Tag Archives: mobilerss

MobileRSS: Feature Request

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As I’ve stated a couple times, I use MobileRSS for my {en:Google Reader} client on the iPhone.

One of the features I like is the ability to add a page to Read it Later. However, to do this I have to open the page before I can mark it to read later.

This doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re on the train and signal is tweak, it can take up much of the journey opening the page. And if I’m reading a good post with lots of interesting links out (Nat Torkinson’s Four Short Links series is an excellent example) then I can kiss goodbye to that journey. Not only that, but it interrupts your flow of reading the article.

What would be much better is to have the option of pressing and holding a link, and along with the option to ‘Open’ and ‘Copy’, you could also have the option to ‘Read it Later’. It should be a simple feature to add, but a very useful one at that.

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Recommended iPhone Apps

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Image representing iPhone as depicted in Crunc...
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I’ve just added a new page called Recommended iPhone Apps. Like the Recommended Podcasts page, I aim to try and keep it up to date.

To save you the click, I’ve included the page’s content here:

HippoRemote

HippoRemote is an excellent app that allows you to control either your Windows, Mac or Linux PC with your iPhone. These apps are quite common already, but HippoRemote offers a couple features that make it more useful than most.

First off, it has profiles. Profiles are screen layouts created especially for certain apps. So the {en:XBMC} profile has buttons specifically created with XBMC in mind (eg. play, pause, volume, OSD etc) and the {en:Firefox} profile has buttons specifically created with Firefox in mind (eg. New Tab, Search, Find, New URL etc). This essentially creates a keyboard that adapts to the app you’re using. This works well on the small screen of the iPhone, but I’d imagine it would work really well with an iPad.

The other feature I like is that when you switch profiles, it also switches the app on-screen. So I can easily switch between {en:Boxee} and XBMC with a couple taps.

It’s not quite as convenient as actually having a mouse and keyboard (especially on an iPhone 3G where it takes a while to open) but if you already own an {en:iphone_os|iOS} device it’s considerably cheaper and in some ways is better than a physical keyboard and mouse.

I use to it control the media PCs in the house. Both were created on a near enough £0 budget, so this £2.99 app was ideal.

MobileRSS

More than anything else, I use my iPhone to read my {en:Google Reader} RSS feeds. So trust me when I say I’ve tried a fair few. And of all those I’ve tried, MobileRSS is my personal favourite.

There are two things in particular that I like about MobileRSS:

  1. Compared to others (with the exception of the buggy Byline), it syncs with Google Reader very quickly (ie. the content is there to read within a minute). When you’ve only got a 10 minute train ride to read your feeds, you don’t want to be waiting 3-5 minutes for it sync and download the content you want to read.
  2. It’s got all the methods of sharing I need. And by that, I mean that I can easily share an article on Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader and via Email. I can also easily add the article to Read it Later.

I appreciate most RSS apps on the iPhone can do number 2, although the last time I checked only MobileRSS and Byline can sync so quickly as well.

TuneIn Radio

TuneIn Radio allows me to listen to {en:BBC 6 Music} when I’m out and about. As well as 6 Music, it has tons of other radio stations.

Read It Later

Read It Later is a bookmarking service for articles you don’t have time to read, but you would like to read later. A similar service is {en:InstaPaper}.

Using a combination of bookmarklets (in {en:Google Chrome}, {en:MobileSafari}), a Firefox add-on and iPhone apps (eg. MobileRSS, Twitter for iPhone) whenever I see an article I’d like to read later, I can add it to Read It Later. I can then view that article at a later time using either the Read It Later iPhone app, or a web browser.

One of the things I like about Read It Later is that it tracks how far into the article you are. So if I get halfway through an article in {en:Firefox}, when I come to read it on my iPhone I can continue from where I left off.

National Rail

National Rail is a well designed app that among other things, allows me to see the status of my train. I especially like the ‘Next Train Home’ function when I’m out in Taunton for a drink after work.

Foursquare

Foursquare is a location-based social networking site. When you visit a location, you open up Foursquare and ‘check-in’. It then notes your location and assuming you have friends on Foursquare, they can see where you are.

