Times: News reinvented

Do you like to keep in touch with current affairs via the medium of RSS. Are you sick of the boring, predominantly text based interfaces of most RSS readers. If the answer to these questions is yes, then you will definitely want to try Times; a unique RSS reader built exclusively for OS X.

Upon opening Times, you will be astounded by it’s phenomenal user interface. Different feeds are separated into their own individual sections. Each section displays headlines from it’s designated feed. It is easy to scroll through the headlines, and quickly select an article that you wish to read. Most feeds allow you to view the whole article within the application, however, as with all RSS readers, the application cannot display the whole article for certain feeds. In this instance, Times gives you the ability to view the feed website. Times also comes with a feature which allows users to save an article for later viewing. Users simply click and drag the article, causing a shelf to appear at the bottom of the window. The article is placed on the shelf, and can therefore be easily accessed at a late date.

The beauty of RSS feeds is that they enable the reader to access a wide variety of views and information. In most RSS readers, the wide variety of feeds can make the information appear cluttered, therefore making it harder for the reader to efficiently navigate the different feeds. To combat this issue, Times comes with a feature called Pages. There are different Pages for different categories of information. By default, Times comes with pages for world news, technology orientated news, scientific news, entertainment news, as well as a page for sports news. The use of Pages makes it effortlessly simple to navigate a plethora of feeds; across a wide variety of categories.

The Screenshot below shows the aforementioned features; including the use of Sections, the Shelf, and Pages.Personally, I believe that Times is a brilliant application. It truly is revoloutionary, and is unrivaled in it’s beautiful design and incredible efficiency of use. I would recommend it to anyone who has accesses RSS feeds on a regular basis. Times currently retails at $30; a price that is fully justifiable to anyone who uses the application.