Cyndicate is a great RSS reader application with nice interface. If you liked Pulp Fiction (app, not movie), you will like this app too. Personally I still prefer NewsFire as my main RSS reader but here you go:
The original version was created by Adam Betts, and another designer took over the icon design and ripped it off. I think the designer who took over the project should have avoided the same location of the RSS icon, at least.
The developers shouldn’t have showed Adam’s icon to the second desinger.
Update: Erik was a guy behind Freshly Squeezed Software, which is gone now. He comments on MacUpdate that PulpFiction customers will be able to get a discount, but he hasn’t set the price yet. This is a great marketing, isn’t it? How loyal is he to customers? How about past customers?
By the way, I’m not sure but you can still purchase Freshly Squeezed Software products? Try pressing Buy link. You can also read great comments by other users.
This app has been seriously outclassed by almost every competitor and isn’t worth any payment since it is not actively developed any more.
The developer does not reply ever, which is also true for their other main product, MailDrop.
This company is a rip-off.
Another:
No product support, meagre features and crash prone: they have no business asking people for money for this app.
One more:
the developer is slow to respond to comments, concerns, and bugs, and has a serious negative attitude when responding; the program is slow; it crashes more than it should; and it has been simply outclassed by other applications.
Update 2: Okay. I wasn’t aware of the fact that FSS was sold to another guy over two years ago. Thanks Erik for commenting.
Well, I had written a long description as to why the developer behind this software doesn’t deserve to make a cent off of this, but Joel deleted it because he didn’t like the label I applied to Erik (the developer). Basically, Erik’s the most arrogant, egotistical, [censored] I’ve ever had the misfortune to run in to. He did some pretty rude, nasty stuff and lied about it later on his blog (and banned me from comments). If you care to read what happened, go to [http://kevin.sb.org]. If you read the few snippets he talked about on his own blog, be warned that he has some lies there.
In a nutshell, Erik booted me off of the Beta team with no warning or reason (only way I knew I was kicked off was because I couldn’t log into the bug reporter to report the fact that PulpFiction leaked 91000 leaks (yes, 91 THOUSAND) for over 100MB of lost memory in the course of 2 days - a sure sign of shoddy development). When I contacted him later about it, he was extremely rude and refused to give me a single reason why he kicked me off, aside from, basically, “because”. He also wasted a full day of my time with PHP+MySQL programming for a PulpFiction v1.1 feature backend that he decided he no longer wanted (at the same time as he kicked me off the team) with, again, no reason given. And given that he obviously wants this v1.1 feature, he’s going to have to recode the thing himself (I had finished it when he told me he didn’t want it). He did more than just tell me he didn’t want it, but this is long enough already, so just go read the story at [http://kevin.sb.org].
Basically, Erik doesn’t deserve a cent of your money. Use PulpFiction Lite if you have to, but don’t pay for this.
Oh, and NetNewsWire 2.0 is much better anyway (still in beta tho). >(5/16/2004, Version: 1.0)
Nicely written.
Plus, Erik seems to have had a copyright issue in 2004 about use of CSS code. Two copyright issues in just 3 years. Coincidence?
Google is my friend. I got too many hits about him. But, what he has written to this blog and your short time surfing via Google for his name should give us a good impression about him. As he writes, “Essentially, Brad Miller (formerly of Freshly Squeezed Software) writes the code, and I do almost everything else.” (where “I” mean Erik, of course).
Stuff written about him and written by him on the net is awesome resources when you judge if you pay for his app(s) or not. I’m guessing “almost everything else” includes customer support. Can’t wait to see more comments on VersionTracker and MacUpdate coming.
To readers: Buy a copy of their products and let me know how you feel about the quality of the product and support.
Comments
Wrong
It would behoove you to get some facts in order before commenting on things about which you know very little.
The icon was always our idea - we simply asked Adam to implement it. Then, when we hired another icon designer, we gave him the same description.
Adam did not come up with any part of the icon on his own - we told him what colors we wanted, where we wanted the “feedicon” located, and even what direction we wanted the hat to point.
Erik,
I think you might want to be a little more careful with your comment, Erik.
Fact 1: You had no idea where to put the feed icon and left that part to me. Here is your exact comment in case you’ve forgotten:
“We’d still like the integration of that “feedicons.com” icon (which is fast becoming the standard icon), but I’m not sure how you’ll work that in.” Emphasis on that last sentence.
Fact 2: You’ve never told me what direction you wanted the hat to point. Nowhere in any emails/IM you’ve sent me mentioned that. The ONLY information you gave me is that you wanted a black fedora icon (which you claimed to be inspired by MacHeist’s website theme) with RSS icon somehow incorporated in the icon.
Ideas are dime a dozens, it’s all about how designer executed them. What you currently have is a blatant copy from original source without changes. Even Fernando Lins (your secondary icon designer) flat out admitted that he attempted to duplicate the original icon but couldn’t quite get the texture part right.
Give credit where it’s due, Erik.
Thanks
Thanks for comments, guys.
For the feed icon, I believe that Adam has the point. And, even if Erik had the original idea about location of the feed icon, the two icons (Adam’s icon and the second developer’s icon) are too similar.
Also, note that Adam released the abandoned icon to the public in his blog a while ago. If I were a developer, I would think the icon idea and design are owned by both Erik and Adam at that point. So, it would be desirable to make a totally different icon with the second developer. As Adam notes, ideas are important. Once Adam made the original icon, the icon is not a sole property of Erik’s company. Adam has some percentages to contribution.
