As I mentioned recently I’ve switched from Windows to Apple on my work desktop.
I was using Entourage for email, but switched to the Apple Mail client the other day – mainly due to Entourage’s poor performance (I may come back to that).
One of the nice features of Apple’s Mail App is that supports RSS. I’ve been using Thunderbird for a long time, so I naturally assumed that a commercial product would at least be able to match Thunderbird in terms of features.
Sadly it can’t.
The one major flaw is that you cannot import OPMLs. You can only add single RSS addresses.
Yes there are work arounds, but they’re not sane. They may work, but they do not strike me as worth the effort. I’ll simply stick to using Bloglines instead.
The question that begs to be asked is how a company like Apple missed a key feature like this.
Oh well …
I’ve never been convinced about desktop RSS readers; give me Google Reader any day…
The best desktop RSS reader I have ever used is NetNewsWire – http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/
It supports OPML imports. The way it organises and sorts the latests RSS feeds is beautiful 🙂
@Robert – I used to use Google Reader until I broke it.. I’m currently using Bloglines, but I’d have liked to have something in my mail client since I spend so much of my day looking at it
@Cormac – I’ll give that a try tomorrow – thanks
Michele
Mail RSS only appeared in Leopard, before that it was in Safari (which is still an option).
Michele – you have to think about the strategy. Apple does not want to make the best RSS reader on the planet but rather one that does the basics. There are excellent tools out there for more advanced feed readers 🙂
Where Apple takes the lead is going to be where they see that third party developers have dropped the ball. for example, video editing on the Mac was a disaster before Final Cut Pro. Photo-editing on the Mac was, and still is, dominated by Adobe and their lack of “Mac-love” was hurting the Mac and so Apple brought out Aperture which is, in v2, finally competitive with Lightroom 🙂
A platform’s health is measured by the users and developers. A platform with only developers is dead. A platform with only users is dying. Apple is not going to kill off developers who make excellent RSS readers, but they will take steps to fill gaps in areas they regard as strategic.
Michele, do you really feel your mail client has to be both a dessert topping and a floor wax?
MJ – Thanks for the comment. You do raise some interesting points.
Keith – ROFL
I guess my main problem was that I felt that if it was going to support RSS that it should do it fully. If it didn’t support RSS I wouldn’t have cared
newsfire is now free!