If you’re a Google Reader fan and you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, Byline is well worth the $5. In a nutshell, it syncs with Google Reader, allowing you to carry all your RSS feeds around in your pocket. But it’s super-awesome in two ways: 1) it caches the feeds locally so that you can read stuff offline, and 2) it downloads a copy of the original web page for each post. That second feature–which Byline calls “archiving”–is killer, since many sites only publish a summary or abreviated version of each page in their RSS feed. Awesome.
Tip: Getting “Friends shared items” to Appear in Byline
When I first started using Byline, I immediately wondered why I couldn’t see posts that other Google Reader users had shared with me. These typically appear under the “Friends shared items” section in Google Reader. The solution is to add each “Friends shared items” feed to a folder in Google Reader; Byline will see the folder and start downloading those posts. For example:
- Click on the “Friends shared items” feed from one of your friends.
- Click on the “Feed Settings” button that appears above the feed’s main window.
- The drop-down menu will allow you to add the feed to an existing folder (or create a new one).
Note that if you add your friend’s shared items to a folder that has other items (e.g., a common “Stuff Shared by Friends” folder) you won’t know which friend shared each post. If this info is important to you, add each feed to its own folder with a descriptive name (e.g., “Shared by Mike”, etc.).