Quick Times Update
Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on Times. First of all, thanks for the reception, which so far has been great- with a few concerns here and there. The biggest concern right now is the multiple bugs and crashes found in 1.0.
Unfortunately, we did let a few major issues slip past our fingers for the 1.0 release. These are mostly odd crashes as well as few UI problems. While there was quite an extensive beta test period for the app, beta testing can prove to be rather tricky sometimes, and shipping 1.0 to thousands of people is always going to open some issues you've never seen before. In this case, there were more than I expected, and I apologize for this.
Later today we will be releasing Times 1.0.2, which should fix a lot of the big issues you've been having. Version 1.0.3 should arrive shortly after. We're fully committed to fixing every big issue as quickly and timely as humanly possible. If you do find any bugs or crashes, please send them our way - either through the built in Bug Reporter, or bugs@acrylicapps.com. Thanks for your patience!
Unfortunately, we did let a few major issues slip past our fingers for the 1.0 release. These are mostly odd crashes as well as few UI problems. While there was quite an extensive beta test period for the app, beta testing can prove to be rather tricky sometimes, and shipping 1.0 to thousands of people is always going to open some issues you've never seen before. In this case, there were more than I expected, and I apologize for this.
Later today we will be releasing Times 1.0.2, which should fix a lot of the big issues you've been having. Version 1.0.3 should arrive shortly after. We're fully committed to fixing every big issue as quickly and timely as humanly possible. If you do find any bugs or crashes, please send them our way - either through the built in Bug Reporter, or bugs@acrylicapps.com. Thanks for your patience!
40 Comments:
OK, looking forward to trying it. Current version locked up my powerbook immediately.
I've had no problems at all with my version and I immediately adopted (and registered) it as my RSS newsreader. I love the concept and it's gorgeous as well. Keep up the good work!
this is fantastic. maybe the price is not that competitive. But as long as you keep developing and listening to customer's feedback, the future is BRIGHT!
Nice to see problems being addressed so quickly.
There's an odd issue that I've experienced - I have a 17" high-res MacBook pro, that I sometimes use with a lower-res external screen. If Times is sized to fit the full height of the lower-res screen, sometimes the page curl animation fails and I can't click on it to go back to the main page - so I wind up having to click 'Return to page' on the menu.
There are also some rendering issues on the NYT feed (spurious characters).
This is all nitpicky stuff, though - Times has completely won me over (I've been a NetNewsWire user since the very early days, but I've just deleted it from my system. Can't see myself going back).
Wonderful stuff! It was your app that made me upgrade from Tiger to Leopard :)
A couple of thoughts though. It would be great if the page curl animation would be smoother (an option for higher-end macs perhaps) and the addition of a pages-flipping sound (optional).
I appreciate the time you have put into this application. It makes rss much more enjoyable. Keep up the good work!
Excellent job. I wrote a post on my blog summing up my first 48 hours. Keep up the great work. I would also note that for a version 1.0 product the stability is very respectful. Nobody, should expect perfect. Take your time in getting a great update out to sort out the small issues.
Good stuff, right now I can't use Times due to freezing but once 1.0.2 is out I'd like to give it a spin.
How's 1.0.2 coming? It's later today now. ;o)
Super app. btw. thanks.
I've been using this for about 48 hours since TUAW posted about it. Ironically I had been looking for something exactly like this while searching for an RSS reader for my Mac a few weeks ago. I ended up getting Newsfire, and all the frustrations of that program like its damn unread number in my dock and how plain it was made viewing RSS feeds so time consuming and boring. I kept seeing myself hitting "Mark all as Read" just so I wouldn't have to see such a high unread count in my dock.
This program is so perfect. This is what RSS readers were made for. I really hope you put some more work in on this and add more features with newer versions because its a complete winner in my book.
There's only a few issues I encountered while using your program.
One of them was if I have a feed selected(where the feed turns all blue) in that Add Feed view, and try to search for a feed, it only lets you type one letter and then brings you back to your selected feed which is really annoying and I couldn't figure out how to un-select the feed unless I close and re-open the Add Feed view.
Another thing is I wish I could set the number of articles that show up for certain feeds, but that's not too big a deal.
The last thing that bugs me about, and this is more a problem with RSS than your program, is that some RSS feeds are too simple where they only show the title of an article. Because your program is so beautiful, I hate seeing just titles of articles on it and when clicking on it, no information. I was thinking this could be easily remedied if you could add an option for each feed to load the entire page or something within the window or even better -- load just text or pictures(for comic sites) off the page into your program. It seems like you're already doing some parsing with the text from the RSS feed, so if there's any way you could load the page from the link on the RSS feed and then parse out all text and then display in the program, so many more of my feeds would be enjoyable. (And make this an option because you wouldn't want all feeds doing this).
