Today, we’re excited to bring Rockmelt to Android users. We know many of you have been waiting for this and we’ve been working on it for a while. Well the tease is finally over - Rockmelt for Android. You can download it here.
We know it’s taken us awhile to get this one out the door. It was important that it’s the right experience for Android users and not merely a port of an iOS app.
Our entire company moved over to Android devices so we could all live the experience. The differences were apparent, making it difficult for us not to rethink our UI. First, the screens for the devices are much bigger, making it impossible to navigate Rockmelt with just the thumb, unless everyone grows extra large thumbs. Unlikely. To take full advantage of the larger screen, the navigation changed to rest at the bottom of the screen in portrait mode and over to the right in landscape mode, always in reach.
As you start scrolling through the app to get more stories, you’ll notice that the navigation disappears leaving only media-rich tiles from wall-to-wall on that big gorgeous screen. The navigation reappears only when its needed.
One of the next features we added to Rockmelt for Android makes content consumption easier. How many times have you scrolled past numerous stories when a notification for new content presents itself? We can’t resist tapping on that button to see the delight that the Internet may offer. But after glancing at the new content, returning to the previous place in the app is sometimes just too much work! We added something pretty simple but so easy to use - elevator buttons.
Tap the up arrow to see new content and when you’re ready, tap the down arrow to return to where you were. We hope this inspires others to implement something similar on any content service because as content streams become more prevalent, we could really use this in more products.
When users flip their phones into landscape mode for texting, game playing or video watching, it’s a shame not to take advantage of that option. Just turn your phone to the right and you’ll see twice as many stories. Navigation moves over to nestle under your thumb when you do this.
Plus all the great things that make Rockmelt beloved are on this Android version:
super smooth scrolling of an endless stream of your personalized content
addition of any site you want
discovery of fun new sites and lots of stories, videos, and images
clean, ad-free reader views
simple sharing to your favorite social networks
addictive reaction buttons to tell the world what you think without pressure to create a witticism
Close to a billion Android devices have been activated - we look forward to welcoming you to Rockmelt.
-Eric & Tim
We’ve been continually refining Rockmelt for Web since the launch a month ago. Today, we added a number of features that our users have been asking for:
Our users tell us they keep returning to Rockmelt to see the best stuff on the Internet that they don’t see elsewhere. One of their favorite tricks is to cut straight to the funniest stories by going to “lol” in Explore. They also check out what their friends are talking about in the Friends tab.
Tell us what you think - we’d love to hear it! Feedback@rockmelt.com is always a great way to contact us.
P.S. Look at this - the new iOS update has a third column of beautiful story tiles on the iPad in landscape view. See all the details here.
Rockmelt is available at rockmelt.com and on the Apple App Store here.
We love the web. It is the greatest collection of information and fun in the history of humanity. What started as a destination for academics to exchange papers, has now permeated into every aspect of our lives–delivering news, information, entertainment, communication, collaboration, and so much more.
We founded Rockmelt to make the web more useful by giving people a better way to navigate its awesomeness. What started as a desktop browser with thin edges has evolved. Over the past few months, we’ve released an iOS app that re-imagines Rockmelt as a beautiful stream of the web content you love, from your favorite sites and people, while still letting you go anywhere on the web. The incredible product reviews, the amount of content consumption, and the amount of sharing we’ve seen has spurred us on.
Today, we’re very excited to bring these ideas back to the desktop, but in an entirely new way - actually, an entirely old way - through a website.
Rockmelt.com is now a visual stream of the web; content from your favorite sites, your favorite people, and a dash of crazy stuff you never would have discovered. It’s all highly personalized and pushed to you. It’s social; your friends make your experience better, just like you do theirs. It’s interactive; you can pivot on people and hashtags, @mention friends, and explore categories and sources. And, we’ve pushed the limits of HTML5 and Javascript, to deliver a highly interactive app-quality experience in a website.
We’re launching as an invite-only beta, for now. We want to work out the kinks and make sure we can handle the load before we unleash it on the Internet at large. But we’d love for you to give it a try. Sign up, and we’ll get it to you as quickly as we can. If you’re already a Rockmelt user (either the browser or the iOS app), don’t worry - you’re already invited!
We can’t wait to hear what you think!
-Eric & Tim
Phew! Big day for us. With all the news, we know you’ve got questions, especially if you are a Rockmelt desktop browser user. Luckily, we’ve got answers.
