NY Times Reader v2 | The Coffeehouse

DCMonkey
Monkey see, monkey do, monkey will destroy you!

Some of you may remember the NY Times Reader app as a WPF showcase app for reading NYT RSS news feeds with a snazzy interactive UI. Well, they've released version 2 and it uses ... Adobe AIR.

What happened? Was WPF too heavy? Did they want cross platform support? Are they just trying out the various technologies out there to see which one suits them best?

And why not Silverlight? Probably because SL doesn't support FlowDocuments and the offline capability won't be there until SL3.

TommyCarlier
I want my scalps!

<quote>
This new version is built on Adobe AIR, so you can run it on any Windows, Mac, or Linux machine.
</quote>

intelman

I was disappointed when I saw this.

http://timesreader.nytimes.com/timesreader/index.html?campaignId=34W88

I like the WPF application. I really do not think Microsoft can project any influence or power to get WPF or silverlight adopted. I think both technologies are quite good, I have seen great concepts, but I have not seen any real world implementation.

NBA on youtube was done with Silverlight, that was nice. I wish all of youtube would go silverlight. Some HD video is quite choppy with Flash. Beyond that, I have no hope for either technology. Adobe AIR just took off....

phreaks

Meh.

I don't install any plug-ins from adobe for a myriad of good reasons.

I was about to say that I don't install anything from Adobe, but then remembered that I have photoshop installed...

giovanni
...

In reply to TommyCarlier

#May 11th @ 10:25 AM

Isn't silverlight suppoed to be cross platform (win, mac, and linux through Moonlight)?

Bass
Channel 9, best used in moderation

In reply to giovanni

#May 11th @ 11:12 AM

Moonlight 2 isn't finished yet, so no Silverlight 2 love for Linux ATM.

kettch

In reply to Bass

#May 11th @ 11:31 AM

I suppose ideally, the solution would be to use Silverlight 3 so that it would be cross platform, and be able to run as a standalone app. Still no love for Linux though.

Bass
Channel 9, best used in moderation

No offense guys, but what the hell is wrong with using AIR? I've been using the Flex framework for a few weeks and tbh, it's pretty damn good. Seriously. Could be competitive with Silverlight.. Um, it could be better then Silverlight. Perhaps that's exactly why they are using Flex over .NET. Yeah I know unbelieveable right?

Sometimes the "right tool for the job" happens to be a non-Microsoft product. So what?

giovanni
...

In reply to Bass

#May 11th @ 12:11 PM

Because the first NYT reader was silverlight and I would like to know why all of the sudden Air is a better tool than Silverlight.

Given the number of anti-Microsoft articles and Apple adds on the NYTimes I shouldn't be too surprised though.

Bass
Channel 9, best used in moderation

Actually the first NYT reader was WPF.

Silverlight 2 (the latest stable version) and below is a web only technology, while Flex is both a web and offline technology, running on either AIR (for offline ability), or Flash Player (for online ability). Since this is not a web site, but an application, Silverlight doesn't even make any sense at all for this application. You can tout Silverlight all you want but this is just a fundamental misunderstanding of what Silverlight is. Microsoft Silverlight as a competitor to Adobe Flash Player. Not to Adobe AIR. At this time Microsoft has no [stable] product that competes with Adobe AIR.

Another interesting thing about Flex which is NOT POSSIBLE in Silverlight is the ability to leverge Adobe Flash (the productivity program), to create useful Flex assets.

Flash is a program where there is already a lot of expert knowledge available. This is HUGE. Adobe products have a virtual monopoly in the designer market, and Adobe products all interoperate with one another very well.

kettch

In reply to Bass

#May 12th @ 1:56 AM

At this point, the major beef that I have with Flash (the runtime) is that it is the single biggest cause of runaway browser processes and browser crashes/lockups on my machine. Also, I've run into problems when trying to fill out flash based forms. Sometimes it's slow, glitchy, or just plain doesn't work. Overall, the runtime is regressing in terms of stability and usability.

vesuvius
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

I have just installed this, and the install experience is smooth and fantastic.

All in all this is not a bad application, very polished, but it feels like Safari to me. Nice to use on a Mac, but alien in Windows.

The text rendering in WPF was superior, and that application just felt crisper where this feels all soft. I hope the text rendering in Silverlight 3 is resolved, as there is no way to acheive an application like this in Silverlight, even with the out-of-browser installation. The graphics are good, but text is horrendous in Silverlight

giovanni
...

In reply to Bass

#May 12th @ 1:56 AM

My bad, you are right, it was a WPF app and yes, Silverlight 2 is not a competitor for AIR, but the edges are sometimes blurry for end users.

intelman

Channel9 could benefit from an "New York Times" type reader. Who cares if it is done in air or WPF. But it would be neat to have videos shown in a clean intuative way. There seems to be a barage of videos posted at one time. The Times Reader just feels right. The UI boarders feels out of place with a Windows OS, but the content feels better than a website could possibily produce.

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

In reply to intelman

#May 11th @ 10:38 AM

The NY Times Reader was nicely made, but it didn't offer enough value to warrant me paying a subscription, sorry/

intelman

News should be free with smart non intrusive ads. Might be a fools dream though.

Maybe if NPR or the BCC made a similar application. Though there will be quite a bit of overlap. I use the Zune player to manage podcasts...etc. Maybe if there were a general application that supported multiple news sources? I guess then that would basically be a web browser. The web experience definitely isn't wonderful though. I blame the lack of performance in many browsers out there.

daSmirnov

There is the MSDN Reader application, which is basically the same thing, which uses the Microsoft Something or other. But it lets you subscribe to multiple sources.

I wish more people would make use of it - or better yet make it work with normal RSS feeds. Its the perfect app for reading on any sort of Tablet device.

Edit: here's the link http://windowsclient.net/wpf/starter-kits/sce.aspx

I've also just tried the new Times Reader and oh dear. Its now something with looks the it should be running on a Macintosh. It doesn't know I'm on a 120 dpi screen so I've got tiny text. It doesn't maximize properly - there's a gap along the right and bottom of it - can't find a fullscreen option either.

Ray7

In reply to giovanni

#May 12th @ 1:50 AM

I think the Times picked it because they felt it was a better tool for the job. I can't really see how the number of Apple ads are relevant since neither tool is made by Apple and both solutions work on a Mac.

The BBC made the same switch with the iPlayer so I don't think the problem has anything to do with ad dollars.

intelman

In reply to daSmirnov

#May 14th @ 4:40 PM

Could you subscribe to anything you want?

Perhaps Microsoft needs to build a rich RSS client based on this technology. Perhaps replace the RSS client in IE, or even better, the one in Outlook. If we could get something that rich and clean, it'd be a winner for all.