Reeder for iPad

[superflush]

I should have pointed out in Reeder you can get an article back if it's been read. Simply tap the circle icon and it will bring it back. Sorry for the vague explaination but I'm working from memory at the moment. My iPad is not near.
I know you can get an article back tho b/c I have done it and also was interested in knowing if that was able to be done.

You can also slide the article to the right (when in landscape).

My conclusion, reached fairly quickly, is that Reeder is my favourite. I use my iPad almost exclusively in landscape mode and I was worried by all the screen shots that article reading in landscape mode doesn't use the whole screen width but in Reeder it effectively does because when you click into the full article it automatically puts its built in browser into full width mode whereas the other two candidates stay within the preview window and still leave the lefthand pane in place.

Yes, I think this is important feature. When going into the web view in NewsRack of Pulse in landscape, the text is often to small and it requires me to zoom in a bit. Reeder will bring it to full screen which makes it much better. And it isn't like you lose the quickness of navigation. Reeder makes it very easy to navigate. I feel like Rizzi put a lot of time into figuring out how to make the UI very functional and how to make the navigation in and out of feeds & articles very simple.

 

[spamdumpster]

Haven't seen the super speedy syncing/loading time talked about here. Reeder is fast for me, while Newsrack is slow -- it takes a long time to load feeds and even longer to mark all as read. Reeder is awesome.

 

[JulianL]

So far reeder is working the best with my personal reading style, but I'm keeping newsrack around to actually manage the feeds.

Its funny how so many of us are willing to try/buy so many different apps in the search for this one holy grail rss app.


Edit: how the heck do you get feeds into stacks like in the screenshots, or folders or whatever? Their site is even more minimalist than the app.

Re your last point, I think that those stacks are based on the Google Reader folder setup that you have so you need to go into your Google reader setup and put your feeds into folders and then each folder will appear as a feed stack which, when you drill down into it, will contain the feeds within whatever google reader folder that stack relates to.

Re your other point - ditto; that's exactly what I'm doing, reading with Reeder but keeping NewsRack around as a convenient app to manage the feeds. I really hope Reeder does add in the capability to manage feeds because I like simplicity and it would be really nice to be able to just have it all in the one app.

Re trying/buying apps, I'm new to the Apple app world and before I joined I thought people were pretty weird complaining about $10 apps being too expensive and sometimes even bitching about $5 apps. I'm now realising that for competitive areas like news readers, browsers, calculators, personal finance trackers, etc it isn't a case of paying one fee and getting your app, it's a case of needing to buy 3 or 4 and then keeping the one that suits you best so building up one's collection of core apps does get quite expensive.

I'm actually off to buy some more iTunes cards right now.

- Julian

 

[gwynne]

Re your last point, I think that those stacks are based on the Google Reader folder setup that you have so you need to go into your Google reader setup and put your feeds into folders and then each folder will appear as a feed stack which, when you drill down into it, will contain the feeds within whatever google reader folder that stack relates to.

Thanks, this did help. However, I still can't figure out what's going on in the second screenshot of the app's itunes listing:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reeder-for-ipad/id375661689?mt=8

Edit: Nevermind, figured it out, posting for posterity: that's what it looks like when you slowly pinch to zoom (rather than tap) a stack of feeds.

 

[TheClaff]

Does it Sync just your feeds with Google reader, or also what you have read? So if you then use google reader on your computer will it mark the things you read on ipad as already read?

 

[srl7741]

Does it Sync just your feeds with Google reader, or also what you have read? So if you then use google reader on your computer will it mark the things you read on ipad as already read?

Yes they will show as already read.

gwynne- I did the same and finally took a moment to think about that one a little more. Kind of neat but probably not something I will use a lot.

This morning I took a little time to compare load times of Reeder, NewsRack and MobileRSS on the iPad. Reeder easily beat the others. I'm sure it's different for each person depending on how many feeds you have and what the feeds are from. Some are quicker than others for various reasons. For my 30-some feeds tho Reeder loaded them much faster each time. Actually several seconds faster.

Again I think it depends on many factors but for me this seems to be the case.

 

[mchank]

One problem I've had is that Reeder sometimes doesn't open up links in the app. I've had this problem readings feeds from MacNN for example.

 

[reiichiroh]

News junkies may also enjoy ReadItLater Pro (Universal) now for iPad with $4.99 in app purchase of a "digest" mode.

 

[srl7741]

News junkies may also enjoy ReadItLater Pro (Universal) now for iPad with $4.99 in app purchase of a "digest" mode.

Thanks for the heads up. Been using Instapaper and love it but have also been waiting for this App to be released also.

.

 

[imacdaddy]

This morning I took a little time to compare load times of Reeder, NewsRack and MobileRSS on the iPad. Reeder easily beat the others. I'm sure it's different for each person depending on how many feeds you have and what the feeds are from. Some are quicker than others for various reasons. For my 30-some feeds tho Reeder loaded them much faster each time. Actually several seconds faster.

