Feeder 4.0
Feeder 4.0 is now available with a brand new look for macOS Big Sur, iCloud syncing and sharing, new episode previews for podcasts and improvements for podcast seasons, improved feed and item editors, and with this release Feeder is built for Apple silicon.
macOS Big Sur
Feeder 4 works on macOS 10.14 or later, but takes full advantage of the new features of macOS Big Sur, with a full-height sidebar, colour-coded icons in the sidebar, an inset item list, sectioned toolbar, collapsible search field, and new icons throughout the app.
iCloud and Sharing
Feeder can now store your feeds and settings in iCloud so that they are available on all your Macs. In addition, Feeder allows you to invite other Feeder users to collaborate on feeds via iCloud.
With iCloud, changes and saved and retrieved automatically. Feeder can optionally store unpublished enclosure files in iCloud temporarily to ensure they can always be accessed on all your Macs, and by anyone else who’s allowed to work on the feed.
Apple Podcasts
Feeder’s podcasting support was previously based on the iTunes Store. Now that iTunes has been replaced by the Podcasts app on all of Apple’s platforms, Feeder 4 shows podcasts as they will appear in that app: seasons, trailers and bonuses are grouped and listed in the correct order, and a new per-episode preview shows how each episode will look.
Artwork for podcast previews is now based entirely on what’s in the feed, rather than artwork in the media file, which is not used by Apple Podcasts, and Feeder now validates the format, dimensions, resolution and colorspace of artwork that you choose.
Main Window
Many Feeder users publish multiple feeds, and Feeder’s new sidebar can show site icons (aka favicons), and icons based on a podcast’s artwork, so that you can more easily identify feeds.
The Feed view now shows feed-level information as one continuous page, and no longer shows things that are not currently included in the feed or probably ever used by most people, but these can be added if required.
To help avoid confusion, Feeder now points out when standard RSS tags are overridden by Apple Podcasts tags (e.g. the image). These informational notes can be dismissed once read.
Editor & Preview
Feeder’s editor window now shows the fields and the description in one continuous scrolling view, which over-scrolls to allow blank space at the bottom of the window.
When full screen, Feeder’s editor will show adjustable margins on either side to help keep the view to a manageable width.
And when previewing items either in the editor or the main window, you can now switch between preview types where feeds can potentially be viewed in different ways. For example, a podcast can be previewed as it will appear in Apple’s Podcasts app, or as in a standard RSS reader.
And More
Search for items by date, just by typing a date, partial date, or day name into the search field. Use a calendar to choose dates in the editor. Click and hold on the Insert Image and Insert Link buttons to choose from a list of recent images or links. Syntax colouring for HTML and Markdown has been improved, and Feeder now provides more help to resolve validation errors.
This is the biggest update in the app’s 15-year history. Feeder 4 has been extensively reworked to work with iCloud and bring collaboration to the app for the first time, to update its support for Apple Podcasts now that it has fully replaced iTunes, and to bring the app bang up to date, ready for everything the future can throw at it.
See the release notes for a full list of changes.
Pricing & Upgrades
Feeder 4.0 is $39.99 and is available from Reinvented Software and the Mac App Store. Feeder 3 users can upgrade for $19.99 unless you purchased Feeder 3 in the last year, in which case it is a free upgrade. Upgrades are only available from Reinvented Software, not the Mac App Store. See the support page for more information about upgrading from Feeder 3.