Kiwi App Review: NZRSS

NZRSS

Hungry? Anyone for a feed? If you are looking for an RSS reader for your iPhone for local content then look no further than NZRSS by Totali Limited. Read on to find out more about the app and all the feeds you’ll get (for free).

Totali originally published an app called NZHerald but unfortunately it had to be removed from the App Store at the request of the NZ Herald. So not accepting defeat, Totali set about creating a new app for New Zealanders and this time it would include a whole load more.

The app itself is quite simple really: it’s an RSS reader. Upon opening the app you go into the settings menu where you can choose which feeds you want to see. There is an absolute plethora of feeds to choose from – thirty-seven in all from eleven different sources:

• Stuff.co.nz
• TVNZ.co.nz
• BayOfPlentyTimes.co.nz
• Consumer.org.nz
• Apple.co.nz
• Stuff.co.nz – Waikato Times
• Stuff.co.nz – Dominion Post
• iPhonewzealand.co.nz (That would be us)
• RadioNZ.co.nz
• Sony.co.nz
• NZBeats.co.nz

Once you have selected your chosen feeds you go back to the main page where your chosen ones are listed by source. Tapping on the source will then bring up the feed.

Come on tweet me!

When you go into the feed of your choice you can read it as per normal. There is also a ‘WWW’, to view the full story in webview, and a ‘Tweet It’ button to load twitter in web view to tweet the story.

I like the UI, it is smooth and easy to use. I like the fact that they have used webview for viewing the full story or submitting to Twitter, too many times people don’t code this and you end up going out of the app.

We like webview.... A lot!

One thing the app doesn’t do is cache any of the feeds, so if you are out of signal and don’t have wifi then you can’t catch up on any news you may have previously downloaded. It also means that every time you use the app you are using mobile data if you are out and about. I know the feeds aren’t huge in size but in a future update it would be good to see this feature added.

Sorry no caching here

I would also like the option of different colours to be added in a future update as the green can be a little heavy on the eyes (this is of course personal preference and shouldn’t affect you choosing this app to download).

Apparently there is an issue in the app with iPhoneOS 3.1.2 on the 3G (not 3GS) which may cause the app to crash. The developers know about this and they have submitted an update to Apple which should be live very soon. The update has dropped so go get it now.

All in all NZRSS is a great RSS reader built for New Zealanders. You can download the app from the link below (it’s free) and if you find a feed that is not there that you would like to be, you can contact Totali through Twitter @totalinz and see if they can add it.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.