This is great news for all RSS users out there (myself included), especially given Google Reader’s imminent demise.

There is something else worth mentioning though:

As far as sync is concerned, we knew we would likely need an alternative to Google Reader as early as last year. At the time, the option that seemed to make the most sense was to embrace iCloud and Core Data as the new sync solution of choice. We spent a considerable amount of time on this effort, but iCloud and Core Data syncing had issues that we simply could not resolve. iCloud hasn't worked out for us and Google's announcement solidified and accelerated our plans.

This isn’t the first high-profile developer that wanted to embrace iCloud but was forced to look elsewhere due to Core Data’s shortcomings. That’s the alarming reality of iCloud today as far as third-party developers are concerned. If Apple wants iCloud to become the de-facto standard in cloud-based data sharing services, they need to step up their game and they need to do it yesterday.