NetNewsWire 2020: Roadmap Schmoadmap

We don’t have a detailed, plotted-out roadmap. Who does? Software is fluid, and software schedules are hot air.

But there are things that seem most likely for 2020. Consider this all as an educated guess, not as a promise.

NetNewsWire 5.0 for iOS: Q1 2020

We hope to be able to ship this in the first quarter. There’s no guarantee, but — given that it’s now in public TestFlight — it’s looking close to being finished.

NetNewsWire 5.0.4 for Mac: Q1 2020

This will be a bug-fix release, and it will be the last release that will run on macOS 10.14 (Mojave). The most important part of this release will be database clean-ups — it will be much better about pruning the database of old stuff.

It will also improve performance and reduce memory use.

But, given that we’re concentrating on the iOS app right now, and we don’t know how long that could take, this could easily slip to Q2.

NetNewsWire 5.1 for Mac: Q2 2020

This release will require macOS 10.15 (Catalina). It will add features already present in the iOS app: Feedly syncing and a Reader view. It may add other features, including additional syncing systems (no, I don’t know which ones). Tentatively — not for sure yet — we’re planning on sandboxing this release and publishing it on the Mac App Store.

Ideally we’d ship this in Q1. If we can, we will — but I’d put money on Q2 instead.

Now picture me waving my hands

There will be more releases, obviously, on both Mac and iOS — we’re just getting started! — but it’s too soon to make more definite plans.

But I can say some of the things we’re thinking about. We just don’t know when we’ll get to which ones, or what they’ll look like.

• More sync options — we’d like to support all of the various systems
• Sync via iCloud — we’re investigating the feasibility of this now, and I’m optimistic
• Article view theming — possibly much like older versions of NetNewsWire
• Setting font sizes for the sidebar, timeline, and article view on the Mac — we consider this a form of accessibility support (we already have this in iOS via Dynamic Text)
• User-created smart feeds
• The ability to delete articles — support already exists, under the hood, for this
• More sharing options — sending to Instapaper and Pinboard, for instance
• Some kind of triage/queueing system — so you can quickly go through your articles, then go back later to the articles you actually want to read
• Panic button — for marking things as read based on time criteria

Those aren’t nearly all of the features we’re considering, but they’re the highlights. We’re not going to get all those done in 2020, but we’ll get some of them done.