Where did RSS go in Safari 6???

Sarafi's elegant RSS implementation is probably the biggest reason I use it as my primary browser. I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of people who miss this feature. I have submitted feedback to Apple about this as well.

The problem is not that they removed it, but that they are now thinking that we are all 16 year old high school students that are only interested in twitter and facebook. For that demographic the changes probably make sense.

Well if Apple is targeting the 16 year old demographic then they truely do not understand who is buying the gear 16 year olds are using. Because I'm the one shelling out 2 grand for an iMac, I'm the one shelling out the bucks for my teenagers iPad, and I'm the one shelling out the bucks fro her Touch iPod. I'm the one shelling out the bucks for all the aps used on the iMac, the iPad, and the Touch.

I imagine this is the case for everyone who has a child in that demographic. In addition perhaps my 17 year old is an exception to the rule but she doesn't care to use Twiiter or Facebook. I'm actually the 56 year old in the house who uses Facebook extensively to keep in contact with the large volume of dinosaur friends I've made over the years.

Perhaps Apple thinks I'm becoming too senile to be trusted with these features or that my age group has somehow reverted back into some state of luddite incompetence. Regardless of the reasons the RSS feature is effectively gone

Safari’s RSS was the very best & easiest way to flip through the hundreds of news items quickly and accurately. Without it, you need a third-party app to find it, then bounce back to Safari to read the article. This quadruples the number of clicks/taps and the time it takes, inducing Microsoft flashbacks of my youth. To add insult to injury, having the RSS in Mail makes it appear that I have new email when all I have are 50 lame articles creating 50 false alarms, but again I still have to use 2 apps. RSS is BROWSER related, and has nothing to do with Mail.

I won’t even go into Safari’s countless slow page updates, vanishing progress bar, and often being forced to reload a page several times, especially if it’s not cached, just to make it show up.

Thinking the worst was over, what brought true terror was when I caught one of the Mac ads last night. An Apple “Genius” that looks more like a 12 year old in a commercial about as lame as any Microsoft ad. This is not the quality or intelligence of Apple from the past. This was just a regurgitated version of “Obe-Wan, you’re my only hope!”, but Obe-wan is a kid with extremely bad acting. (Sorry, kid, you’re no Justin Long.) It felt very desperate as if saying…

“We have apps, too!”

“We have kids at the core of our customer service department”

“We have cool apps, too, but you will need one of our ‘Geniuses’ to help understand it.”

These commercials HAD to pass through dozens of hands for approval and not ONE person stood up and said, “This seriously suxs!” After the long silence and void of any new iMacs or Mac Pros, and now this terrible commercial from a “D” student’s “Advertising 101” class project, the only thing that came to my mind was the ad being proof-positive reinforcement of Apple circling the drain.

I’ve been around way before Brodie helped Johann, and I have never seen Apple make so many sequential blundering moves before. Only due to being forced into a Hobson’s Choice, I’ll stay with a Mac computer, but I don’t see a reason to stay with Safari anymore.

Even if Apple adds RSS back to Safari, they may have already lost too many people, and worse, their trust across the whole Apple platform for innovation or customer loyalty for the foreseeable future. All they had to do was make RSS a Safari Preference option or, heaven forbid, a more powerful RSS extension (hint: a 3-D snowflake-style chart showing related articles and threads. And I’m the unemployed Design Engineer rationing my weekly grilled cheese and generic Cheerios (seriously) while some 19 year old twink at Apple is destroying useful apps at $80k/yr – go figure!

And I thought only Microsoft had the dexterity to push their customers to the competition with such elegant swift efficiency.

First it was the new "prosumer" verison of Final Cut (X) then the rediculous idea that sharing buttons and watching Hulu warrant a new OS... and now this. Apple is really going to odd lengths to get more comsumer oriented and seems to be shuning the ability to actually be productive with their products without their stamp on it.

so far, not a single one of the new features in MOUNTAIN LYING makes me want to upgrade... and now they've droped RSS from Safari?!

A few of these features actually repel me;

1. I do not need constant notification of events in various Apps (and I assume they are all on). I find it annoying on the iPhone and can’t imagine having to deal with it on my computer now.

2. The ability to share anything from anywhere in the interface?? Are we really that stupid that we can't do it ourselves as we have been? It sounds like a sneaky way to keep tabs on what's being shared by whom for more data mining purposes by Apple.

3. no RSS in Safari... that was the only reason I have really ever used Safari and now that it's gone, it really does prove to me that Apple is focusing on the wrong things.

Used to be that creativity came before money at Apple... Create good products and the money will follow. for the past few years though, Apple seems to have become a greedy money grubbing corporation like any of the worst of them.

