Yesterday, the developer of the Reeder RSS reader (which I’ve found to be the best RSS reader for either iPhone or iPad) noticed that MobileRSS’s latest version had added some disturbing similarities to Reeder’s interface. He posted some comparison shots on his site and tweeted about it, and the forces of indignant social-network-using Reeder fans went to work.
It wasn’t long before both Instapaper and Read It Later, two of the major bookmarking/reformat reading services, both threw their support behind Reeder, and shortly afterward MobileRSS’s developer said it would be resubmitting the app with the similarities to Reeder removed.
One of the things I find most interesting about this is that it’s a case of a “ripoff” similarity that was resolved not through costly, lengthy legal action, but rather through the voices of indignant users and curious press—and resolved within a day of its announcement, at that. If you’ve got the community on your side, do you really need the lawyers?
Does that mean that all the iPhone e-readers are rip-offs of Stanza and need to pull their apps and redesign their interfaces?