Stinsonddog’s Blackberry RSS Reader Page
This is an interesting comparison of two products, FreeNews and Newsclip. They both do something Really Simple and right now Newsclip is the leader.
The Basics
Newsclip is the more polished of the two using the Blackberry application program interface’s so that for example, you can send a story to someone in your Blackberry address book. The interface is clean with a list view of My Web Feeds on the front screen and Special Views below. See the screenshots below. The Special Views includes All Items, All Read Items, All Saved Items and All Unread items. For each feed there is a count of the number of stories, unread. Unread items are in bold. The font in Newsclip is more appealing to me and the font of opened stories has been improved but may be too thin for some eyes. You have a variety of options with the program including putting it in background mode, rendering rich content and showing images. You can also set it to automatically update the articles. Newsclip allows you to update a single feed or all feeds which can save bandwith. Newsclip also gives you two additional features - package tracking and integration with Salesforce.com accounts.
FreeNews is very similar, but you can sort your feeds into Categories and Subcategories. You can change the font to small, medium and large, but again I don’t like the font. I feel really strongly that both these programs should allow the user to adjust the font size and boldness. You can change the look of FreeNews with a few different color themes.
Full Stories
With the Newsclip update, both of these applications are now self contained, allowing the downloading of stories into the application itself. Both currently download summaries of stories, and then you have to ask for the full story. I liked the shortcut for FreeNews (enter key) to get the full story. You know how I don’t like that trackwheel. However, FreeNews did have one significant shortcoming as of today in that it only downloads one page of a story, so if the story is more than one, like many NYT stories, you don’t get the second page. This will be fixed in the next version when you can open a story in a browser. Hopefully the user will be given a choice. Newsclip allows the user to choose whether to link to a story or download the entire story. Newsclip doesn't appear to have the issue with multiple page stories.
Updating and
Navigating
FreeNews only lets you update all feeds which can cost some people bandwith. In terms of navigation, you can use the 2 and the 8 to move up or down a line and the 3 or 9 to move up or down a story on the 71XX models. On the full keyboard models you need to hold down the Alt key. Neither of these applications provides a useful owners manual but buried in the support forum on Newsclip are directions for handheld navigation.
Because Newsclip does use the API's the navigation was smooth and effective. When I used the N key in the article list screen, it moved the article list to the next news channel. On minor glitch is that if the Today line is highlighted you don't know what news channel you are in. Normally the channel is at a banner at the bottom of the screen, and it appears there if the cursor is on a article name. But when using the navigation keys, the cursor would go to the Today heading, and if I had the cursor there, the name of the feed would not appear (see e.g. BBHub as in the screenshots below). In the article view screen, this worked 100%. You could quickly review articles using the N, P, and U screens. Hit F at any time to forward the article via email to someone in your address book.
Adding Feeds
Both programs allow you to configure your feeds for your account on the web where you can copy and paste RSS URL’s and search for feeds. Newsclip calls their page MyNewsclip, and within My Newsclip, there is support for My Yahoo and Bloglines accounts, as well as any OPML file you wish to import into your Newsclip. Simply click on either My Yahoo or Bloglines, enter your username and password for that account, and then click OK. You’re My Yahoo or Bloglines account will then sync with your Newsclip. Importing an OPML file is just as easy. If you can't find an RSS feed on a topic you like you can use the new search feature in Newsclip. Within the main menu on the BB, you can search news and information from Google, Yahoo, or MSN. Simply enter your search item and choose your search engine. The results will come back to you in the form of a web feed. On the BB, in Newsclip, you can add them from a predefined list provided by Newsclip or by typing a URL into your Blackberry. FreeNews also allows you to add a feed by entering a search term. For example, you can make feed called “Enron” or “Lance Armstrong.”
Cost
FreeNews costs $20 per year and Newsclip costs 24.00 per year.
Alternatives Not Reviewed
Picconews - Free
Berryvine - $6.50 one time
Berry Bloglines - to use feeds you have already set up on Bloglines.com. Free.
Summary
Newsclip's update makes them the
hands down leader right now. FreeNews could use a cleaner interface and a tie into the
BB API’s. They need to
provide for images and make sure that all the pages of the stories are
downloaded. It’s not much fun
to read only ½ an article.
According to them, these will be here soon. Both
should allow adjustment of the font boldness and size. The current font is way
too skinny.
Screenshots
Newsclip
FreeNews
