My new native Mac RSS reader app just launched in the Mac App Store
Update: I've addressed almost ALL the feedback I received so far, and shipped a new version of the app for review in the App Store - expect it to go live in a few days. Thanks so much for the great feedback and feature requests!
Hey r/RSS! First, I acknowledge there are tons of RSS apps out there in the world that are perfectly fine. If you are triggered by a new RSS app, please go ahead and hit your browser's back button now or feel free to roast me in the comments.
I posted a few weeks back about my open source RSS Mac app and included the Github repo. It wasn't a signed app, and so there was a bit of install friction. I'm happy to announce that now, after a bit more polishing, the app is now live on the Mac App store, approved on the first upload to App Store Connect.
The app is called News App: RSS Reader & More. It's 100% completely free with zero in-app purchases or subscriptions. You can check it out here. A quick rundown of features:
- Feed types: RSS, JSON, Atom. GDELT and Polymarket feeds also supported.
- Views: a standard 3-column view, a newspaper-style card view and a TV view which shows the articles with a Ken Burns effect+QR code (if you wanted to display it on a TV/monitor for passive news intake or if you hate cable news like I do)
- News radio built-in - launching with 10 public radio stations integrated from NPR and CBC. Listen to the news while you browse your feeds
- Light and dark modes
- 10 themes with font/scale variations to choose from
- Zero cloud or AI functionality. All of the feed data is stored locally on your Mac. Feeds can be refreshed automatically at the cadence you specify, and you can store the data for up to one year
- Weather information conveniently integrated in the top toolbar (you can specify a city or use your location data)
FAQ:
Why did I build a new RSS app for Mac? Because I wanted to.
Don't some of these features exist in other RSS apps? Yes.
What problem are you trying to solve that other apps don't? Nothing in particular. This is my take on an RSS app, with my design sensibilities and built exactly as I wanted it. Product-market fit was not something I considered when building this. My hope is simply that others will enjoy it.
I'm sure there are some bugs as this is the V1, feel free to let me know if you find any issues or have a feature request. I'll be slowly developing this over time while juggling other projects.