For the last week I tried using Google Reader instead of NetNewsWire, since I can use it on my iPhone. I also like being able to share items in Google Reader. When I got home tonight I fired up NetNewsWire and found that I can read several hundred articles a lot faster and more conveniently in NNW.
With NNW, I can manage how often feeds are refreshed. I have one group of feeds that I check regularly (such as software updates from VersionTracker, etc) updated every hour and everything else I refresh manually only. Google Reader doesn’t give me any control over when it updates. If I have a lot of unread items, I often find that it refreshes some feeds before I finish reading the rest of the feeds in a single session.
On the other hand, I like being able to share items in Google Reader and I like being able to read my feeds on the web from my iPhone or any other device when I’m not using my Mac. NetNewsWire syncs with NewsGator online, which is slower, uglier, and less usable than Google Reader. It also doesn’t work as well on an iPhone.
I know Brent works for NewsGator, but I’d still love to see NetNewsWire sync with Google Reader as an option.