Brent Simmons of NewsGator gave Ars the scoop about some interesting updates on the way for NetNewsWire, the company's premiere RSS reader for Mac OS X.

In January NewsGator announced that all of its consumer products, including NetNewsWire, were going free. NetNewsWire 3.1 was released that same month, but Brent isn't one to let a version sit for very long. Citing NewsGator's new focus on "[taming] the information overload problem," Brent is working on NetNewsWire 3.2 and 4.0 almost in tandem, with a decent set of changes and new features already lined up for both.

In NetNewsWire 3.2, Brent has rewritten the RSS parser he's been using more or less since NetNewsWire's debut in 2002 (yep, NNW was slinging RSS before you learned the meaning of the phrase "feed syndication"). This and other fixes should let NetNewsWire 3.2 consume one-third the memory, especially for heavy feed users who can't stop clicking "subscribe." Brent said he's shooting for a July release date, possibly sooner, but we aren't allowed to hold him to that.

NetNewsWire 4.0 will bring new features and changes to fall in line with NewsGator's aspirations for taming information. At the top of the new features list will be integration with AideRSS and the company's PostRank technology for automatically filtering newsfeeds for hot topics and headlines. NewsGator is already using this technology in its web-based client for its top 1,000 feeds, but NetNewsWire 4.0 will bring AideRSS and PostRank to Mac OS X Leopard. If you're drowning in feeds and headlines that you constantly shrug off with the "mark all as read" command, this new PostRank technology should help you to at least catch the stuff that really matters.

Speaking of Apple's latest cat, NetNewsWire 4.0 will be Leopard-only, as Brent is harnessing some of Apple's newest technologies. CoreData will improve scalability and performance (again, especially for heavy users and those who want to hang onto feed items), and Leopard's Core Animation will bring more UI feedback and general sexiness. Don't worry about feature or UI bloat, however; I've watched NetNewsWire's development closely over the years and if there's anything Brent hates, it's adding extra features or needless bells and whistles. He actually gets excited when he gets to tear out a feature or kill a preference checkbox.

As far as a release date for NetNewsWire 4.0, Brent has a more general Fall-ish time in mind. On top of 3.2 and 4.0 development, he's also working on a native NetNewsWire app for the iPhone, but I can't share many of those details just yet.

Once all this Mac and iPhone-based NetNewsWire goodness lands, though, you can expect to pick each of these apps up for the low, low prices of free.