About: Brent Simmons is the sole developer of one of the most successful desktop RSS readers on any platform, NetNewsWire. He is generally conceived as an easy-going, mild-tempered guy that has only friends in the Mac community. He also loves cats and spaghetti (who doesn't)! This is his interview:
NNW is one of the most used piece of software in the mac realm. How does that make you feel as an Apple geek?
It feels great! I've been using Apple computers for 27 years, since before there were Macs, and it feels like I've been able to give something back to the community. It's a wonderful feeling.
Where do you see RSS technology going in 1-2 years? Is it going to get even bigger? Right now it seems to have already change the way we consume news on the web - what's next, media?
Podcasting is already a big thing. We'll probably get more and more media via RSS.
I don't think there's any single huge thing that RSS is going to do in the next couple years. I think it's going to keep growing, though. You'll see more RSS in the enterprise, more websites providing branded readers and widgets, more relevance and searchability, more support (both reading and writing) in all kinds of software, connections with other formats, and lots of little surprises that people invent.
RSS is like a slow-moving form of ice-nine. It gets everywhere and changes everything it touches.
Are you on the camp of people that think that Apple is dropping the ball a lot lately? More and more anti-consumer choices make their appearance, like the ringtones and iPod games buy twice to use, iPhones' 2 years contract if we're lucky (we are looking at a 2008 launch in Greece) and so on. Do you think that the price of fame and very successful products will cost Apple's soul? I hear more and more complains from Apple's faithful lately (myself included).
Apple has to make deals with phone and music companies. Unfortunately, those companies are notoriously consumer-hostile. I believe Apple is doing the best it can, given the circumstances.
However, I do think Apple is making a mistake by not opening up iPhone and iPod Touch to developers. I hope they plan to do so. I understand that it takes a great deal of time and effort on their part to finalize APIs, write documentation, and so on, and I'm willing to be patient. I just wish I knew what Apple's plans are.
NNW 3.1 features some beautiful new icons for the toolbar. I didn't care much for the previous ones but I LOVE the look of the new ones. Do you hear a lot of complains about the look and feel of NetNewsWire or does addition of new features come first?
I get feedback of kinds, tons of it -- most of it has nothing to do with look and feel. However, there were a few people who didn't like the 3.0 toolbar icons. I was one of those people myself! So I was very happy when Bobby Andersen agreed to do new toolbar icons for 3.1.
I can't say that look and feel is more or less important than new features -- everything is taken on a case-by-case basis. (Well, in general, bug fixes comes first.)
On your beta release notes you state that pagination on Combined view is coming. I use combined view extensively, mainly on flickr feeds and I have to say that when there are a lot of unread news on a feed, combined view isn't much of use on a slow connection. Do you also plan to offer stylesheets for the combined view as you do for the other 2 views?
I think you'll find the Combined View is much, much faster with pagination. The slowdown happens when you have dozens or hundreds or thousands of items to display at once. Each item is like a small web page. It's kind of like opening hundreds of small web pages at once in Safari. Slow.
But the new version displays 20 items at a time, so it's fast. You still navigate the same way: space bar, arrow keys, and so on, and it handles automatically loading the next page as needed.
I don't plan to do stylesheets for the Combined View for 3.1, since there's less to style. The traditional view uses HTML to display the title, date, time, subject, and creator -- but the Combined View uses HTML just for the description. The title and so on are drawn via Cocoa, as in a regular table view. Thus, with so much less to style, it's not really worth having support for stylesheets. (I may change my mind, of course, for a release after 3.1 ships.)
NNW used to offer a "Lite" free version, without lots of bells and whistles that worked well for simple to moderate RSS viewing. You haven't upgraded Lite to 3.x versions yet. Is this coming or you won't offer a 3.x Lite version anytime soon?
I plan to release NetNewsWire Lite 3.1 at or around the same time NetNewsWire 3.1 is released.
Let's change gears for a while and talk about iPhone and iPod Touch. This is clearly a new platform - one that will far exceed the existing mac customer base. Yet Apple wants to offer a closed device at first, leaving their developers out of the party. There are apps like Apptap that offer the ability to bypass Apple and bring 3rd party apps to the mix. Have you thought of going that route -even just for fun- for a portable NNW or it doesn't even worth the effort?
