Description
— Special price anticipating Byline 3.0, a major update which will be free for existing users. —
Read the latest news from your favorite sites and blogs, even when you’re offline. Simply use your free Google Reader account to subscribe to websites you’d like to keep track of. Byline will automatically stay in sync and bring you new content, putting thousands of RSS and Atom feeds at your fingertips. Even when you have no internet connection (such as on the subway) Byline’s offline browsing feature gives you instant access to complete web pages.
A video tour is available on our website:
www.phantomfish.com
FEATURES:
- Two-way syncing with Google Reader.
- Browse new items, starred items, notes and folders in separate lists.
- Sort items by date or by their source feed.
- View up to 200 items from each list when you're offline, including embedded images.
- Offline browsing lets you access complete web pages linked to by notes, starred items, and (optionally) new items.
- Built-in web browser for online and offline browsing.
- Landscape mode.
- Star and share items.
- Send items by email.
- Create and share notes.
What's New in Version 2.5.6
- Adopts a new log in method which will be required by Google Reader from early April. (Older versions of Byline will not be able to sync after this date.)
Customer Reviews
Better than the Google Reader mobile site
I resisted buying this app for a while because, hey, why spend $5 when the Google Reader website is mobile optimized and free? Now that I've tried it though, I have to say that it's worth the money. The advantage of Byline is that you can set it to cache the *webpages* that are linked to in your feed reader, not just the summaries. Doing this makes browsing your sites much faster: just let it run while you're brushing your teeth in the morning, and you'll have super quick access to content all day.
Another advantage of the app is that the interface is much easier to use than Google's mobile site. The targets are big and easy to hit even if you aren't being very precise with your fingers. Google's icons are much too small to use without paying attention to where the tip of your thumb is coming down. Ugh. Byline's icons are nice and big without distracting from the content.
There are some downsides to the app. Other reviewers have noted that you need to group things into folders yourself if you want to make the best use of the app. I'm sure the developer will fix that eventually, since so many reviews complain about it, but honestly, it's not a big deal to me.
One thing that is a bigger deal is that I don't see any way to mark an item as unread after reading it, if, say, I decide to come back to something later. You can get around this by starring the item, but a true "mark as unread button" would be appreciated. There's also enough space on the toolbar, so I'm not sure why the programmer didn't add it.
Another issue to bear in mind is that caching full webpages with images does drain the battery more quickly than just using the mobile Google Reader site. It's not too bad, but if you normally use up, say, 25% of your battery in a day of web browsing, expect that number to go up to 40% or so. For most people, I think it's pretty easy to stay within the limits of the battery during the day before charging it at night, but if you're someone constantly running up against that line, you may be better off not running so many non-Apple apps.
I did notice a minor bug in Byline. Sometimes, when going from landscape mode back to the normal portrait orientation, the bar at the top of your screen that says your mobile carrier name, signal strength, etc. will get stuck on the side. It generally goes away if you back out of the place you are, or, worst case scenario, if you go back to the home screen and relaunch Byline. This is a very minor bug, but if the developer reads this, I hope he fixes it.
OK, that about covers everything. I've pointed out a couple of flaws, but as I said at the beginning, I think the advantages of the app far outweigh the downsides, and at this point I'm quite happy with Byline. Please purchase this app so that the dev keeps making new versions for me to get free upgrades to. ;-D Thanks.
High-Quality Off-line Browsing
I've been using Byline since the day of its initial release.
It's not perfect but it has changed my life. I live in NYC where I spend 1.5 - 2 hours a day on the subway. Byline allows me not only to view my feeds offline while underground, but MOST IMPORTANTLY it lets me to (in conjunction with Google Reader) tag ANY webpage I want for offline browsing.
This is so valuable to me because every morning I would read blogs until I had to leave home. Now I tag twice as many articles than I could previously read in that small half-hour window, and read them at my leasure on the subway. Byline is just as responsive as Safari when reading a page, allowing smooth scrolling, zooming, rotating, and memory of page location. $10 is a lot of an App Store application, but it's dirt cheap for how much this has changed my life and how often I use it.
Everything I wanted from an RSS reader
This is an excellent app. Well worth the price and hands down better than using the Google Reader web page from Safari.
* Sync with Google Reader - I like that items I read with Google Reader on my laptop are automatically marked as read in Byline.
* Offline Reading - I didn't think this would be useful for me since I am rarely out of 3g range, but even when I am in range, it is nice having a cached version of the page ready for me instead of waiting for the page to load in Safari.
- $3.99
- Category: News
- Updated: Mar 19, 2010
- Current Version: 2.5.6
- 2.5.6 (iPhone OS 3.0 Tested)
- 0.3 MB
- Languages: English, French, German, Japanese
- Seller: Milo Bird
- © 2009 Phantom Fish
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch. Requires iPhone OS 2.2.1 or later.
