BPerson

Brent Simmons

Mac and iOS developer who created NetNewsWire, co-wrote JSON Feed and blogs at inessential.

• Brent Simmons is a Mac and iOS developer.
• With Sheila Simmons he created the RSS reader NetNewsWire at their company Ranchero Software in 2002; NewsGator bought it in 2005 and hired him to keep developing it, Black Pixel owned it from 2011, and in 2018 he got the intellectual property back and relaunched his open-source reader Evergreen as NetNewsWire 5.
• The blog editor MarsEdit began inside NetNewsWire.
• With Manton Reece he wrote the JSON Feed format in 2017.
• He blogs at inessential. (Wikipedia's "Brent Simmons" is a different person, a gymnast.)

Key facts

NetNewsWire

Created with Sheila Simmons at Ranchero Software; NetNewsWire Lite introduced 12 July 2002, version 1.0 on 11 February 20031

NewsGator

Bought NetNewsWire in October 2005 and hired Simmons to continue developing it1

NetNewsWire 5

Regained the intellectual property from Black Pixel in 2018 and released his open-source reader Evergreen as NetNewsWire 5.0d11

MarsEdit

Began as the weblog editor inside NetNewsWire 1.x; Simmons handed development to Gus Mueller of Flying Meat in November 2005, and Red Sweater Software bought it in February 20072

JSON Feed

Co-wrote the format with Manton Reece, announced 17 May 2017; version 1.1 on 7 August 20203

Writes

inessential, his weblog on Mac and iOS development4

31 Oct 2026Last checked against its sources today

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