One site I'd REALLY love to see this with is the Op-Ed section of the NYTimes. If you look at their RSS feed for that section now: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Opinion.xml it only gives you the title of the article and the first sentence. But when you click on the link from the RSS feed, the page you go to has basically all the text you need to be read and if you could find a way to parse maybe all text on a page and display it within the application, it could make viewing so many RSS feeds so much more enjoyable.
Other than that, great app!
uhm? Program shuts down when trying to delete pre-added pages/titles (sports, technology, etc...). am I the only one?
First off, this is a great product.
I've never been inclined to use an RSS client yet alone purchase one, but within a few days of using it, this was definitely a keeper. Google's personalised page was getting too crowded anyhow.
There are however a few things that would probably improve the experience somewhat. The first one being that I would really like different layout options for the pages, like having three columns for example.
Second is more control over the individual feeds, like the number of articles that show up (as mentioned above), and the order in which different feeds in a same section appear (which seems a bit random for me at the moment and apparently changes by itself).
But definitely an awesome start! Things like the shelf, page curl, delicious/facebook integration are great, and overall I'm really pleased I found this.
Hi,
Most innovative, and intuitive interface for a RSS newsreader in years. A French version would be nice.
Any chance we can go BACK to 1.0.1? The latest release crashes every time I refresh (I wish there was an "article highlight" if they are new or something. I hate when I switch over to the app after a couple hours and there are no updates (strange since Digg is one of the feeds) and I have to refresh and it crashes. Every time.
Yeah, I agree with Jay. Something in the 1.02 update is making this program really unusable. I'm getting a crash every 10-15 minutes now whenever I use it. I can't tell whats causing it, if its the refresh or just switching feeds, but it's been crashing non-stop since I updated and hadn't crashed once before.
Hope you're working on it, because I love getting my news on your app!
We're putting an update out tomorrow that should fix some of the crashes. In the meanwhile, can you send the crash reports to me? bugs@acrylicapps.com Thanks!
Love your program, RSS is very important to my business, and I had to buy your software.
BUT!
It is VERY HARD to see what articles are new, and what articles I have allready read.
In my RSS reader in Safari, the bookmark line says "you have (43) new articles.
When I look at all my bookmarks (RSS) it says "this feed has (4) new articles.
In Times I have to search all my categories and all articles to find a new one.
WHAT I WOULD LIKE:
A small bullet (like the "new" bullet on the dock icon) placed on the left or right side of the heading on all new articles....
Great app, well done!
This could become a killer app.
You should apply for the Apple design award.
I purchased it based on my initial use but am kind of regretting doing so thanks to the constant crashing and wiping of my user settings. I don't even know how to write a bug report for this stuff.
i had crazy graphics issues with the first release but endured and spent a couple hours building out all my pages. after updating to the latest version the content for all pages except for my first one was totally wiped out! :( all my feeds are still there, but i think i'll wait for a more stable version to get back in to using it...
Josh wrote: "After updating to the latest version the content for all pages except for my first one was totally wiped out!"
I spent four-and-a-half hours setting up pages with feeds--more than 400 of them. Soon after I finished, Times crashed and wiped out all the pages but the first one, too. I can't express how angry I am, because my expectations for using this program were BIG.
Releasing a buggy product creates anti-marketing for the software. It's better to beta test with a small group than release something that crashes frequently (as Times does) or wipes out customization (one of the major benefits).
There should be a way to backup that customization against accidental wipe outs or to move among computers. What good is the family license if the same pages can't be viewed in the same way on two or more Mac?
I would be happy enough for a solution that would bring back the customization. I want to glow about Times not diss it.
Yeah, I've still been getting crashes like others have been reporting. I sent you a few of the crash reports, and it just happened again while I'm typing this.
I haven't experienced losing feeds or pages I've set up, but the constant crashing is kind of annoying. It's an amazing program others though. I see myself using this all the time when its bug free, but I can't get myself to pay $30 now before all the bugs have been worked out.
Any chance on making the trial period a little longer or just making the App Beta for now until its a little more stable?
let me repeat what icebird said; crashes all the time, will use/buy when it works.
1.0.2 made it quite unstable. But now that 1.0.3 is out, it has not crashed once yet. Cool.
Had a problem adding feed://www.residentadvisor.net/xml/rss_news.xml cause Times wouldnt accept that feed. Any ideas why?
