I wasn't aware of any specific issues around setting up RSS feeds for alerts, but depending on the particular time when it happened, it's certainly possible there was a bug or outage of some kind, they do occasionally happen. I'm glad that it's been resolved - and David, you can always email scout@sunlightfoundation.com for support with technical issues.

How and whether we integrate Scout with our Open States app for iOS (http://itunes.apple.com/app/open-states/id500672932?mt=8) is more up to our Open States team than it is to me - I work closely with them, but it is a separate project. That said, it's something we've talked about and there's no clear answer yet. They may wish to do more kinds of alerts in the Open States iPad app than Scout supports.

For example, our Congress app for Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sunlightlabs.android.congress), which I built and was an inspiration for Scout, contains alerts for tweets, videos, and news mentions, which aren't currently supported by Scout. There are other technical complications of how this integration might be accomplished, but that's the main issue to think about.