Frequently Asked Questions

This page is still in progress, but we do have enough questions and answers to make it worth posting. We’ll be adding more.

If you can’t find an answer here, please post to one of the forums.

Questions (click on one to jump to the answer):

General (about all versions of NetNewsWire)

How do I get support?

We’ve set up Google Groups for NetNewsWire — one each for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

They’re here:

NetNewsWire for Mac
NetNewsWire for iPhone
NetNewsWire for iPad

Do you do support via Twitter?

It’s difficult to do support 140 characters at a time — there just isn’t enough room for the questions and answers.

We recommend using the Google Groups we’ve set up instead of Twitter for support.

What versions of NetNewsWire are there, and what are the differences?

Mac: one version

You can use the Mac version for free. If you do, an ad from the Deck network appears in the lower-left corner of the window.

If you’d like get to rid of the ad, you can buy a serial number for $14.95.

iPhone: two versions

There’s a free version that displays ads from the Deck network. It’s just called “NetNewsWire” on the App Store.

There’s a for-pay premium version that does not display ads from the Deck network. It’s called “NetNewsWire Premium” on the App Store.

iPad: one version

The iPad version is called “NetNewsWire for iPad” on the App Store. There is one version (no free version). It costs $9.99 as an introductory price. It will cost $14.99 starting June 8.

When will you add ________ (a feature that I want)?

It’s impossible to say for sure if and when, so we won’t make promises in advance.

But we get a lot of great feature requests all the time, and we have a very good idea of what people would like to see.

As always, as with everybody who writes software, we have to balance time and resources and we have to use our best judgment about when to do what. And we change our mind from time to time, as things come up and the world changes. Sometimes a feature gets bumped down in priority, sometimes bumped up.

Who owns NetNewsWire?

NewsGator Technologies, Inc. owns NetNewsWire.

Who writes NetNewsWire?

NetNewsWire is written by Brent Simmons. With the iPad version Brent had additional people working on NetNewsWire: Bradley Ellis of RogueSheep designed it, and Nick Harris of NewsGator helped write the code.

Brent began NetNewsWire in 2002, and has no plans of ever stopping. :)

NetNewsWire for Mac

Do clippings sync?

They don’t. However, flagged items sync. (They appear on Google Reader and on NetNewsWire for iPhone and iPad as starred items). And you can send articles to Instapaper, to Twitter via Twitterrific, delicious.com, and other places.

Can I sync authenticated feeds? Or private feeds from behind my firewall?

Google Reader doesn’t sync authenticated feeds, and it can’t read feeds it can’t reach (such as private feeds behind your firewall).

However, when you’re adding a feed, you can tell NetNewsWire not to sync it. There’s a checkbox in the subscribe sheet. (For authenticated feeds, it automatically decides not to sync. But for private feeds you should tell NetNewsWire not to sync those feeds.)

More to come… in progress…