thing is that this podcast functionality is largely kept out of the main window and thus does not pollute the primary news reading experience.

To complement the enhanced podcasting features, NewsFire now includes an “Audio” tab in the search pane, allowing you to quickly and effortlessly find audio content across the blogosphere.

On an unrelated note, NewsFire 1.1 has changed the restrictions in place on unregistered versions. Newsfire 1.1 no longer has an absolute launch limit – that is, you can run it unregistered forever, if your conscience allows that sort of freeloading. In exchange for this generously relaxed condition, nags are more frequent and feed limits more stringently enforced. This is, of course, an attempt to keep NewsFire accessible to the largest audience, while still providing strong incentives for people to register. It goes without saying that registration not only gives the user the best possible experience, it is the only way that future development of NewsFire can be funded.

  • April 18th, 2005 9:56 am

14 comments...

Al...

This is fantastic! As I mentioned the other day, I’ve been using iPodder and iPodder X Lite, but five minutes with Newsfire 1.1 and I am convinced I no longer need either one.

I imagine some people will still want a dedicated podcatcher for a more ‘hands-off’ approach to downloading and importing podcasts into iTunes. Maybe a way to mark a feed as ‘automatically download enclosures’? Add something like that and it would seem to me you’ve got the best podcast receiver software on the Mac market.

Thanks David!


dwblog...

Al, re: automatic download of enclosures

This is already a per-feed option – see the edit panel (command-I). It’s off by default, for obvious reasons.


Al...

I just realized that myself and came back here to admit my stupidity. :) That settles it, Newsfire wins. I already bought my license, but my brother’s birthday is coming up… :)


Simon...

Wow. That is all.

Actually, that dosen’t do this software justice. I got hooked on the 0.1 release and I haven’t looked back. I thought it was the bee’s knees, and then the Smart Feed option was added, and it’s just gotten better. Now, it beats dedicated Podcasting applications at their own game, without feeling like the feature is tacked on, but rather like it’s an integral part.

Bravo!


Steve...

What are the odds that we could see some RSS+BitTorrent integration in the future like what you’ve done in 1.1 for podcasting? I currently monitor multiple BitTorrent “podcasts” and have no interest in audio enclosures.


Alf...

Support for Appcasting would also be nice, for other types of enclosures. For e.g. iStumbler’s news feed has the application enclosed as an ‘application/x-tar’. There’s more details at http://www.speirs.org/appcasting/


Ryan...

Good work, this is a nice, slick approach… one request though, could you add an option for playlist with the “add to itunes library”?? i’ll never even see these podcasts if they aren’t in a playlist…


Jon...

Superb! A very neat way of dealing with audio content. I know its a difficult balance between features and bloat, but this is most welcome.

Also, I’m not sure if it’s this release or 10.3.9, but it feels much snappier. Before NewsFire was lagging quite a lot.


Keegan...

This update is really close to getting me to switch from NetNewsWire to NewsFire. One feature that I like about NetNewsWire is the ability to set the genre for the podcast. In iTunes I basically have a smart playlist that shows me all my podcasts, newest on top, so that I can easily get to them on my iPod.


Adam...

Is there an option to have a smart feed that contains all audio/podcasts? I can’t figure it out.


Edd...

I was one of the whiners who emailed to ask for this, it’s only fair that I post to say how much I appreciate it! Good feature well implemented, thanks.


Ashley...

I wanted to email you, but I’m stupid and couldn’t find an email address.

I just wanted to thank you for NewsFire. I’m a recent mac convert of about four days now, and previously I used a combination of Windows/Linux stuff. I tried several RSS readers but they just seemed to be really clumsy and awkward, and I just gave up on the whole idea.

That was until I tried NewsFire. I downloaded it last night, ran it for about six hours, and registered it this morning, it’s that good. Coming from the Linux world I’m not used to paying for software, so it’s incredibly rare for me to splash out on software.

Thanks again for writing it.


Karl...

I admit it… I’m a freeloader…., but not for long. I usually try software for a quite a while to see if I really like it; is it really what I want? I’ve been using it for “just” news feeds for a few months and I’m ready to pay up just for that, but now I figured out that it handles podcasts as well. This not only gives me my news feeds VERY easily, but also gives me my podcasts as well – 2 functions that are actually so similar that they should be combined in one easy to use product – NewsFire. Don’t get me wrong, there are still enhancements that I would like to see, such as conversion of podcasts to bookmarkable files, but this is the best that I’ve seen for handling either type of feed.

Thanks for some very nice work!


Al...

I’ve noticed that audio playback from the podcasts window cuts out when NewsFire is busy checking feeds. This is a minor issue, but I thought I’d mention it.