NetNewsWire, one of the first RSS readers originally developed by Brent Simmons and later acquired by Black Pixel in 2011, has made a reappearance before Google Reader shuts down on July 1st.

NetNewsWire 4.0 is the result of nearly two years of work, modernizing an app which was introduced in 2002 and saw its last major update to 3.0 in 2007. Before Black Pixel acquired the popular news reader, a light version of NNW 4.0 was introduced to the Mac App Store, but it was significantly paired down in features compared to the original version.

NNW 4.0 is currently focused on the reading experience, syncing RSS feeds locally to a Mac and otherwise absent of any background syncing services. During the public beta, Black Pixel plans on continuing to build out their background syncing service, and will be revisiting the core design of their iOS apps to bring them up to date the new design language introduced in iOS 7. For those wanting to try NNW, you can import your RSS feeds from Google Reader by logging into the service from the app or through an OPML file.

The latest version of NNW is focused on discovery, sharing, and a distraction free reading experience that consolidates all of your favorite web articles in a single place. In NNW, you’ll be able to subscribe to popular feeds if you’re just starting out and need recommendations, bookmark your favorite articles, mark sites as your favorites, and have multiple articles open at the same time (useful for following an unfolding story).

NNW 4.0 will be available for $20 when it launches, but those who pre-order during the beta period can get it half off. You can download the public beta and read more about the latest changes on Black Pixel’s blog.

[via The Next Web]