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Winds 2.0: It’s Time to Revive RSS

getstream.io

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Re: Winds 2.0: It’s Time to Revive RSS

#161

Post by jxcl »

apocalyptic0n3 wrote: post #159
jxcl wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Opens in App Store, which gets stuck (as always) asking me for billing info. > - Rustle around for PayPal password. Why not just provide a .dmg? > - +4 minutes, finally get App Store working. Download. This seems to be more a complaint about your operating system than the app.

No, it's a complaint about the availability of the app itself. You're not forced to use the App Store and most freeware is offered both in and out of it. I gave Winds 2.0 a look last week and had the same experience. It took like 5 minutes just to get a download link and it takes me to the App Store where I have to sign-in (after signing in to LastPass and pulling out my phone for 2FA). Then I finally get it installe…

> You're not forced to use the App Store

Is this true if you're a developer? I've stayed away from macs because you need xcode to get any sort of dev tools and xcode is only available on the App store (at least this was the case the last time I tried to develop on a mac).

Re: Winds 2.0: It’s Time to Revive RSS

#162

Post by jordonwii »

wyclif wrote: post #157
_wmd wrote: post #154

(deleted useful feedback but ultimately neggy comment -- sorry, these guys are launching an app, I don't want to shit on that in a top comment where it's the reader's first experience).

I'd like to know why I should download and install this when I can use Feedly. Maybe it's uncool to like Feedly nowadays, but it does everything I want it to do. Before that I used Google Reader until it was retired.

> Maybe it's uncool to like Feedly nowadays

Argh, when did this happen? I've been a big Feedly fan since the death of G Reader.

Re: Winds 2.0: It’s Time to Revive RSS

#163

Post by apocalyptic0n3 »

jxcl wrote: post #161
apocalyptic0n3 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's a complaint about the availability of the app itself. You're not forced to use the App Store and most freeware is offered both in and out of it. I gave Winds 2.0 a look last week and had the same experience. It took like 5 minutes just to get a download link and it takes me to the App Store where I have to sign-in (after signing in to LastPass and pulling out my phone for 2FA). Then I finally get it installe…

> You're not forced to use the App Store Is this true if you're a developer? I've stayed away from macs because you need xcode to get any sort of dev tools and xcode is only available on the App store (at least this was the case the last time I tried to develop on a mac).

I meant for providing your apps to users. Apple's software is only available via the App Store, but you can put your app up for download anywhere you want. As an example, Slack can be downloaded from both their site or via the App Store. [1]

[1]: https://slack.com/downloads/osx

Re: Winds 2.0: It’s Time to Revive RSS

#164

Post by _wmd »

wyclif wrote: post #157
_wmd wrote: post #154

(deleted useful feedback but ultimately neggy comment -- sorry, these guys are launching an app, I don't want to shit on that in a top comment where it's the reader's first experience).

I'd like to know why I should download and install this when I can use Feedly. Maybe it's uncool to like Feedly nowadays, but it does everything I want it to do. Before that I used Google Reader until it was retired.

I hate Feedly's UI. Sorry

Re: Winds 2.0: It’s Time to Revive RSS

#165

Post by tschellenbach »

_wmd wrote: post #154

(deleted useful feedback but ultimately neggy comment -- sorry, these guys are launching an app, I don't want to shit on that in a top comment where it's the reader's first experience).

The DMG is available here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/winds-2.0-releases/releases/Winds-2...

We'll start to link this on the download page. Other users had the same experience. I like the idea of auto updates on the app store. But yeah...

Thanks for the feedback on the onboarding flow. We're changing that to make it optional. RSS parsing is done on the server to allow for future mobile releases.

There is no monetization planned for Winds. It started out as an example app for getstream.io and gradually became more popular, which is kinda cool. Again, we don't intend to make money on Winds. As long as it doesn't get too crazy we'll even keep on allowing free new signups on the hosted version.

