NetNewsWire, one of the best Mac RSS readers has reached version 4.0 and before a full version is completed, a new ‘lite’ edition has been released on to the Mac App Store. Whilst it is limited in a number of respects, it has an improved and refined UI, is free and remains of the better RSS readers on the Mac.
The biggest limitation is that it doesn’t support syncing, that’ll be a big bummer for many of you, but it’s developer Brent Simmons says that will be coming soon in the full edition of NetNewsWire. The other limitations are the lack of starred items, AppleScript support and searching amongst other more minor ones. Simmons does provide users some comfort in saying “That it supports gestures. That you can edit feed names inline. That it launches and quits very fast.
If the process of how Simmons developed NetNewsWire Lite 4.0 intrigues you, have a look at his flickr set that documents just that – it really is interesting to get an insight into his though process as he progressed. Plus over at his blog he gives some more details on the new app, including those features that are lacking.
NetNewsWire Lite is at this stage is only on the Mac App Store, so you will need to be running Mac OS X 10.6.6 and the app also has a requirement of 64-bit processors.