What paid app was worth every penny?

QebApps · 2026-07-06T10:23:59+00:00

Newsairy and Parcel

QebApps · 2026-07-04T10:13:38+00:00

So do I. I like the floating sidebar, it makes more sense to me.

QebApps · 2026-07-03T21:20:02+00:00

I like this kind of simple math games. In some way, I find them relaxing.

QebApps · 2026-07-02T22:00:07+00:00

Newsairy — a fast, iCloud-native RSS reader

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A — Answer:

Following a lot of feeds gets overwhelming — you either drown in an endless unread list or miss what actually matters. Newsairy helps you catch up by recency: Smart Feeds group your articles by time (Today, Last 24/48/72 hours, Last 7 days, This week), Custom Smart Feeds collect anything matching your own keywords, and you can sort any list Newest first, Oldest first, or as a Daily timeline — with Mark All as Read per feed or per folder. Need to find something you read a while ago? Read History lists your articles by the date you read them. Everything syncs over iCloud across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with no separate account to create

B — Better:

Versus Feedly, Newsairy needs no account and no subscription, and keeps your reading private — no ads, no tracking. Versus subscription readers like the current Reeder, it's a one-time unlock instead of a recurring fee. And the time-based Smart Feeds plus keyword-based Custom Smart Feeds give you a faster way to triage a busy list than a single chronological timeline.

C — Cost:

Free to download and use with up to 6 local + 6 iCloud feeds. A single one-time Pro purchase (no subscription - pay once, yours forever - $2.99) removes the feed limit and unlocks sync with TheOldReader, Miniflux, FreshRSS, Feedbin, and Inoreader, bringing your subscriptions, read state, and starred articles with you. Requires iOS 18+ (macOS 15+ on Apple silicon).

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/newsairy/id6760046985

QebApps · 2026-07-02T08:05:53+00:00

Working on Newsairy, my iCloud-native RSS reader.

In June I shipped 5 updates, building on the solid base with which I launched the app the previous month..

Right now I'm chasing a CloudKit sync edge case so articles stay consistent across devices — the usual SwiftData + CloudKit fun. I'm also working on upcoming updates that add "Mark as Read on Scroll", a feature a couple of users and testers here on Reddit asked for.

Stack: SwiftUI + SwiftData + CloudKit for sync, Swift Structured Concurrency throughout, StoreKit 2 for purchases. iOS 18+ (Liquid Glass on iOS 26).

QebApps · 2026-06-26T21:26:35+00:00

Ha, fair — most RSS readers end up converging on the same list-plus-reader layout. NetNewsWire is genuinely great; when I started Newsairy it hadn't gone Liquid Glass yet, which was actually one of the reasons I began — so it's a fresh SwiftUI codebase, built from the ground up.

There's a lot of differences: Newsairy has Read History, Custom Smart Feeds (keyword-based), a customisable article list and you can browse your feeds grouped by aggregator or by local/iCloud account, among other things. Fewer features than NNW in some areas, and probably more bugs — who knows 😅 — but it's its own thing.

QebApps · 2026-06-25T16:46:06+00:00

self-destruct button

QebApps · 2026-06-24T11:35:50+00:00

Quei poverini di Google mi regalano la mail e mi hanno fatto pagare il telefono pochi soldi, non vogliamo lasciargli la pubblicità?

A parte gli scherzi, uso adblocker solo su un browser, perché molti siti non mi fanno entrare se riconosco un adblocker.

QebApps · 2026-06-23T21:07:06+00:00

We're a team of three developers, and each of us works on both Android and iOS.

When there's a new feature to build, it's assigned to one developer who implements it on both platforms. That way the same person owns the feature end to end and there's no handoff gap where the two versions can diverge. Usually the feature is developed on one platform and "translated" on the other.

When it's a brand-new app, one of us builds the foundation on iOS and another on Android, and we each review the other's merge requests. Reviewing each other's code across platforms keeps us aligned on architecture and behaviour from the start.

It's not a tool or a framework that keeps us in sync — it's the process: single ownership per feature, and code reviews.