Re: Winds 2.0: It’s Time to Revive RSS

#166

Post by spacemonkey92 »

_wmd wrote: post #164
wyclif wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to know why I should download and install this when I can use Feedly. Maybe it's uncool to like Feedly nowadays, but it does everything I want it to do. Before that I used Google Reader until it was retired.

I hate Feedly's UI. Sorry

I had the same opinion. So few months back I made an iOS app to read all my favourite sites in one place https://7web.co

Re: Winds 2.0: It’s Time to Revive RSS

#167

Post by jammi »

jeffbax wrote: post #74

I'm not sure what this non-native application is offering me over plenty of Mac (and presumably Linux & Windows) native versions using way less memory and having platform-native UI controls. RSS's challenge has never been apps, it's support from publishers to keep using open formats.

I'd also say a large part of its issue is lack of internal consistency of the format itself. Firstly there are the various official RSS versions, then there are all those Atom things and probably others as well, and then there's the thing about how you're supposed to render the things correctly. XML as the content format is also pretty much antiquated.

A modern format would no doubt have to be JSON- or YAML-based and have its human-readable content in plain text or markdown, so it'd have to be pretty much readable with a plain text http client, like curl.

So, just let RSS die the slow death it's been going through for good reasons and bring something consistent and straight-forward into its place. Something that you could easily generate and parse from any modern language without specific libraries.

Bringing RSS back is like trying to bring SOAP as a RPC system back; it just won't fly anymore no matter how much hot air you try to pump into it. We know better now and have better ways to do the things.

Re: Winds 2.0: It’s Time to Revive RSS

#168

Post by Groxx »

jxcl wrote: post #161
apocalyptic0n3 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's a complaint about the availability of the app itself. You're not forced to use the App Store and most freeware is offered both in and out of it. I gave Winds 2.0 a look last week and had the same experience. It took like 5 minutes just to get a download link and it takes me to the App Store where I have to sign-in (after signing in to LastPass and pulling out my phone for 2FA). Then I finally get it installe…

> You're not forced to use the App Store Is this true if you're a developer? I've stayed away from macs because you need xcode to get any sort of dev tools and xcode is only available on the App store (at least this was the case the last time I tried to develop on a mac).

XCode is through the app store AFAIK, but CLI tools are available without it, and have been so for at least a couple years now.

Also there are a few other IDEs that do their own thing, it's objective-c and that's a language with multiple implementations (though one overwhelmingly popular one, obv). E.g. AppCode has been around for a while: https://www.jetbrains.com/objc/

Re: Winds 2.0: It’s Time to Revive RSS

#169

Post by Groxx »

tschellenbach wrote: post #165
_wmd wrote: post #154

(deleted useful feedback but ultimately neggy comment -- sorry, these guys are launching an app, I don't want to shit on that in a top comment where it's the reader's first experience).

The DMG is available here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/winds-2.0-releases/releases/Winds-2... We'll start to link this on the download page. Other users had the same experience. I like the idea of auto updates on the app store. But yeah... Thanks for the feedback on the onboarding flow. We're changing that to make it optional. RSS parsing is done on the server to allow for future mobile releases. There is no monetizatio…

Yeah, I'd strongly recommend considering the app store as a high-complexity and high-cost alternate channel. Can be useful for exposure and trust, but the infinite company blog posts about the difficulties of dealing with it / the inflexibility on pricing structures / etc really haven't changed since it was introduced. And sandboxing / IPC limitations / etc get added with OS updates, and that causes a new round of breakages in any app doing anything even remotely non-standard (could be in a lib!).

An important alternate, but probably not a good idea to make it the sole channel.

Re: Winds 2.0: It’s Time to Revive RSS

#170

Post by roryisok »

jordonwii wrote: post #162
wyclif wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to know why I should download and install this when I can use Feedly. Maybe it's uncool to like Feedly nowadays, but it does everything I want it to do. Before that I used Google Reader until it was retired.

> Maybe it's uncool to like Feedly nowadays Argh, when did this happen? I've been a big Feedly fan since the death of G Reader.

Who cares? I like feedly because it filled the hole left by Google reader and it does what I need. I've never been cool.
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