Trumblog

Evolution tends to lead to more complex structures, not simpler ones.

Applications and devices release new versions, each with more and more expanded functionality until they are bloated and swollen with features that only appeal to a few users, but results in a memory hog with difficult navigation.  It’s rare that you see an application scale back to the essence of what originally appealed to users.  However that is exactly what Viigo did with their News product and the result is a fast, focused and useful application.

Viigo made it’s reputation as an RSS reader for the BlackBerry and had the best set of functionality around.  Naturally Viigo began to build on that foundation and in their Tango release last summer added Sports Scores, Weather, Flight Status, etc.  Since then the application has gained more and more modules like Social Networks,  Shopping, Entertainment, Politics and Finance.  If you are a Viigo user who depends on those services then the memory is well worth it, but for those just looking for an RSS news reader then the cost: benefit ratio of memory to features was trending in the wrong direction.

Enter Viigo News.  Viigo News is a slimmed down application that focuses on what made me a Viigo enthusiast in the first place, it’s an outstanding mobile RSS feed reader and not much more.  Everything that I wrote in my initial review of Viigo is still true.  Viigo works offline (which is critical for my subway commute), it displays full posts, links are accessible, you can easily share links, and setup and customization are a snap.  The improvements that Viigo has added to these areas over the last year or so have been maintained such as posting to Facebook, Twitter and Del.icio.us.

Unlike the “full” version of Viigo, Viigo News skips the (now unnecessary) user interface that was added for the Tango release in order to acsess the variety of modules.  Viigo News launches straight to the news section listing of channels and RSS feeds.  In the promotion of Viigo News there was plenty of information on the number of channels that users could pick from and there are lots of categories and all the most popular feeds.  But since there was no mention of  integration with aggregators like Google Reader and Bloglines, I was afraid that this was one of the features removed for Viigo News.  Luckily that was not the case and when I fired up Viigo News I was pleased to see all 100+ feeds from my Google Reader account appear and fill up with news.  Also maintained in Viigo News are the some of the modules like Politics, Entertainment and Local Interest, only now as channels among the RSS feeds rather than as different modules, however that may be a remnant of an earlier installation and I don’t seem to find a location to add new books or feeds to these channels.

Viigo has done an excellent job of eliminating the other modules from the application without any noticeable impact on the news section at all.  All the functionality and keyboard shortcuts seem to be in place.  It’s just the secondary features that are missing.  Viigo News is definitely lighter on memory, switching from the “full” version to News seems to have freed up about 500MB on my BlackBerry 8310, and the application seems generally zippier when moving from article to article and posting to social networks.   All of this is achieved without any noticeable loss of functionality to the news section from the “full” version of the application.

If you want your weather, sports scores, financial information, flight and package tracking all in one application then download the full version of Viigo.  If you prefer other applications for that functionality or just want an excellent, fast mobile RSS reader then Viigo News is the application for you.

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