Microsoft has released yet another Beta version of their software codename Max. It has already been in development for almost a year and seems to be progressing nicely, but slowly. In that time they seemed to have focused primarily on letting users manage photos and create slideshows to share with their friends. They even made it easy to write on the image which is great for Tablet PC users. Here is what the annotation looks like:
It also has a news reader and the most recent version of Max, that was released today, now has RSS capabilities. The screenshot below is what the news page looks like, however, I grabbed these screenshots off of their site. Once I heard that it had RSS capabilities and a “newspaper” layout I thought I would give it a shot. Apparently I thought wrong because it is not compatible with Vista!? Here is what the general news layout looks like:
I don’t have an XP machine easily accessible at this moment to play with the new feature but the interface does look pretty sleek. I am wondering how their RSS reader works because I couldn’t find any screenshots of an RSS feed being displayed. I wonder if it is the same as the general news layout pictured above?
I am addicted to using GreatNews as my feed reader because it is free (at least while they’re testing it) and it supports the newspaper layout. After you read your feeds in the newspaper layout I don’t think you can go back to the Outlook style.
If someone decides to give this a try then maybe you could send a screenshot of the RSS page that I can post to the article. Send it to tech@cybernetnews.com but make sure you are running Windows XP SP2 otherwise you won’t be able to install Microsoft Max.
Download Microsoft Codename Max (Beta)
| Update: |
Thanks to Pierre who sent in the screenshot with the RSS in action. You can notice the “Add Web Feed” option but I would have liked to see them implement a more condense list of feeds rather than the large buttons. It does look nice though.
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Well, I am not so captivated. I wish they would get away from the “big button” child-like look and get serious, this has a long way to go especially when competing with the likes of FeedDemon.
OK so they might be going with simplicity for the average user but I think they underestimate the “average” user.
Ryan,
have you tried [feeds2.com]
i have been using it for a few months now, and although their personalizing and clustering engine is still a bit raw (not 2 metion the lack of some rss handeling options), i think it offers the best, and 2 my knowledge, the only way, to deal with 2 many rss feeds.
i have tried gr8news u mentioned, but didn’t quite get what so good about the newspaper view.
I really like the newspaper view but I thought I would give the Feeds 2.0 a shot. I was disappointed to see that they are in closed beta right now.
well, i was able to get my beta account by offering to help them make this service work in Hebrew. i am sure, a successful blogger like you could charm his way in as well. just email them.
if you want more info about them, just email me.
Actually, I signed up to be invited and received the invitation within 24 hours. It is definitely one of the best online feed readers that I have used.
i’ll be waiting to read all about it here then.
it still has some problem with clustering, and the visualize option doesn’t really “do it” for me, because of the dark design.