When RIM first released the Torch, and along with it BlackBerry 6, I thought that BlackBerry News Feeds was one of the better new features. It makes sense, of course, since they had previously purchased Viigo, which made the best RSS reader available for the BlackBerry. Yet there were definite issues with the initial release of News Feeds. As you can see in its App World listing, people aren’t too crazy about it, giving it just 2.5 out of 5 stars. Thankfully, RIM has been updating the app. The latest might seem like a small step, from version 1.0.0 to 1.0.1, but it brings many fixes that users will welcome. 
The update is a beta, and therefore available only in Beta Zone. But it is available to all Beta Zone users, so you don’t need a fancy invite or anything like that. Here’s what RIM lists as the improvements:
- Ability to delete all prior articles when viewing a feed or viewing “All Unread Items”.
- Ability to mark the list of items as read when viewing a feed or viewing “All Unread Items”.
- If you swipe left or right in a feed, the screen now moves to the previous or next item in the feed.
- Ability to zoom in on images and text in feed items.
- New message, wireless network, and battery (while charging) indicators appear in the app’s header.
Yes, yes, and yes again. Everyone uses RSS differently, but I think that everyone uses delete and mark all as read functions frequently enough. The improvement of these features certainly comes as a welcome change. (And timely, too, as the current top comment on the App World listing complains about the lack of this very feature.) If you have a Beta Zone account, you can just head over there and log in. If you don’t have an account, you can follow that link and sign up.
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