14 DAY TRIAL // A great app does not deserve to die. This must have been the idea behind the latest buyout in the iOS apps world. The developers of popular podcast player Castro did a good thing today.
They saved an app that was about to be left out by its own developer. Not because it was a bad app, but because it did not bring enough money to be worth developing further.
No money
Unread was described as an app that would help you rediscover the joy of reading your favorite writers. There are two different versions, for iPhone and iPad, and the developer, Jared Sinclair, did a great job designing something as simple as possible, yet elegant enough to manage hundreds of RSS feeds.
Sinclair explained in a blog post, back in July, that the app had been a hit in the first few days. However, after the first two weeks, it literally flopped. He made $16,000 (€12,400) in the first five days and then he struggled for another 6 months to make another $16K. Seven months later, the developer joined a company and said he was not going to add any more features to the app.
Even so, Unread was a pretty good alternative to most RSS feed readers in the AppStore. Currently, the best ones on iOS are led by Reeder and then come a few third-party apps and a few apps from services like Feedly.
A new home
As of Friday, Unread was taken over by Supertop, the developers of Castro, the podcast player app. They explained in a blog post that their decision was based on the elegant high-end typefaces that set it apart and the awesome navigation. The Supertop team met Jared a few months ago at WWDC, and when he announced he was moving on, they wanted to see if Unread would be for sale.
They think Unread makes a great companion to their podcast app, Castro, because "Both apps are news/entertainment focused, share similar design goals and even rely on the same underlying feed technology."
So far, the app has the same price both for iPhone and iPad and there's no word on any future discounts. You can get it for $4.99 (€4.49) for each version.
And since we’re talking about Castro, make sure to check this one up too. Castro is a well-regarded iPhone podcast player. We know Apple will include Podcasts.app in iOS 8 as a default, but it is always nice to have a good alternative.