I've been a dedicated Apple user since the early 90's without flintching... now I'm losing my appetite and am revolted by the thought of what these new directions mean for "The Most Valuable Company on the Planet."

The Bozos are in change again... but this time there will be no Jobs to the rescue.

Almost did it yesterday, but I didn't. Bought an iTunes card planning on using it to upgrade(?) to ML. Then I kept thinking of the things missing from Safari that I use all the time; RSS, activity window & the separate Google search. I think I'll pass for now and wait till the first update to see if Apple comes to their senses!

I just want to add my voice to the chorus of frustration: RSS feeds in the bookmark bars was an awesome

feature. Apple really should add that back, it was a great piece of functionality!

Also, I wanted to note that Automatic Proxy Configuration is also now broken in Safari, but works in Firefox. It's

looking more and more like I'll have to switch my default browser...

Apple really needs to hire someone who goes around the company to each department, and assesses changes, constantly asking "does this make sense?" or "don't people really need this feature?"... I sort of wonder if this was the sort of thing that Steve Jobs used to do. I suspect there is no longer leadership pushing Apple to make things better. Clearly, that hasn't happened here. The user experience is clearly worse.

That said, I had a heck of a time reverting to Safari 5.1.7 on Lion once I had installed 6. After several techniques, the only solution I could find that was reliable was to reinstall 10.7, do a combined update, ignore the Safari 6 update, and manually download 5.1.7 from another Mac updates site because I couldn't immediately find the manual update on the Apple support site.

All told, the process took 13 hours, and as I work from one machine primarily, I'm out $650 (I charge a minimum of $50/hour for Mac consulting) of billable time. Very costly mistake to upgrade to Safari 6, and I'm more than annoyed that the updater didn't notify me that RSS was removed. Apple seems to only discuss additions in those descriptions, rather than removal of features. Com'mon Tim Cook, time to LEAD!

So apparently writing that I am also upset with the removal of RSS in Safari 6, indicating that I've sent emails to various Apple employees and executives in charge of the Safari code-base, posting said email addresses and then asking all of you to calmly and responsibly follow suit is against the forum rules.

So instead, I will just say that Bidge certainly hit the nail on the head when he says the current version feels like a huge step backward.

The removal of RSS and many other heavy-used features feels like a clear message from Apple that we, developers and power-users, are no longer being concidered when major decisions are being made by those in-charge.

As for what I'd like to see happen... Frankly just a way to revert back to Safari v5.1.x would suffice for now, while they get everything back to working order.

Mat Pridham1 wrote:

The removal of RSS and many other heavy-used features feels like a clear message from Apple that we, developers and power-users, are no longer being concidered when major decisions are being made by those in-charge.

Is this the "post-PC world" that Apple is moving to? How fast can you type using only your thumbs?

This major functionality downgrade makes Safari 6 unusable for me. I've sent them feedback and will hope for the best. I won't be upgrading to the new OS X on my 2 work Macs or 3 home Macs if this is how they treat their loyal customers that helped make Safari a top ranked browser. I hope they don't break this in Safari for the iOS devices.

Is this another sign of Apple's software development organization turning into another Microsoft/IBM?!? RSS is real -- Twitter is still a toy.

On a side note the large tab bars are just stupid looking.

Overall Safari 6 feels like a HUGE step backwards.

yeah it feels like they're trying to make it simpler, but they've only succeeded in making it dumber. The new wide tabs are not only aesthetically less pleasing but less functional as well.

I was really shocked by this too. I keep my RSS links in the Bookmarks Bar, so I could se when there was something new. So when I wasn't getting any updates, I clicked on one, and Safari offered to open it in Opera!

It also said I should look for an RSS reader in the App Store. So I did. What I ended up with was the free NetNewsWire. I actually kind of like it now. I see my list of RSS feeds (only nine at the moment) and it shows how many have new posts. You can view them right in the app too.

So, not as elegant as Safari was, but very usable. Because I still had the links in Safari, clicking on them added them right to NNW. Same thing with new RSS links.

Now the thing that bothers me even more is not being able to change fonts in Safari!

But I have to say, I would not go back to Safari 5, because it was so **** slow. Safari 6 is really fast. I can live with reading my RSS feeds in NNW.

I also sent Apple feedback. I have a feeling that they rewrote Safari and just didn't bother to put some features back in. This is not the first time they have done that with OS X. So maybe it will come back. Having said that, I think their idea is for people to use the Notification Center for RSS, with supportive apps.

For me the Notification Center is not working al the time. But that's another subject.

I've had a chance to calm down a bit, and I gave it some more thought.

