Finally, a way to enjoy reading your RSS feeds

These days, we all have way too much email to cope with. So when RSS readers make my news feeds look like emails, I find something else to do. That’s why Times impresses me so much. Thanks to its cleanly designed, gorgeous presentation and simple interface, it restores the pleasure of reading news in the way that only newspapers could previously provide.

Times feels like reading a really smart newspaper stocked with your favorite RSS feeds.

Times presents you with a slate of pages that you toggle between by clicking a toolbar at the top. Each page is divided into three sections, and the overall look mimics a newspaper’s front page. You can create as many pages as you like (we divided ours by genre--tech, news, games, sports, etc.), and when you add an RSS feed to a section of a page, the latest headlines populate the section you selected. Click a story you want to read, and the page curls down like you folded down a piece of paper, loading in the full story from the corresponding website. You can even see through the back of the page you just “turned,” a cleverly lifelike touch.

Reading RSS feeds in Times is a delight. Between the iconic, attractive presentation and the ability to set up your own sections of your “newspaper,” it makes RSS feeds both fun and useful to read again. And if you want to save something for later, you can call up a “shelf” where you can permanently save links to stories. You can also share them via email, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and Delicious.

Inevitably, there’s a catch to using Times: there’s no Google Reader integration or other sync mechanism--something to consider if you access news from multiple machines. We exported an OPML file from Reader, which worked fine (feed discovery also works--type in newsweek.com, and you’ll get their Top Stories feed).

But we had to sink some time into setting up the pages the way we wanted. We’d prefer more control over this process, but instead, within the three sections on a page, Times decides the order in which feeds appear on the basis of how often we read them and whether new stories were posted. Call us control freaks, but we’d rather decide which feeds go where on a page.

If you want reading RSS feeds to be both entertaining and informative again, Times is a terrific solution despite its minor missteps.

Times
COMPANY: Acrylic Software
CONTACT: www.acrylicapps.com
PRICE: $30
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.5 or later, internet connection
Terrific presentation, organization, and information density for reading RSS feeds.
No Google Reader integration. Needs better user customization of sections.