Though this weblog is about NetNewsWire, I still have to link to MarsEdit 3.

MarsEdit was born from NetNewsWire many years ago, and there are lots of people who use both MarsEdit and NetNewsWire.

But the main thing is: it’s awesome. Excellent update. A no-brainer for anyone who blogs. (And everybody should blog.)

NetNewsWire/Mac’s Post to Weblog command works with MarsEdit — it’s totally easy to be in NetNewsWire, decide you want to blog something, then have it open a new blog post in MarsEdit, ready for editing. Smooth.

NetNewsWire for iPad got 4.5 out of 5 stars in this Polish-language review.

The author wrote me to say the main criticism was that there’s no way to get to older, read articles. (Which I took as a feature request.)

I just got note that NetNewsWire for iPad 1.0.2 has been approved. If it’s not on the App Store yet, it should be there soon. (It may take a few hours to propagate.)

This release fixes a couple important bugs:

- A crashing bug that could happen when tapping next-unread or up/down arrows.

- The disappearing Feeds popover-opener button in portrait mode.

You should upgrade as soon as it’s available.

And, in the meantime, we’re back to work here in the lab.

Alex King: “There’s just one thing that bugs me about the iPhone/iPad version — there isn’t a ‘mark unread’ button. So I decided to do a little something about it.”

Clever and cool!

You might bet that we get this feature request a lot, and totally understand how it could be useful. And we don’t give out dates for future features (because we’d be guessing, and we’d be wrong). But, in the meantime, Alex’s thing looks pretty cool.

Seattle Xcoders: “With Fraser stuck in Scotland and not able to make it to Seattle, Brent Simmons and Brad Ellis have offered to fill in with their Keynote titled iPad UI Interactive Volcano Backup Plan Talk. The topic will be the design of NetNewsWire for iPad.”

April 22nd, 7 pm, downtown Seattle.

Also, for folks going to the Voices that Matter iPhone conference, the Xcoders site has posted a list of unofficial night-time social activities.

We’ve had a lot of folks ask us about extending the introductory price of $9.99 so that they get that deal when the 3G and international iPads ship.

Sounds fair. Done.

Since the international release is at the end of May, we’re extending the $9.99 price through June 7. The price will go to $14.99 on June 8.

(Side note — an update on 1.0.2. It was uploaded a couple days ago and is in review. As soon as it’s on the App Store we’ll post a note here.)

This photoset is about the design process — they’re mockups from the cutting room floor, as we explored different ideas.

We took the long way around to get to a Mail-like layout. In the end it was the right call, but it was also right of us to try a bunch of different things.

One of the things you may notice is that earlier mockups are almost always busier than what eventually shipped. A big part of the process was figuring out what to take out.

All mockups and pretty pixels are by Brad Ellis. The bad ideas are mine; the good ideas are his.

I took screen shots of NetNewsWire for iPad as I was working on it — and have posted them as a photoset on Flickr.

It’s important to know that this is not about the design process — this is about seeing what it’s like to start from scratch (or near-scratch) and build an app. It’s the production process.

I quit taking screenshots a week or two before we finished, so it doesn’t quite go all the way up to the end. But close enough, I think, to get the idea.

I just uploaded NetNewsWire for iPad 1.0.2 — hopefully it will get into review and on the App Store quickly. This version fixes the disappearing Feeds popover button and fixes a crash that could happen when tapping next-unread or the up/down buttons.

We have Twitter accounts for each of the three NetNewsWire versions — you may already be following one or more. (They’re listed in the sidebar of this weblog.)

You can also follow the accounts of the folks who work on NetNewsWire in various ways. Here they are:

@bradellis is Brad Ellis, who designed NetNewsWire for iPad.

@newsgatortechie and @jennyblumberg are Jenny Blumberg’s accounts. She works on this website, writes documentation, and supports NetNewsWire for iPad (and TapLynx, and will be supporting the other NetNewsWireses too, once I revise them).

@nick_harris is NetNewsWire/iPad’s second programmer. He’s responsible for coding lots of the animations (and a bunch of other stuff, but the animations are the funnest part).

@walkerfenton used to work on Pee-wee’s Playhouse when he was in college. We think that’s cool. It turns out he’s super-smart and stuff, and he’s in charge of media and data services, which NetNewsWire is part of. His collegiate experience has warped him — but in just the right ways.

@brentsimmons is me.