As for the contracts, I have no idea because I’m not involved. But, I should say, the time constraints are the major matter to both of you. I truly hope that both of you learned what needs to be mentioned in contracts. People can’t say who is wrong without seeing the contract.
We Sold FSS Over Two Years Ago
First off, we have no obligation whatsoever to “be loyal” to customers that aren’t our customers. They have not been “our” customers for over two years, and many never were “our” customers. Don Yacktman bought Freshly Squeezed Software in April, 2005. Cyndicate was created from the ground up without benefit of any resources from PulpFiction.
Heck, the FSS site has been down for about a month now - I don’t think Don has paid his hosting fees or something. Pulling from reviews of PulpFiction from well after we sold the entire company to another individual is an odd tactic: what’s that got to do with us? Takaaki, it doesn’t appear as though you are aware that we’ve had no involvement in PulpFiction for over two years.
Despite the fact that we’re under no obligation, we are offering a discount for PulpFiction users. Says so right on Cyndicate’s page. Admittedly this took longer than it should have to decide, but the demo is 21 days long, so nobody’s been forced to purchase anything yet - it’s only day three. I don’t see NewsFire offering a competitive product upgrade, which is essentially what this is.
I will also say this: Don’s lack of action with PulpFiction is what led to us create Cyndicate to begin with - we don’t like any of the other RSS readers out there and PulpFiction was showing its age. But again, you do know we completely sold the company more than two years ago, right? It doesn’t seem that you do.
As for Adam’s recollection, it’s incorrect: we sent Adam the Google search for press hats and were absolutely clear that the feedicon should go where the “Press” ticket was - there’s no other logical place to put it given those images. I said as much in an email to Adam:
“Please adapt the “feed” icon to be a bit more “tucked under” like those press pass photos I sent you. It looks a little “stuck on” or artificial, currently.”
We could have given Adam a Google search for “fedora” but we narrowed it down to “press hat” because the images were more like what we envisioned for the project. The fedora idea itself came about from discussions I had with John Siracusa (and Gruber) after they learned the name of the icon. And finally, most of the hats displayed in the Google images search for “press hat” point left.
As I wrote on my blog, the entire name and icon idea is a mesh of good chemistry, and none of it was done by Adam: “press hat” is perfect for a “news reader,” the company name “Cynical Peak” ties into “syndicate” just fine, and “syndicate” not only refers to “syndicated content” but also “crime syndicates,” the members of which wore fedoras just like those worn by - to come back full circle - members of the press.
As for Adam’s bit of hearsay on the second designer, I doubt he “admitted” anything of the sort, and all he’s has said publicly is that he “did not succeed re-designing this icon.” I feel the improper impugning of a fellow designer is in incredibly poor taste.
Adam owns no part of the “idea” because the idea was not his, nor the name of the product. Adam initially knew the application as “Iris,” but both the name and the whole fedora idea were given to Adam before he began work on the project. Adam likely owns the pixels he created - which is why I don’t care if he wants to offer a “replacement” icon - but he doesn’t own the idea, no. Not in the least. Adam’s email of December 12 says “I like the fedora idea and I think it would look awesome in the dock.”
Go ahead and award your “points,” but you do so without seeming to be aware of many facts, including the big one: that FSS was sold over two years ago. I understand that you respect Adam, and we continue to respect his work as well. His work ethic, however, and lately his honesty leave a lot to be desired as far as we’re concerned.
KB
Takaaki, you’re really reaching now.
Kevin was removed from the beta team because we did not like his attitude. His assertion that he was kicked off the beta team because he found leaks is ridiculous - beta software has leaks and leaks are some of the last things you fix in a product. Kevin was incredibly upset to be removed from beta testing and retaliated in several ways, one of which you’ve quoted above… from over three years ago.
It’s become clear to me, Takaaki, that you couldn’t care less about understanding the facts and truth of any of these matters and are simply set to push a bunch of negativity into the world. That’s your choice - just as I shall choose to ignore it going forward.
Have a good day.
Its an Icon
I cant believe you guys are arguing over an icon.
Erik
Well, I’m quite surprised to find myself quoted here. Anyway, let me get a few facts straight, as apparently Erik didn’t carefully read what I said.
I never claimed I was kicked off for finding the leaks, I only mentioned that because that’s how I discovered that I was removed - trying to report that bug. And yes, leaks are relevant. There’s a big difference between tracking down and fixing small leaks at the end of the development cycle, and having your app leak over 100MB of memory in the course of normal use (and remember, kids, that 100MB was worth more a few years ago than it is now). Sure, it may have been a bit petty, but I mentioned it simply to point out that your code had some quality issues.
And yes, I was upset, but it wasn’t because I was kicked off. I was upset because of your behaviour. My blog still has the 2 posts about this whole mess, so I’m not going to reiterate it now. Also, I’m rather curious as to what “retaliation” I did besides post a complete and (AFAIK) accurate description of the events on my blog and the quoted summary on the MacUpdate page?
Also, I’m highly amused at your hypocrisy. You constantly talk about how nobody gets their facts straight and just try and smear your good name, and yet there are multiple documented cases of you personally lying about various things and suppressing others from revealing the truth.