Like many others I feel, I would like to like Times and its innovative approach to RSS. As the app stands now, I have found two major issues that have kept me from adopting it straight away.
1 -Like Ljensolav said "it is VERY HARD to see what articles are new, and what articles I have already read". I have had to go back and forth to Vienna to figure out where I stood.
2 -In doing this with Vienna I also found out that Times seems to limit the number of new articles you receive. Although I don't quite understand the logic, 10 articles seems to be about the norm — in the meantime however, Vienna displays 19 new articles. Did I miss some thing there ? A news reading app surely isn't meant to do that ?
This is not harsh criticism since Times is obviously handled very responsively by its developer and early issues are a normal thing.
As I said : I want to like Times and I am sure I will eventually !
Ok, this app is too cool to not bite. But I'm still experiencing some sizable bugs.
I cannot seem to mark articles as read for one thing. And that's a showstopper for me.
I follow a lot of feeds. So far only NNW and Google Reader have been the only readers I can depend on to handle the numbers I follow. I really like the interface, but I've been wary of tossing my exported feeds list from NNW to Times-- past experiences with other readers have led me to expect an ugly mess.
Just downloded it and with 1 click I emedetly want some kind of safari plugin or a browserthat works like this.
Just think aBout it, and let me know. Yo
Great job and keep doing what you do "F"-ing young kids like this is the reason I have a Mac,,,,,one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us.
First of all... congratulations!
I tried Times and i bought it immediatly. So beautiful and cool.
But it crashes a lot.
And i don't understand how to mark read the articles?
Someone can help me?
Thank you again!
Cool program, but when I launch it my entire computer locks up for a good 20-30 minutes while the program loads. Maybe because it's trying to open all the rss feeds at once?
I'm having the same problem Ryan just brought up. (Mine only freezes everything for a couple of minutes though).
I think it has something to do with a major memory leak though because Toast eats up all my memory in less than a few seconds when I watch it in my activity monitor while launching.
It had 1.3 GB being used in less than 10 seconds. Then when I force quit the program and re-loaded, ALL my feeds except for my first page were gone. :(
And now it doesn't memory leak...
Ugh. Seriously, I think you need to make this program Beta or indefinitely extend the trial period. This is not a finished piece of software.
I had 3 of those crashes when all of my pages, except for the 1st one, are wiped out.
All feeds are marked as read whenever the app is closes (and, as it crashes constantly, that's really annoying), or whenever it checs for new articles.
Other than that, the app is great! Lovin' it.
I think my problem was due to coolhunting.com's feed. For some reason it stalls out the program. Maybe a problem with the way the feeds are being read?
Absolutely love the app, some work to do but the idea is brilliant.
I was wondering though, is there a possibility to rename the pages?
I actually have about 20 technology-related news feeds and it's just not pleasant to cram that on one page and it feels kinda stupid to go to the Sports tab to see the rest of your technology-related news.
Pros:
Love the idea. Love the UI. Love how the full article is pulled in (most of the time).
Cons:
Hate the constant crashes. Hate that my page layouts have been lost twice already. Redoing them is a pain and there is no way to save my layout. Exporting and importing only keeps track of feeds and not my page layouts. Locked up my computer once. Constant nagging ever hour to purchase during 14 day trial. Is that necessary? It's a trial, not nagware.
Final Verdict:
Would try again if crash and data loss and taking down my system is no longer a problem. Will not put money into an alpha software.
Harsh But true, I will look into buying this if MOST of the Bugs are fixed. $30 is a bit too much to pay for this app. It's beautiful and a great first start.
Wish List: add more category buttons
one or two more drop zones per category
NO CHARGE FOR FUTUER VERSIONS THAT
ARE NOT MAJOR CHANGES (you earn the
right to make money but don't be greedy,
thats where I jump ship)
No doubt this will be great, but admittedly this is still beta.
@daenney just right click on the page "tab" and hit rename.
now, with that last upgrade (1.0.4), I think you're actually getting there! Haven't had a crash since the upgrade and this time I could add a feed from about.com too. brilliant! :o)
yeah. The .4 release instantly felt better.
Works like butter on my 1st Gen Macbook 2.0 Ghz Core Duo with 2Gb RAM.
But its poley and buggy on my 2.1 Ghz G5 iMac with 1.5GB RAM (all Leopard updates installed). Really laggy interface, weird pauses, and frequent crashes. In particular, the program crashes (or sometimes hangs) every time I try delete a preset feed.
I love the layout and would pay for it in in a heartbeat if I could run it reliably and quickly on my G5.
Post a Comment
<< Home