Omnivore iOS Beta Updates

A new iOS Beta release with boolean operators in search, a new following tab, and more.

Greetings fellow Omnivores,

After a few weeks of actively working behind the scenes a new iOS Beta is released. This release brings updated icons, a new iPad version, and direct access to the archive.today, boolean operators in search, and a new following tab.

If you stumbled upon this page or someone shared it with you, Omnivore is a free and open-source read-it-later service. You can sign up for a free account here.

Updated icons

Some people will be confused and infuriated that we've slightly changed our design and updated our icons to be more consistent. We know you loved our previous miss-mashed mess of icons, pulled together from dozens of different icon kits, but we think this new look is a bit better.

The reader buttons

The bottom reader action buttons have also been replaced with a toolbar, that’s a bit easier to access. It will open when you hit the bottom of an article, tap on an article, or scroll back up.

Improved interactive transitions

When iOS17 was released we had to remove the interactive swipe transition to workaround some bugs. We’ve adopted a new library for transitions, so the interactive pop has been re-enabled. A quick swipe should also dismiss the reader window.

Open the archive.today website

When you save a page to Omnivore we archive the original version of the page with a clean readable version. But you can't get to that archived original version in the app. Also, that's just a single snapshot in time. With our new archive.today integration, you can open a saved page at an exact point in time. Useful to see how content has changed over time, or to access a page that might be gone now.

New share extension modes

In the share extension, you can switch between quick notes mode, and quick labels mode by swiping back and forth. Your preferred version will be remembered. We think of the quick labels mode as the preferred interface for people who like to tap, and the quick notes mode for people who like to type. Choose what you like.

The Following tab

This is the big change of this update.

We were hesitant to add RSS and Atom feeds to Omnivore because we were worried people's libraries’ would become overloaded with content. Omnivore was created to be a calm distraction-free place to read and to help people deal with their information overload. But, RSS was a popular request so we added it, and guess what happened? People's libraries became overloaded with content!

To help with this new problem (that no one could have predicted :D ), we added a new Following tab, which captures all your Feed content. When you subscribe to a feed, you can choose whether it should go to your Following tab or to your regular Library tab. From the Following tab, you can swipe on any item to add it to your Library, or you can read items directly.

On the iPad, the split view is used to control your current items list.

In the future we will expand our rules, making it easier to clean your Following tab or send other content, like newsletters, to the Following tab.

Quicker multi-select

The multi-select button has been freed from the utility menu and moved to the library navigation bar. When you tap the multi-select button in the header, you can select items to quickly archive or delete them. Also, you can swipe down on the checkmarks to quickly select multiple items.

Synced saved searches

Your saved searches created on the web are now synced to iOS. If you haven't tried this, it allows you to create custom searches, like All articles mentioning goats (filter: in:inbox goats) or short RSS reads (filter: in:following wordsCount:<1000).

Check our blog post about saved searches for more details.

Boolean operators in search

You can use OR to string searches together now, for example: site:theathletic.com OR site:huddleup.substack.com.

The search syntax also supports brackets: label:Football OR (Football OR Soccer).

Add RSS or Atom feeds directly in iOS

From the Following tab, tapping the + button will allow you to add an RSS or Atom feed. If you pass a webpage URL, we will scan that URL for any linked RSS feeds, and use that feed.

Enjoy your reading with Omnivore.

You can join us in Discord to be the first to find out about improvements.

PS: We rely on the community to spread the word on Omnivore, so if you know someone who loves to read, please tell them about us.