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Slide Reader 1.1 is out. Get rid of those pesky ads!

Posted by Dinesh Lalvani on Dec 22, 2010 | 09:06:13 AM | Add a comment

Thanks to the great feedback from users, we have added an in-app purchase to remove the ad banners as well as added many new features to Slide Reader. We really appreciate your support and look forwarding to making the app even better over time.
- Enabled in-app purchase to remove ads
- Enabled iTunes file sharing for transferring custom themes
- Added total unread items badge on home screen application icon
- Added total count of unread items and starred in list view
- Added visual notification while syncing feeds
- Added setting to use your own bit.ly username and key for URL Shortening
- Added new gesture: Two finger tap to toggle fullscreen mode in article view
- Fixed mark all as read bug
- Fixed invalid count issue on the folder and feed
- Fixed Google sync related bug
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The big update is out! Now how do we protect our work?

Posted by Dinesh Lalvani on Oct 08, 2010 | 02:51:44 PM | 2 Comments

The biggest update to Slide Reader, featuring Google Reader Sync, is in the iTunes store today. We've also just released the first Android version of the app. It was all the great feedback from our customers that motivated us to put this one out as fast as we could. It's been a lot of long nights, but we hope this makes the application complete and increases our user base.

Since we released the app 8 weeks ago, we've had over 3,000+ legitimate downloads (thanks to you all!). But we've also been grappling with piracy, with over but 15,000 illegally pirated copies downloaded!

Developing apps is exciting, challenging and very gratifying. It is also very resource intensive. There is obviously a lot of demand for the product with so many pirated versions out there. That's a great signal to us that we're doing something right. But the challenge for us is how to we build a viable business if we cant protect even a small $4.99 payment? How can we continue to offer our customer great products if we aren't making even our cost back. It's not like we are adobe charging hundreds of dollars for an app. It's just 5 bucks. (Even beer is more expensive in most cities nowadays). It's great Apple and Google woo developers to build for their platforms, but we would have hoped they could offer a more secure channel for all this hard work to be monetized.

We're committed to what we do, but we sincerely hope that Apple and Google put better measures in place so that individual developers and also software companies can continue to invest in building great, innovative apps.
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7 Tips to Ensure a Speedier & Better Reading Experience on Slide Reader

Posted by Mani Karthik on Sep 18, 2010 | 01:14:56 PM | Add a comment

What is the one thing that you absolutely love about Slide Reader ? We asked this question to our beta testers and almost all of them unanimously said - the overall experience and speed !

Now, that was an interesting observation to us. We've ensured at every point of Slide Reader development that it should provide the user a never before reading experience on the iPad. iPad as we all know is a device that is so revolutionary in concept, that it took our reading habits & experiences to a whole new level. We wanted to make full use of the situation, and we believe we did for the most part.

However, we've had a few users complain about sluggishness while using the app. So we thought, a clarification would be nice, at this point. So here we are.

Slide Reader is basically built for ensuring a quick and effortless reading experience. But to make full use of it, you need to get the settings right. And most people are not really aware of what those optimized settings are.

Let's try and help.

1. Set the "Fetching Time" to a lesser number.
We've set a feature called as "Fetching Time" for New RSS feeds on the Slide Reader, which basically determines the time from which published data is picked up from the sites you're subscribed to. By default, this value is at "3 Months". Which means that when you subscribe to a feed for the first time, all the feeds will be checked for new items in the last three months and all the data since then is proactively synced before its read.
Although you can set the time limit up to 6 months, we recommend that for a better reading experience and a quicker loading time, you can set the time to a lower one, like 3 weeks, especially when you have a large number of feeds. This makes sure that only latest published articles less than 3 weeks are fetched during the start up, reducing your loading time significantly. Try it.

Go to Settings > General > Fetching > New Items, and select a shorter time perid than the current one.

2. Do you really want to Sync on start ?
"Sync on Start" is an option by which you can determine if the app should sync all your subscription feeds while you start it. While this option is a great way to always get updated feeds while you start the app, if you have lots of feeds subscribed to, this might significantly increase your initial load time.
An optimal way to use it is to turn it off during startup.

Go to Settings > General > Fetching > Sync on Start (Turn Off)

3.Turn off Images for Offline Reading.
If you have a large number of RSS feeds subscribed to, its a good idea to turn off the"Fetching images for offline reading" option. The reason ? The setting is used to decide if images should be cached locally for offline reading. So the app runs the offline caching in the background, when this option is On. Turn if off and it significantly increased the speed.

4. Cleaning Up Starred Items
This is a simple tweak but helps a lot. In your Settings > Clean Up part, there is a setting which lets you set the time for which you're recently starred items will remain. Unless you're the type who reads starred items after an year, it is safe to keep it to a lower number. By Default, the starred items will be saved for three months. You might want to turn it down for an optimized performance.

5. Cleaning Up Read Items
This is yet another setting on the Clean Up Tab that lets you decide how many of your saved items should be saved. The default setting saves your 3 Months of read items. Changing the settings to a lower time frame will ensure a faster performance for the app.

6. Cleaning Up Unread Items
Just like the Read items, you can also set the time for which your unread items will be saved locally. Turning the option to a lower time frame like 1 Week will significantly change the apps performance for the good.

7. Open Links in mobilizer mode
While you view the feeds in the internal browser, there are three ways by which you can view the feeds. 1 - Original Page, 2 - Instapaper Mobilizer and 3 - Google Mobilizer mode. Go to General > Settings > Reading > Open Links.
If you would set the option to either 2 or 3, the mobilizer options, then it saves a lot of data trying to load the original webpage.

So there you have it. Seven cool tips for ensuring a faster reading experience on Slide Reader. Try it out - it works !
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Top 5 RSS Feed Recommendations for the week ( Staff Pick )

Posted by Mani Karthik on Sep 09, 2010 | 08:33:33 PM | Add a comment

In our continued efforts to find the best RSS feeds out there, we're continuing with our series of "best RSS feeds" posts. This time we've picked the following five RSS feeds, that we think fit the bill perfectly. Check it out.

If you're a website owner and think your RSS feed is good enough to get featured here, do let us know.

1. 2 Movie Guys

A fun blog hosted by two guys speaking about movies, humor and everything in between.

2. Be Chic

An online magazine with original interviews & segments featuring prominent experts in fashion, beauty and entertainment.

3. LA-ist

A blog covering everything about LA with local news, events, food and entertainment, targeted at young urbanites.

4. The Red Neck Mommy

A humorous and insightful look at the joys of parenting, the delights of marriage and the heartbreak of losing a child.

5. Wannabe TV Chef

Chef Donald's trials with blogging in between culinary experiments.

You can find all these feeds and more interesting ones at Slide Reader FeedBase, do check it out and let us know your thoughts.
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Top 5 RSS Feeds of the week ( Staff Picks)

Posted by Mani Karthik on Aug 31, 2010 | 08:43:57 PM | Add a comment

Continuing with our series of "best RSS feeds", this time we have more websites featured, from a variety of categories. From News to Web and Anime to Biking..the varierty is diverse..just like the Slide Reader feedbase, where we feature more than 220 feeds under 35+ categories.

If you're a website owner and think your RSS feed is good enough to get featured here, do let us know.

1. Computer Graphics Society

All those mind bloggling computer graphics itself was enough to impress us. Notice how the RSS feed layout is organized beautifully.

2. Cartoon Brew

Weblog of animation historian Jerry Beck and Amid Amidi, broadly covering animation news, opinion and artistry.

3. Metropolis Mag

Metropolis examines contemporary life through design--architecture, interior design, product design, graphic design, crafts, planning, and preservation.

4. Winding Road

Winding Road covers the latest trends in Automobiles.

5. Bike Hugger

A beautiful blog dedicaed for biking enthusiasts.

You can find all these feeds and more interesting ones at Slide Reader FeedBase, do check it out and let us know your thoughts.
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