The future of PureRSS

26th January 2009

PureRSS has served us incredibly well as an initial forray into Android development and we have built up loyal band of users. Version 1.3 has just been released which clears up the last of the memory usage worries by tidying up the main database and shifting as much of the content storage as possible to the SD card, as well as adding a few new features.

At Pure Innovation we've been pondering the future of PureRSS as it is clear that there needs to be a major restructuring of the way the program works in order to incorporate some of the features that we'd like to see. We've also been considering ways to commercialise the application in as painless a way as possible so that we can continue to provide support and development time.

We have made the decision to end of line the PureRSS application, releasing only bug fixes in the future, with a view to creating a replacement app that marks a considerable upgrade to the facilities PureRSS can offer.

This as yet unnamed application (we're open to suggestions) will support folders and multiple data sources, from the usual RSS capabilities through facebook, twitter, discussion forums, polls and surveys. More data sources will be added over time.

We aim to make the application as customisable as possible, whilst taking full advantage of the SD card to minimise the impact on internal memory. There will be the much requested support of MP3 files, with video a possibility in the future.

We have also settled on the way in which we would like to commericalise the application, to fund its long term development and support. There will be two editions, one free the other available for a small fee. The only difference will be that the free edition will carry a single folder containing some compulsorary news feeds. This should be enough for us to generate some revenue without disrupting our users.

Finally we would like to make a product that genuinely reflects the needs of all our users. To accomplish this we'd like to welcome as many people as possible to feed back their ideas to us via email (android@pureinnovation.com) as well as the comments on this blog post. Once the application is released, hopefully in only a few weeks time, then there will be a permanent forum dedicated to collecting user feedback as well as regular polls for voting on development priorities.

Comments to “The future of PureRSS”

28th January 2009 0:10
jim says:
You guys did a great job with PureRSS. I just want you to be aware of a mistake other developers made: not being upfront with client/user-base. To transition to a commercial app, they released an update of the app, not identifying any bug fixes, etc. Upon loading the app after update, the user finds it is now a trial; the dev severely limited the capabilities & 'snuck' the limits in the program. He lost a significant number of users. Just be upfront.

That said, I'm into the decision to create two apps. You guys have been doing an awesome job with PureRSS, and if I could vote for you in some sort of "Best Dev" contest, I and a lot of other users definitely would.

Thanks for being a responsive & responsible dev. You efforts are very much appreciated.

28th January 2009 12:36
Chris Mellish says:
Thanks Jim, feedback is always welcome (as is the kind praise you've heaped upon us!)

I'd just like to assure you that we have no intentions of acting in such a manner, the switch will probably take the form of an update to PureRSS which pops up an initial alert stating that there is a new app, and a blog post. And that'll be about it. I fully expect some users will want to stick with PureRSS, and whilst we'll do all we can to make the replacement as attractive to users as we can it's not going to be for everyone.

9th August 2009 18:32
Tyler says:
Any news on a new product, still been using pureRSS for ages, it's awesome!

27th October 2009 21:20
Kiat Huang says:
Great app, I literally use it every day. I like the UI a lot and have felt zero need to go try a competing rss app.

It led me here (from my desktop rather than my G1/Android) as I'd wanted to find out the website for the pure innovation news rss feed as a reference for a family member who is very interested in seo (me not so much ;-)

If the free version is as good as PureRSS is currently, then I'll stay hooked!

-Kiat

Am surprised there are not more comments here which is surely not

25th January 2010 18:48
Strubbl says:
I'd like to mark some articles as favourites. If all the favourites would be displayed in a virtual folder it would be a great feature.

ps: and insert a new captcha here. or even a "get-a-new-captcha-button". i can read it, but everything i type in is wrong :( even after 10 tries :( it looks like 47216 or 47916 ... both doesn't work :(

26th January 2009

Comments to “The future of PureRSS”

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