Pixegen

Introducing the New Pixegen Website

Pixegen Team — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Welcome to the new pixegen.net! We've rebuilt the site from the ground up with a cleaner design, automatic light and dark themes, and - most importantly - a place to write.

What's new

A new landing page that puts our apps front and center.
A blog (you're reading it) where we'll share product updates, behind-the-scenes engineering notes, and the occasional essay about the open web.
An RSS feed at /rss.xml, because a company that builds an RSS reader had better publish a feed of its own.

Why a blog?

We build communication tools, and we think the most durable way to communicate on the web is still the humble published page. Social platforms come and go, but a post at a stable URL with a feed behind it keeps working for decades.

Expect posts about:

uRSS releases and what's coming next
How we build and test our apps
Thoughts on RSS, syndication, and the open web

Follow along

Add our feed to your reader of choice - uRSS, naturally, works great - and you'll never miss a post. Thanks for stopping by.

Mac version in progress

Pixegen Team — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

While work progresses on the iOS/iPad versions of uRSS, the Mac version is starting to take shape. The basics are in place, and work is progressing at a steady clip.

My original plan was to get this out for an August timetable, but as I'm working on this, I've decided to hold it until macOS 27 is released. I haven't decided whether or not uRSS Mac will require macOS 27 (as of right now it does not), but since I'm developing it using Xcode 27/macOS 27, it just makes sense not to rush it and give myself the extra time to get it right.

Here's a sneak peak of what we've got so far:

Designing the uRSS Reading Experience

Pixegen Team — Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

When we set out to build uRSS, we had a simple goal: reading your feeds should feel calm. No engagement mechanics, no infinite recommendations - just the sites you chose, presented well.

Groups keep feeds manageable

A subscription list grows fast. uRSS lets you organize feeds into groups - News, Tech, Friends, whatever fits your reading life - so you can sweep through one context at a time instead of facing a single overwhelming inbox.

Gestures do the heavy lifting

Most reading actions in uRSS are a swipe away:

Swipe to mark as read - clear items without leaving the list.
Swipe to favorite - save something for later in one motion.
Long-press context menus - share, open in browser, or mark a whole feed read.

These sound small, but they add up. Triaging a morning's worth of articles takes seconds, not minutes.

The list view includes

Typography and themes

Reading is a visual activity, so uRSS ships with carefully tuned type settings and full support for iOS light and dark appearance - including alternate fonts for people who prefer a different reading voice. The app follows your system setting automatically, the same way this website does.

Try it

uRSS is available for iPhone today. Learn more on the uRSS page, and if you have feedback, we'd love to hear it.

Announcing uRSS 2.0

Theodore Lee — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The weather has been spectacular, but I wouldn't know it. I've been pouring every spare moment into building uRSS 2.0 - and honestly, I'm not mad about it. The feature set just kept expanding (classic perfectionist energy), and sure, I could've listened to someone yelling 'pencils down!' but where's the fun in that?

uRSS 2.0 introduces paid features (because, plot twist: creators need to eat), but keeps the core experience free for folks who want to try before they buy (30 feed limit and 3 podcast limit). And yeah, the paid tier costs less than a fancy coffee. Let's get into it. Paid features are marked accordingly.

iPad support! Not just a blown up iPhone app anymore on iPad.
Rewritten views that are much more performant that version 1.0 (sorry SwiftUI, we had to go back to UIKit).
Podcasts! Podcasts are now fully integrated. We shipped a seriously impressive first pass at this feature - no account sign-ups, no corporate nonsense. Everything stays local and on your device. Find podcasts, queue up your favorite episodes, throw them on for your commute, and yes - CarPlay support is included. Free tier: 3 shows. Paid tier: unlimited.
Smart Favorites: Never miss an article with specific keywords ever again. Set it up once, and every matching article gets auto-favorited for you to digest later. (PAID)
Muted Words: Tired of seeing articles about a certain topic? Block it, and watch it vanish from your feed before it even hits your eyeballs. (PAID)
Stats: How many articles have you devoured? How many podcast hours? How many did you share? Get all the juicy details in the Stats view. (PAID)
Appearance Updates: Light and dark modes are cool, but why stop there? Navy, Slate, Onyx, Paper-multiple accent colors for each. Plus, a whole arsenal of new icons to choose from. (PAID)
iCloud Sync: Your subscriptions follow you across devices. One tap, everything's in sync. (PAID)
Widgets - Keep track of your unread and favorited articles via widgets (PAID).

That's the highlight reel. There are countless other enhancements and fixes packed in here too.

And we're already working on a big update - version 2.1 will bring Mac support - because the fun doesn't stop.

uRSS 2.01 is live

Theodore Lee — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

One week after the huge release of version 2.0, we're back with 2.01. Small point release that addresses a number of issues.

Bug fixes -

Fixed a visual glitch when unsubscribing to a feed in the main view.
Fixed an issue where the Headline Title wasn't updating on the iPhone.

Tweaks -

When in the unread view and a refresh is initiated, new refreshing animation.

Optimizations -

Version 2 bundle had grown a bit large. This update slims it back down.

Why RSS Still Matters in 2026

Pixegen Team — Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Every few years someone declares RSS dead, and every few years it keeps quietly powering podcasts, newsletters, and the reading habits of people who want to choose what they see.

Google killed their Google Reader app in 2013. Many thought that was the death blow for RSS. But in Readers place popped up many worthy replacements - Feedbin, Feedly, Feed Wrangler, NewsBlur, and many, many more. Social Media was supposed to kill RSS as a medium, but it just keeps on chugging along.

You choose the inputs

A feed reader is the inverse of a social timeline. Instead of an algorithm deciding what you see, you decide: subscribe to a site and you get everything it publishes, in order, with nothing inserted between the items. Unsubscribe and it's gone. That's the entire model, and it's why it has aged so well.

It's a protocol, not a platform

RSS doesn't belong to a company. It can't be acquired, enshittified, or shut down in a pivot. A feed published in 2004 still parses today, and a feed published today will still parse in 2046. Very little software can make that claim.

The web is still full of feeds

Nearly every blog, news site, podcast, and release page publishes a feed - even when there's no orange icon in sight. (This site's feed lives at /rss.xml.) Once you start looking, you can route almost everything you read through one calm, chronological inbox.

That's why we built uRSS

We think the best reading experience on a phone is a fast, native one. uRSS is our take: a focused RSS reader for iOS with no accounts, no sync lock-in, and no algorithm. Your feeds, your order, your attention.