First, we still love you! All existing Rockmelt users are invited to try our new product–Rockmelt for Web. It’s a totally new way to experience your favorite sites, and to discover new sites.
Why the change from a desktop browser to a site and apps?
We founded Rockmelt to make the web more useful by giving you a better way to navigate. Our initial approach was to re-imagine the browser. The Rockmelt browser disrupted and influenced the market in many ways. Logging into browsers, interacting with friends, and sharing to social networks straight from the browser are all features we pioneered that are now in Chrome, Firefox, and others. We’re very proud of this.
But distributing a desktop browser is hard and expensive (especially if you don’t have an operating system or the world’s most trafficked website to promote it). We knew that when we started. What we didn’t know was how much time we’d spend keeping up with Chromium (the open source foundation of Chrome, upon which Rockmelt is based). What started out as 10% of our time soon became 50%–taking away cycles we needed to spend doing the innovative stuff that made us different.
On the positive side, when we dug into what people loved about Rockmelt, we saw an opportunity to deliver the content from people’s favorite sites and friends in a much more compelling, streamlined way.
From Re-Inventing the Browser to Re-Inventing How you Navigate
Our mission remains unchanged. Our approach is different. The new Rockmelt still aims to deliver the web content you love from your favorite sites and new ones you may have never found. It gives you new ways to interact with your friends. And, the new approach allows us to focus much more on delivering a unique and useful experience without the overhead of building a full browser.
What becomes of the existing Rockmelt browser?
Existing users can continue to use it, but at some point in the next several months we will end-of-life the browser. Well before that point comes, we will give you plenty of notice and help you transition all your stuff like bookmarks. And if you’re wondering, we’d happily recommend Chrome as a replacement. In the meantime, we hope you’ll give the new Rockmelt for Web a try and let us know what you think.
Thanks again for your continued support.
-Eric & Tim
There’s a huge mobile update for a 3.0 release available now for download in the Apple App Store.
We’ve packed so much goodness into this 3.0 release. We’ve made it a lot faster—TWO times as fast! You should feel the speed right away and especially when new content loads and when you navigate around. You’ll also notice we treated ourselves to a facelift—a splash of color in the navigation and side bars. We think it makes us look a lot younger and we definitely feel happier. Speaking of happier, check out the all pictures view, which is exactly what you’d expect. Just the pictures, all the time.
We even stepped up our social game with @mentioning and #tags. Call out your favorite stories to your Rockmelt and Facebook friends. Hashtag things you’re interested in. #Put #a #hashtag #on #everything and then @mention your @bestfriend. Click on the hashtags to see all the stories across Rockmelt with that tag.
Check out the Tips blog for more details.
It’s hard to part ways and say goodbye to Google Reader, but Rockmelt for iOS would like to be that shiny new replacement.
We’ll deliver exactly what you’ll be missing and fill voids you never knew you had because we are more than your average RSS feed reader. Rockmelt is chockfull of content. We poll 350K unique sites on behalf of our users and more are added weekly. You can follow your friends, react to stories, and discover great new content.
What more can you ask for? Read all about it here.
Please send feedback to feedback@rockmelt.com
With the latest release, we have a new, awesome way to find your friends. When you browse with your friends, you’ll introduce them to great new stories, photos, or videos. When you wtf? something, they’ll see the story and your reaction in their feed. If they react to the same story, and we bet they will, you’ll be notified! Browsing the Internet is not a one man job.
Find your friends from Facebook, Twitter, or your contacts who are already using Rockmelt. The “Find Friends” screen is under Settings > More.
Don’t forget to also check out our Pocket integration, adding of any RSS feed on the Internet for iPhone, swipe to hide anything and our new emote animation. It shakes, it moves, it’s begging for a tap!
Check out our tips blog for all the details on this release.
Click here to download and start discovering the best of the Internet.
Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the web
new releases of apps were starting to ebb.
However, one company chose to surprise
and present iPhone users with a feast for the eyes.
Rockmelt for iPhone is officially done -
so now, you can download and join in the fun.
The best of the web now fits in your hand,
as well as the most awesome tales in the land.
More style, more shopping, more technology news,
more 9GAG, more YouTube - more whatever you choose!
So hurry yourself to the App Store today,
one click - it’s downloaded and you’re on your way.
We know that you’ll love it, get ready to swoon.
(Android, Windows 8, and desktop versions out soon).
We’ve been working hard to keep up with your feedback. You can download the latest update of Rockmelt for iPad, available now in the App Store. The latest goodness includes:
