Some Bad News (and Some Good News): Version 1.2

Version 1.2 of the iPhone app was likely (if reviewed and approved) to hit the app store this weekend.  However, of course, at the last possible moment I stumbled upon a bug that I was not comfortable with being released.

Therefore I just replaced the update which means another week of waiting.

Now the good news.  Here is what you’ll find in version 1.2 that makes it worth the wait:

Download Speeds are Now 2x-10x Faster

The speed of downloading articles is probably getting very close to the speed limit of the device.   Text downloads are about 10x faster and depending on the content, full web view downloads are 2x-10x faster.

text-newNew Text View

I invested a lot of time rewriting a new text stripping script and it’s 9540804303 times better.  In addition to it doing a better job at finding the text on a webpage, I’ve given it two different renders: ‘Less’ and ‘More’. ‘Less’ will show you just the article text and ‘More’ will show you other page elements like comments.  Between these two views I have not found a site in my testing that did not work in text view.

Better Web View Compatibility

The new offline download engine handles the full web view much better as well.  You’ll find that pretty much every website should look exactly the way it does in the online version.

Auto Updating Titles

If you use apps like Twittelator Pro or Feeds that allow you to save links to your reading list, you would have noticed it shows up as just a link in list.  Now, in version 1.2, during syncing, RIL will fetch the real titles from the links and replace them.

What’s Coming After 1.2

I’m currently working on a major re-haul of the app.  A new interface and several big features will be landing in versions 1.3 and 1.4.   (For example, you may have heard me mention multi-page support coming in 1.2, I’m holding off on that to include it with the new interface, which better supports it).

After the app is at a solid place, I’ll be going back to the Firefox extension and online interface to bring those back up to speed.  Oh and maybe this: http://twitter.com/IdeaShower/status/1730963180 🙂

Thanks for all of your support these last few weeks.  There is a lot to do and RIL is going to continue to evolve at a rapid pace.