First, "Bidge" is absolutely right. This sudden and irrational move, as well as many others in the past few months, severely damages Apple's decades of growing and unquestionable trust.

Second, I have many physically and mentally disabled friends and they love the Mac for all it does and doesn't do. For nearly everything in day-to-day operations, Macs require much fewer mouse-clicks than the equivalent function on a MS Windows PC. In many cases, the Mac does things not even possible on MS Windows. This is especially true in setting up special scripts and custom apps via Automator.

Using an RSS reader integrated into the browser made learning about news and events invaluable and very easy, especially for those that find it awkward and difficult to just click from one site to another, and especially for my blind friend that had Safari set up to read the RSS listings aloud. Having a British mother, hearing the "Daniel" voice for the first time in Lion read the BBC RSS made him cry. Now, they are all forced to download RSS Owl. Even with its steep learning curve (try figuring it out blindfolded), it still requires at least 4 times the mouse-clicks and about 5 extra minutes of struggling to do something that required only 1 click.

True, Apple added some functionality to the Universal Access, but pulling RSS completely is callously removing other vital functionality.

To the Apple staff, put on a blindfold and mittens for a whole week, THEN try to read your daily email and favorite news, get Olympic stats, and email your parents a photo of yourself. Go ahead. I dare you!

At the very, very, least make older functions an option in preferences. On this point, I am very surprised Apple hasn't already created a list of Pre-set Universal Access Preferences that can turn on/off a wide range of app presets based on certain disabilities, rather than forcing them to go through each one. For example, all blind people have a very similar baseline set of settings, so a preset could simultaneously turn on Voice Alerts, Voice Over, Keyboard Sounds, etc. I suppose it would be a dumb idea to have the Mac ask the user verbally when it asks for the new user's time zone and country. From there, they just need to tweak a few settings to customize it. This would also apply to app and OS upgrades, and the Mac could display/announce what settings were added and changed to make their life easier based on their pre-set choice.

If nothing else, DEFINITELY announce when you MOVE the Universal Access icon! If you're blind, it's like a stranger breaking into your house rearranging the furniture. What totally heartless person does that and doesn't announce it the first time the blind person re-enters?!

I'm not ignorant to the world of commerce and I am well aware that decisions must be based on profit, and that a 60-year-old blind woman doesn't have nearly the profit potential of a thousand 14-year-old girls Tweating about Justin Bieber. But, come on, place a micron of humanity above a few dollars of profit.

I have absolutely no doubt Apple's heart stopped beating the same moment Steve's did. Apparently now, also gone with him went our trust.

Glen M wrote:

Using an RSS reader integrated into the browser made learning about news and events invaluable and very easy, especially for those that find it awkward and difficult to just click from one site to another, and especially for my blind friend that had Safari set up to read the RSS listings aloud. Having a British mother, hearing the "Daniel" voice for the first time in Lion read the BBC RSS made him cry. Now, they are all forced to download RSS Owl. Even with its steep learning curve (try figuring it out blindfolded), it still requires at least 4 times the mouse-clicks and about 5 extra minutes of struggling to do something that required only 1 click.

Now I don't know about the text to speech part, and whether or not that's universal, but I have to say that after using a dedicated RSS reader for the past couple of days (first NetNewsWire, and just now Vienna), I find they are actually easier and more enjoyable to use than reading the feeds in Safari.

Your list of feeds is on the left hand side. You can see them all at once. In Safari I had some visible in the bookmarks bar, but some where in bookmarks menus I had to go searching for. Now I see them all.

When you click on a feed you see the list of articles. Click on an article and you can read it right in the viewer, since it serves as a web browser. It's very similar to Mail, Outlook, or even iTunes in its layout.

Both readers show how many articles you have in the Dock icon, and Vienna also has a menu bar item.

So after having read RSS feeds in Safari for a number of years, and now using these, especially Vienna, I wouldn't even bother reading them in Safari again. IMO this is a nicer experience. It's more Mac-like to me than the way Safari handled it. I'm guessing Apple thought so too?

So while I was initially annoyed, I don't care now. 🙂

Why is it that people who recommend Vienna fail to understand a simple and plain fact that everyone else is complaining about: we don't want a separate RSS reader that interacts with Safari, we want the simple, integrated functionality that Safari had before it was stupidly and arrogantly ripped out by Apple?

If Vienna works for you, then fine - go and start a discussion about Vienna and how wonderful you think it is. For the rest of us who were really happy with with way Safari handled RSS feeds and who used it every day, your comments are just irritating and beside the point. It doesn't matter if Vienna does or doesn't do the job for you - that has no relation to what we are talking about here - Apple's mindless and arrogant decision to remove a feature from its browser that many people relied on and used every day.