

Algorithms and social networks have popped up since the early days of RSS to give us more "relevant" news and links, but there's still something satisfying and useful about diving into your own feeds, and a quality feedreading tool is as essential as ever. RSS readers are in a weird place these days. Unfortunately, there's still no Notification Center support, so you can't set up alerts for specific feeds in case of breaking news or cat videos. More importantly, there's still no in-app search function for quickly digging into your feeds, and there aren't any feed management tools.
#BEST RSS READER FOR IOS UPDATE#
The old app handled these just fine, but the 3.0 update is just slightly more sluggish in testing when moving between folders, lists, and individual feed items on an iPhone 4S. I've got hundreds of feeds in my personal Google Reader account, so I'm greeted most mornings by a couple thousand unread items. Hopefully, Instapaper and Pocket support will be added in future versions. Interestingly, you can also hook up your Readability account as a source account to keep your entire reading list and your RSS feeds all in one app. It's nothing too special - you can dig into your folders, unread list, and the hot section - but it's good to see support for other services.

Serious news junkies now have the option to add multiple accounts, and the app now supports Shaun Inman's Fever service as well. Now, with two fingers, you can swipe up or down at any point in a feed of items and mark all as read above or below (respectively) - it's an elegant idea that should be integrated into every feed reader.

Pulling on it past a certain point and releasing causes the next feed to load. Swiping up on an item reveals an accordion card interaction that Silvio Rizzi told me was inspired by the OS X Mail.app paperfold. Instead, swiping on individual items can be customized for quickly marking as read or sending the item to services like Instapaper, Pocket, and Readability.
#BEST RSS READER FOR IOS FULL#
These gestures don't work when you're viewing a full list of feed entries, so you can't swipe all the way back to the top directory. Swiping from left to right moves you back to the full feed list view, and swiping right to left loads the web view. There's also a quick access menu for adjusting type size and line height.
#BEST RSS READER FOR IOS ANDROID#
The sharing overlay got a subtle transparent black redesign, and it's a shame the options can't be enabled across iOS Android really got sharing right.Īt the top of the item feed, you'll find a Readability icon loading a cleaner "Readability view" of the page. I've always liked Reeder's ability to pop up a share menu on nearly everything in the app, ranging from links and highlighted sections to individual articles. Reeder's always been known for its deep support for sharing services, and the 3.0 update is no slouch, with new additions like QUOTE.fm and Buffer added to the Instapaper and Evernote standbys.

On startup, you'll notice that your account settings, services, and more have been moved out of the iOS Settings and integrated directly into Reeder's new settings section. After two major revisions, users can finally add new RSS feeds from within the app, instead of requiring you to manage from a desktop browser. Your RSS feeds are sorted by folders, and clicking through to any folder (or your entire list of items) gives you the option of viewing by starred or unread items, or broken down by feed. Regular users of Reeder will appreciate many of the subtle new animations across the app like pop-over alerts, accordion bends, and tiny shakes as new feed items snap into place. The app is mostly gradations of gray, with feed favicons offering the only hint of color outside of images in individual feed items. You can finally add RSS feeds from within the appįor first time users, Reeder offers a straightforward interface without tons of bells and whistles (above on the left is the old app, on the right the new app). The iPhone app's updating today to Version 3.0 with a brand new icon, multiple accounts, new swipeable gestures, and a fresh look. One of the best RSS apps to emerge on iOS is Silvio Rizzi's Reeder. Still, I prefer skipping the "social" Facebook feed for a finely tuned set of folders and feeds offering the daily possibility of internet gold and a way to keep up with everything from magazines to tiny blogs without having to stay glued to Twitter. Apps like Flipboard showed us a more visual and social way to get our news, and both Facebook and Twitter are following the same path. The "death of RSS" argument gets tossed around every few months, but let's be honest: no matter how often feed junkies argue that RSS is as strong as it's ever been, Bloglines-style feed-reading never really had a shot at breakout mainstream success to begin with.