Again I think it depends on many factors but for me this seems to be the case.

I think the reason is Reeder doesn't download images that's why it's faster. Try it and then turn off your wifi / 3G and browse offline. You won't see any images but a bunch of blue squares with question marks. Do the same with MobileRSS and go offline, everything is intact text, images, video thumbnails etc.

 

[superflush]

I think the reason is Reeder doesn't download images that's why it's faster. Try it and then turn off your wifi / 3G and browse offline. You won't see any images but a bunch of blue squares with question marks. Do the same with MobileRSS and go offline, everything is intact text, images, video thumbnails etc.

Reeder has the default settings with image caching on for Unread Items and Starred Items, and you can have it on for Shared Items and Notes as well.

 

[applesupergeek]

As far as the gimmicky/lightweight readers go, I liked early edition better than pulse. Pulse is the worst if what you really want to get at is the information in the feeds, not just a whole bunch of UI. But early edition started giving me a lot of dupe feeds and I finally gave up on both.

I like netnewswire for a while, but ultimately fell back to newsrack because nnw, like others, relies on google and can't manage feeds on its own.

So far reeder is working the best with my personal reading style, but I'm keeping newsrack around to actually manage the feeds.

Its funny how so many of us are willing to try/buy so many different apps in the search for this one holy grail .

Oh tis true indeed! But I am underwhelmed by reeder to try it out.

 

[rickeames]

I can get every single one of the good RSS readers to crash on a good image heavy RSS feed. It makes me crazy. Reeder does it, NNW, NewsRack. NewsRack's biggest issue at the moment is that it is just wrong about article counts.

Reeder is the best of the lot, but still crashes a lot and the author is not as responsive as one would hope. I have sent him a ton of crash logs and got no response.

 

[applesupergeek]

News junkies may also enjoy ReadItLater Pro (Universal) now for iPad with $4.99 in app purchase of a "digest" mode.

It's excellent, needs some work done, but is a fantastic piece of software, intelligent auto categorising of topics is the next best thing to sliced bread. I hope the velopper keeps bettering it.

 

[applesupergeek]

I can get every single one of the good RSS readers to crash on a good image heavy RSS feed. It makes me crazy. Reeder does it, NNW, NewsRack. NewsRack's biggest issue at the moment is that it is just wrong about article counts.

Reeder is the best of the lot, but still crashes a lot and the author is not as responsive as one would hope. I have sent him a ton of crash logs and got no response.

Daily edition doesn't crash often at all.

 

[srl7741]

There is always room for improvement w/software but Reeder is still my go-to RSS App. I don't have any complaints about it altho i would love to see the main page icons look a little more polished. I'm just not sure how that can be done when some of it is dependent on the Feeds Site developer I think?

 

[IronLogik]

There is always room for improvement w/software but Reeder is still my go-to RSS App. I don't have any complaints about it altho i would love to see the main page icons look a little more polished. I'm just not sure how that can be done when some of it is dependent on the Feeds Site developer I think?

Yup. Hoping the developer adds the ability to browse by feed in a future release like you can in the iPhone app. Wish I could just pick a particular feed sometimes. Most of my feeds are in a folder based on category.

 

[PlaceofDis]

i like reeder, and i have been using it more and more as it turns out. just wish i could add feeds through it like with newsrack. as suck newsrack won't be going away any time soon for me.

 

[applesupergeek]

i like reeder, and i have been using it more and more as it turns out. just wish i could add feeds through it like with newsrack. as suck newsrack won't be going away any time soon for me.

What? You can't even add feeds directly thorugh it? What a load of rubbish

 

[PR.]

Was relying on Reeder last week while I was on holiday and only had a single bar of GPRS connectivity, Reeder behaved very well, sometimes took a while to download 400+ items but once it was done I could star/mark as read everything and re-sync.

 

[superflush]

Was relying on Reeder last week while I was on holiday and only had a single bar of GPRS connectivity, Reeder behaved very well, sometimes took a while to download 400+ items but once it was done I could star/mark as read everything and re-sync.

That is pretty crazy. I think the lowest service I've used on the iPad so far has been EDGE. Reeder definitely seems to update the feeds very quickly (in comparison with other RSS apps).

 

[applesupergeek]

What feeds those that you can't add unless you go via the big google pimp?

That's an epic fail.

 

[srl7741]

Reeder released an update today. Some nice additions and fixes. Check for the updates.

.

 

[JulianL]

Reeder released an update today. Some nice additions and fixes. Check for the updates.

.

I'm disappointed that they haven't added the ability to add/delete/organise feeds from within Reeder yet though. I don't get on too well with Google's web site so I keep another RSS app on my iPad for when I need to manage my feeds and needing this extra app is irritating.

Still, if Reeder doesn't add this functionality soon then I suppose that at least Apple will be coming along in the fall with iOS 4 for the iPad and I can tuck these occasionally-used apps away in a folder on my final app screen.

- Julian