Feed readers for OSX

It’s been a week since I bought my first Mac, and i’m starting to install software that I knew I could only manage a week without – the first of which is a feedreader.

I use Newsgator online and therefore have a paid FeedDemon install on my Dell laptop, as these synchronise. This means I can read stuff in FeedDemon when i’m at my desk and Newsgator when i’m not without having to read the same items twice over.

This presents an obvious choice for a Mac feedreader – NetNewsWire (Lite). This also synchronises with Newsgator and so will save me a lot of time and effort during the daily catch-up.

I feel though that as Newsgator brought in each component, they have done the bare minimum to integrate it into the brand. Neither of the application-based readers under the Newsgator umbrella do any more than synch with Newsgator. Surely it would make more sense to have them support the same features and synchronise settings (ie flagged items, watch lists) with Newsgator instead of simply synchronising subscriptions. One step further would be to bring the same look and feel to both feedreaders – if iTunes can look the same on both Windows and Mac, then FeedDemon and NetNewsWire can.

RSS is a technology that is begging to be jumped on by the uneducated masses – as shown by the inclusion of feed readers in IE7 – but Newsgator don’t seem to have spotted this potential yet.