Crucially, it syncs feed read state between my laptop and phone.
This is via iCloud and only works for iPhones/Macs. What’s great though is that NetNewsWire also supports RSS feed aggregators (I personally use FreshRSS) so that you can sync RSS read status over all your devices, even non Apple ones!
I’ve been tempted over the years to switch to other RSS apps, but this feature is what keeps me using NetNewsWire.
Really.
It’s flawless. It just works. There are no gimmicks, there is no weird effort to gamify it into a social media play, it’s just a user-focused news reader. And that’s great.
In addition to sync by iCloud, you can also sync with a third-party aggregator (BazQux, Feedbin, Feedly, Inoreader, NewsBlur, The Old Reader, or FreshRSS). This can be a good option if you sometimes need access from a non-Apple device.
I suggested iCloud sync to Brent but was first rebuffed about the poor technical aspects and problems that it had. For those who remember the sentiment around that time was that iCloud sync was unreliable yet News Explorer was proof that it was working just fine.
Brent later backtracked for which I am very happy, I've been using NNW ever since.
I only wish it had RSS filtering to weed out the shitposts, I believe they're working on it. In the meantime I've been using Feed Rinse.
There was a period when it was not as useful, though, and I migrated away, but I still think of it very fondly.
My current RSS consumption toolchain uses Feedbin as the back end / syncing host, and their web app is good enough that I no longer use a native tool on my Mac. On my phone and iPad I use Reeder.
Works perfectly with a self-hosted FreshRSS backend.