I adore NetNewsWire. It’s the app that is always open when I am front of my Macs. It is rock solid, never crashes and barely sips resources. I do a majority of my reading and news discovery through it.
But my NNW feeds tend to be text- and subject-heavy, not really suitable for reading on smaller screens or on the go. Which is why I never really installed the iOS version until a few weeks ago, when I decided to cut down on my Twitter usage even more. I added a few “light” feeds – fast moving, artsy, with lots of pictures. A sort of experiment in recreating the Twitter experience. So far, it’s been a great success.
But it always kept nagging me that my macOS and iOS NNW didn’t speak to each other through iCloud (Yes, I am aware of sync services, but I can’t afford another subscription). So I was over the moon when Brent Simmons announced that version 6 on the Mac would ship with iCloud syncing and that the iOS version would soon follow.
My “one true reader to rule them all” setup is coming true.
In anticipation of all this, I spent time reorganising my feeds today. First, I added all the feeds on the iPhone to the “On My Mac” account on the MacBook. Then split them into three “density” folders – Light, Medium and Heavy. Each corresponding to the weight of the content and how much attention it will require of me to read. Then I created an iCloud account and moved all the folders and feeds there.
For now, there are duplicate feeds on the phone and laptop, but this will temporary. When I iOS version ships, I’ll just delete local ones and synch the iCloud account.
When everything is synched eventually, I will still mostly only read feeds in the Light folder, but there’s enough flexibility for me read the longer ones in case mood strikes and I am not anywhere near a laptop. And vice-versa when I want to just read something fun on the laptop.