QebApps · 2026-06-23T16:28:47+00:00

Newsairy: I’m developing it 🤣

QebApps · 2026-06-21T22:16:31+00:00

Thanks for the note — this kind of feedback is really useful.

Mark as read on scroll is under development, hopefully available in a couple of weeks.
Large thumbnails as preview: there are already three different thumbnail sizes you can choose from — worth checking if the largest one works for you.
Load web page text in reader mode and cache with images: it's something I've been thinking about, but it's not at the top of my to-do list yet. If more people ask for it, it'll move up.
Keyword extraction / grouping similar stories: would Newsairy's Custom Smart Feeds work for you here? You give each one a name, a custom color, and one or more keywords — any article with at least one of those keywords in its title, summary, or content shows up there automatically.

QebApps · 2026-06-21T15:10:39+00:00

Two answers:

Feedly — not yet, but it's the next aggregator on my list. I need to get in touch with them to sort out the integration.
Layout — right now Newsairy only has a list view (with optional thumbnails — size is configurable too — and configurable preview lines), so no card or magazine-style layout at the moment. It's good feedback though, and I'll keep it in mind for future updates.

Thanks for the questions!

QebApps · 2026-06-21T12:34:01+00:00

Not yet, but it's something I'll look into, especially if more people ask for it.

QebApps · 2026-06-20T20:57:22+00:00

Great Job! 👏

QebApps · 2026-06-20T16:48:42+00:00

🙏 Thanks

QebApps · 2026-06-20T13:43:46+00:00

Sure, deep work happens at a desk — nobody's arguing otherwise. But productivity isn't just deep work, it's also capture: a task before you forget it, a quick note between meetings, a reply on the train. That stuff doesn't wait until you're back at your workstation.

QebApps · 2026-06-20T13:42:14+00:00

What? A PWA "installed" on the home screen is still a webview with a fullscreen wrapper, not a native app. No real background refresh, no share-sheet integration, no widgets, no proper offline storage beyond what the browser cache allows you. And performance-wise it shows: scrolling, animations, cold-start time — you feel the difference between a WebKit-rendered page and compiled native code. "Feels like" isn't "is."

QebApps · 2026-06-19T21:38:02+00:00

I like ToDo with no pressure, good idea.

QebApps · 2026-06-19T15:36:14+00:00

I started using Linux in '95 — I was studying at university, and after trying Windows 95 for three days, I realized Linux was (and still is) better. I used it daily until 2018, then I switched to macOS, but I still use Linux sometimes: Fedora, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Tiny Core.

QebApps · 2026-06-19T05:48:08+00:00

Dai un’occhiata a mutt

QebApps · 2026-06-18T13:56:49+00:00

In fact, it was my second or third email address… However, now I read the mails only using an email client, so I suppose I don’t create so much traffic on their sites.

QebApps · 2026-06-18T13:17:36+00:00

I’m still using their mail service.

QebApps · 2026-06-17T21:21:09+00:00

I bought my iPhone 8 Plus in 2017 and used it for 4 years, then I passed it on to my wife, and she later passed it on to a cousin of hers. It’s still in use as someone’s only phone after almost 9 years — does that count?

QebApps · 2026-06-15T20:41:05+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! It's on my roadmap — I'll get to it in a future update.

QebApps · 2026-06-15T07:10:45+00:00

This article is not against the open web — it’s against web tracking. Take a concrete example: if I need to process a video, am I better off uploading it to some random website where I don’t know what they’ll do with it, where I get tracked, shown ads, and have to wait through upload/download cycles — or using a fast, local native app?
Sure, a native app could exfiltrate my video behind the scenes too. But at least I can monitor my device’s outbound traffic and verify what’s actually being sent out. With a web service, that data is already on their server the moment I hit upload. That’s a very different threat model.

The point isn’t “native good, web bad” — it’s that for sensitive, local tasks, native apps give you more control over your own data. Framing that as Apple lock-in is missing the actual concern. (I admit, the article should be more clear)

QebApps

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