It would be totally fun to do NetNewsWire for iPhone. Right now I'm using NewsGator's mobile reader for iPhone
Because I have a responsibility to NetNewsWire users to fix bugs and add features, I can't justify spending the time iPhone-hacking. There are only so many hours in the day. Alas.
Now, if Apple makes it so that developers can write for iPhone, then you can bet I'd get to work on NetNewsWire for iPhone as soon as possible.
Greece is a state member of the European Union yet it doesn't enjoy Apple''s full care. There are no Applestores or official Apple here and new devices like iPod touch and possibly iPhones don't support Greek language or Greek keyboard. Furthermore prices are even higher than in other European countries. Apple seems to care mostly for U.S. and select European markets stating with their actions that they don't care "for the rest of us". For a company that supposedly is "thinking different" this is clearly a poor choice, yet despite many vocal concerns by many Greek Apple users ( www.wewantapplegreece.com ), Apple still turns a deaf ear. How hard is it for a customer and a developer like you to work with a company that simply does not listen or care to respond to complains?
I wasn't aware of the issues you're having with Apple in Greece. I can't begin to speculate why they're treating you differently, and I'm sorry to hear about that.
Apple does sometimes respond to complaints. For instance, giving iPhone users a $100 store credit after dropping the price was not something Apple had to do. But they did it anyway, after many people complained.
As a developer, I don't really work with Apple as a monolithic entity -- I work with individual engineers and evangelists and support staff. My working relationship with these folks has always been great: I have no complaints.
The one big thing I wish Apple would do is open up the iPhone to Mac developers. We've supported the company through a bunch of transitions: 680x0 to PowerPC, Mac OS 7/8/9 to OS X, Macintosh Toolbox to Cocoa, PowerPC to Intel. We were working hard on Mac apps in the '90s, when it looked as if the company might not survive. And we're still here, and we'd like to work on iPhone apps.
As a heavy user of NNW I have a lot of feeds. In order to always have easy access to the most significant ones I have made an "essentials" folder. What's your "essential" feeds?
The feeds I care about the most are weblogs of fellow Mac developers. I also read I Can Has Cheezburger?, of course.
Is it true that the shareware market in macs is more healthy and suffer less from piracy than the Windows' one? I know that I buy a lot of shareware now that I use a mac, but I also think the general quality of mac shareware apps are better. What's your favorites sharewares?
Actually, these days I prefer "indie" as a term for the small developer teams and the software they create. It's all commercial software these days: there isn't really any such thing as shareware anymore.
I do think we're in a golden age of indie software. The quality and quantity is stunning. It's a wonderful time to be a Mac developer and a Mac user.
A list of my favorite apps is pretty long: Acorn, Adium, BBEdit, Camino, Coda, Colloquy, Comic Life, MarsEdit, OmniOutliner, OmniGraffle, QuickSilver, Radioshift, SpamSieve, SubEthaEdit, TextMate, Transmit, Twitterrific, VoodooPad.
Are there any plans for a new app on the horizon? Working constantly on an app must be boring sometimes.
No plans for something else.
Sure, some work is boring -- but that's no different than working on a new app. In some ways, working on a new app is more boring because you have to get all the boring stuff done first. With NetNewsWire, most of the boring stuff is already done, so I can concentrate on new and cool stuff.
And an offbeat question or two: What do you think of Greece? Have you ever been here?
I've never been to Greece, but I'd love to go. It's the birthplace of the intellectual and artistic tradition that I hold most dear. The home of Socrates is my home too -- it's the home of every westerner.
So you're a cat person. The majority of people are into dogs, so that makes the cat preference an "alternative choice". I see a Mac vs. Windows analogy here. Do you think that not being into "defaults" is a great way to live your life by? I tend to disagree with the majority of the mainstream ways and ideas. What's your stance in life?
I was raised by my parents to think for myself. That doesn't mean to be contrary all the time, but it does mean going with the alternative when I want to. The important thing is to think, and keep thinking, and then re-evaluate your thinking -- and ask yourself questions. I don't want ever to become rigid and set in my ways: it's important to be mentally nimble and open to changes of mind, and open to new -- and old! -- ideas.
That's all! Thanks for your time Brent!
Thank you!
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