I don’t use the social aspects of this app (solely down to the fact I have no friends on there. Bridgwater, Som, UK isn’t exactly “Silicon Valley”, CA, USA), but I do use it just to keep a record of where I’ve been. I don’t know why, but I like having a record of things I’ve done. That’s why I use last.fm.

On a recent trip to London I made a point of checking in everywhere I went. I now have a reference of what I did in London. This might prove useful next time I’m up there and want to go into the same restaurant as last time.

I only use it for irregular places I visit though. So for example I don’t ‘check-in’ to work every day.

IMDB

If I don’t end up using IMDB whilst watching a film (“where have I seen that actor before?!”), I certainly use it at the end in order to view the film’s trivia. Now I get to do it on the sofa, straight away.

iReddit

Reddit’s Official iPhone App to view Reddit. A way for me to get a fix of geek content when I’m done with RSS and Twitter.

Hacker News

An unofficial Hacker News iPhone app to view Hacker News. A way for me to get a fix of geek content when I’m done with RSS, Twitter and Reddit.

To tell you the truth, I don’t know which Hacker News app I downloaded. There are several out there. The fact it’s simply called Hacker News on the iPhone homescreen doesn’t help much either.

Football SC

Football SC offers up football scores provided by Sky Sports. Badly designed, but I get to view the scores at least.

Shazam

Let Shazam hear a track, and it tells you what it is. Sounds gimmicky but I use it a surprisingly often.

Amazon UK

The Amazon iPhone app provides a nice interface to make those impulse purchases on Amazon.

XBMC

XBMC Remote acts as a remote control for {en:XBMC}. Much like the Apple app Remote, which allows you to view and select from your iTunes Media Library on your iPhone and have it play on your PC, this does the same with XBMC. I find it to be an excellent way to choose and listen to music in the living room. It also has a remote profile similar to HippoRemote, allowing me to navigate the on-screen menu systems using my iPhone.

London Tube

I don’t get to use this London Tube app much, but when I do I find it very useful.

The general routine is as follows:

  1. We’re up London and decide we want to go somewhere.
  2. We find out where that ‘somewhere’ is using Google Maps for iPhone.
  3. Once we’ve found it, we find the nearest Tube station to it using the map and also the nearest tube station to us.
  4. Using this app (London Tube) I enter those two stations and it gives us the best route to get there.

I think it’s possible to leave out the Google Maps step if you purchase an add-on. I’ve not looked into that though.

FindMeTV

FindMeTV is an app for TV listings. Other than to view listings without brining up the TV’s on-screen display (and so avoiding annoying the wife), it’s also useful for instructing our {en:sky_plus|Sky+} box to record a show whilst we’re out of the house – or if I’m feeling really lazy, just upstairs. Being able to record a show when you think of doing it rather than waiting until you get home and forget to do it is a great benefit.

The fact you can keyword search listings is also a great advantage over the TV’s on-screen guide.

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SafariMobile, Reloading and Google Reader

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The increase in RAM from 256 to 512 MB is, no surprise, welcome. More web pages remain in memory in MobileSafari, and more apps remain resident in memory for fast app switching.

via Daring Fireball: 4.

A pet hate of mine regarding the iPhone is that when you open a new tab in {en:MobileSafari}, if you then go back to view the previously loaded tab (ie. the one you were on) it often reloads the content.

This is a particular pain when you’re using {en:Google Reader} via MobileSafari. You go to view the web site of the RSS article and when you return to Reader you have to wait for the page to reload before finding and viewing the next article. This isn’t so bad on WiFi, but when you have a poor connection on a train, it can take up the remainder of the train journey loading the content.

To get around this I started using dedicated Google Reader applications (My current fav being MobileRSS). When it syncs, it affectively stores your articles offline so when you go to view them with a bad signal, it doesn’t make much difference (unless it’s a partial feed – in which case you go online to view the whole article).

Now I always assumed that the reloading of a web page when you return to a tab was a feature. You know, Apple trying to do you a favour by making sure you have the latest version of the page. It’s the sort of thing I’d expect from Microsoft, but not Apple. And so the quote above by John Gruber from his comprehensive iPhone 4 review makes much more sense: The page gets reloaded because there isn’t enough memory to store the old version.