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   Black Pixel Sketches Future of NetNewsWire

   Glenn Fleishman

   Many Macintosh eyes have been on Black Pixel since the announcement a
   few days ago by Google that it would shut down its Reader RSS news-feed
   viewer, aggregator, and synchronization service. Black Pixel is the
   current owner of NetNewsWire, the most popular Mac newsreading
   software, which relies on Google Reader for sync across Macs and iOS
   devices. Black Pixel [1]posted on its blog today that it had been
   steadily working on a new release of NNW for Mac and iOS already, and
   has plans to start its own sync service. (See also '[2]Thoughts
   Prompted by Google Reader's Demise,' 14 March 2013.)

   NNW was originally developed by Brent Simmons and released in 2002. He
   sold it to NewsGator in 2005, but essentially kept doing the same job,
   updating the software and expanding it to iOS. In 2008, NewsGator
   switched from a paid and 'lite' release to a single ad-supported free
   version; you could pay to remove ads. At Simmons's suggestion,
   NewsGator [3]sold NNW to Black Pixel in June 2011. The company has
   released compatibility upgrades since then.

   In the intervening time, Black Pixel chief Daniel Pasco writes, the
   company has overhauled the Mac version and rewritten the iPhone/iPod
   touch and iPad versions from scratch. Simmons, at the time of the sale
   to Black Pixel, [4]realized the amount of work he saw in front of him
   as a one-man shop to bring NNW up to date, and was happy to hand it off
   to a team.

   Pasco writes that Black Pixel knew it would need a Google Reader
   alternative ' since Google+ appeared and then sharing features were
   removed from Reader, it's been clear to observers that it's just been a
   matter of time until the service was shut down.

   Black Pixel originally pursued using iCloud and its Core Data support
   for syncing database updates. But, just as we've heard privately and
   read publicly from many developers who have tried to build syncing
   services on top of Apple's offering, iCloud ultimately disappointed.
   The cloud service has robust features, but the interfaces it exposes
   and its options don't seem to match up well with developers' needs.
   Black Pixel will build its own sync option, instead of using iCloud.

References

   1. http://blackpixel.com/blog/2013/03/the-return-of-netnewswire.html
   2. http://tidbits.com/article/13636
   3. http://blackpixel.com/blog/2011/06/black-pixel-acquires-netnewswire.html
   4. http://inessential.com/2011/06/03/netnewswire_acquired_by_black_pixel

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