iPod Touch and RSS
by: George Starcher, Associate Editor
So, you got a new iPod Touch for Christmas and want to start out the new year browsing the web from it. Sure the pinch and double-tap to zoom are great. But lets say you want to check the site for articles on a regular basis without all that extra work.
It would be great if a lot of sites did something like the Fox News on iTouch. But a lot of sites are more like CNN where you have to browse it like a traditional page. Or you can try putting an “m.” in front of your desired site. If it is a big site like CNN then http://m.cnn.com/ will get you their mobile version of the page.
But here is another way to do it if your site does neither the iphone application or m. mobile page. If they offer RSS, click the RSS icon in Safari. Like the icon you see to the left on TypicalMacUser. Where it says Subscribe via RSS. You will get a web page with a URL like: http://feeds.feedburner.com/typicalmacuserpodcast or maybe if you did the CNN headlines it would be feed://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss
You might want to make a special folder on your browser bar called News Feeds. Just Control click under the address bar and create a new folder called News Feeds.
Once the RSS page of your choice comes up in Safari Press the + button next to the Address Bar and add it to your new News Feeds folder. Next time you sync you iPod Touch the favorites will synchronize to the touch.
Now when in Safari on your Touch you can just go to your favorites. Go into the Bookmarks Bar and you will find your News Feeds folder. Just tap your desired feed and it will be rendered and displayed via Apple’s http://reader.mac.com system. Now you can read your news headlines without all the gestures associated with reading full normal web pages. This is particularly handy when wanting to keep up to date on someone’s flickr posts via your touch. Just find the RSS link at the bottom of their Flickr page and add the link to your favorites.
On the same topic I have to say I've been using the mobile version of google reader on the Touch for a couple of months now and it just rocks, the best bit being that syncing and updating is done over the web in realtime so need to hook up to a PC or Mac … ever! !
I'm fast reaching the stage where a Touch is all now for 'cruising' around the home rather than being sat in front of a computer in the evenings.. I appreciate apple don't promote it as a PDA but once it's jallbroken it really does become a different animal!
Comment by Phil Bridges — January 1, 2008 @ 12:05 pm
Is there anyway to only sync specific bookmarks to the Touch? I really don't want my millions of bookmarks from my desktop Mac to copy over to the Touch.
Thanks
Comment by tma_steve — January 1, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
Not that I have heard of. The setting in iTunes is one check box. All safari bookmarks or don't sync. I guess you could use a different browser to bookmark everything and use safari bookmarks just to manage what is sync'd over.
Comment by georgestarcher — January 1, 2008 @ 5:40 pm
None that I know of. It is pretty much all or nothing. You could just use one bookmark branch to organize the bookmarks for the Touch and ignore any others.
Comment by georgestarcher — January 17, 2008 @ 9:08 pm
How can I see podcast notes like in my 5th gen iPod
Comment by jimilee2 — June 27, 2008 @ 8:19 pm