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My angry mail to NYTimes

The new Times Reader 2.0 is a DISASTER. On a Windows machine, have you ever done a juxtaposed comparison of the old and new Reader?

  • The new Reader isn't remotely as legible. WPF beats ADOBE Air hollow. Since you're in the news business, this surely shouldn't be news to you.
  • The new Reader takes more time for news updates.
  • The new Reader takes far more memory. ADOBE Air applications are always bloated.
  • The new Reader has less reading space.
  • The new Reader bombards me with extremely annoying internal ads. and ads. by Google. When I'm paying you, I'm expecting you to remove the noise factor. You were...until now.

There's no doubt in my mind that TR 2.0 is a regressive step. The only good thing about the new Reader is that it supports video.

I know these are desperate times for newspapers, but is the New York Times this desperate? It's understandable that NYTimes is looking to broaden its reader base by making Times Reader more platform agnostic. However, as far as Windows readers are concerned, the new Reader is undeniably a raw deal. Maybe you could keep the old version available for Windows readers.

What worries me the most is the poor legibility of the new Reader. Even the browser makes for easier reading. Frankly speaking, I've made up my mind to unsubscribe when my current subscription expires next year. Using FeedDemon to subscribe to the free RSS feeds makes better sense. Wouldn’t you agree?

Regards,
Deepanjan Nag

Comments

Anonymous said…
Do you work for Microsoft?
gurdas said…
Why did you upgrade to ver 2? Are you using the paid service? I am using the free version, am on ver 1.1.3, and love it! Or did they upgrade you without informing?
Deepanjan said…
I don't work for Microsoft. The day I do, I'll consider myself the luckiest guy in the world.

I use the paid service. I subscribed when NYTimes was offering a discount of more than 75%. The normal rates are way too much for me. I currently have both the versions, though the FAQ says that the older version will stop updating news.

Frankly speaking, I'm truly surprised at people praising TR 2.0. I get a feeling it's because TR 2.0 is the most ambitious product built on ADOBE Air.
Anonymous said…
Hmm... I'm surprised by your comments (that you posted across a lot of blogs, it seems).

I've actually been an avid fan of the old reader, and running both on my Windows Vista Tablet PC side by side, the readability on the new reader is much better -- elegant, effortless, and almost print-like. There's an attention to detail in font selection and maybe even kerning that seems much cleaner.
Anonymous said…
I installed and the TR 2.0 and it runs excellent both on my Mac and Windows. I also checked the CPU and memory usage and it was well below. I am surprised at your comments. Also the readability is much much better in TR2.0.
Deepanjan said…
This is what someone else said:

The new Times Reader does not use subpixel antialiasing, either on Vista or OSX. That makes its fonts look blurry to me. Whether or not you like Subpixel AA, both MS and Apple have chosen to use it, so the Times Reader looks out of place. I have seen a few Air apps that use subpixel AA, so I know it is possible, but most of them seem not to. What’s up with this?This is the original post. The screenshot in my next post clearly demonstrates the greater clarity of the old Times Reader. I use Vista. The problem is duplicated even on my wife's XP.

The memory consumption of the new TR after a few hours of usage was a whooping 210 000K.

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