The Search for an iPad RSS Reader
Being a massive fan of Reeder for iPhone I was slightly disappointed to realise the Reeder app for iPad hadn’t yet been submitted to the store. (Although the developer is hoping to submit version 1 by the end of May).
On the search for a nice, usable reader for iPad I first stumbled on the Early Edition app. I love the look of The Early edition but without Google Reader integration (the update should appear on the store any day) it wasn’t going to be practical given I subscribe to over 300 feeds.
With Reeder possibly weeks away and no clue what it will actually be like I reverted to my former favourite NetNewsWire.
Firstly at £5.99 it really isn’t cheap. I use NetNewsWire for my desktop reading needs so felt the iPad application would be suitable mobile reader.
In actual fact the NetNewsWire iPad application is pretty basic with the only settings being your Google reader details and Instapaper account details.
You can’t delete feeds and there isn’t any caching of news for reading offline.
if you are looking for a quick newsreader with instapaper support and a nice user interface NetNewsWire works well at a premium prize.
My latest find is “NewsRack“. NewsRack is half the price with more then twice the features. You can sync your feeds directly with Google Reader with the full ability to manager feeds from the app.
You can control the number of items that are cached and you have full image download control with sharing over a range of services. NewsRack even allows you to remove options from the sharing menu that you don’t want to use!
Adding a feed to NewsRack is really easy and there are a number of pre-defined feeds available to chose from.
If I had a negative at all for NewsRack it would be the application icon and that as you can see is a little on the picky side.
Interestingly both apps crashed when I tried to view one particular article (main http page) within the app but over the course of two days both apps worked pretty well.
In a way I prefer the interface of NetNewsWire but the features of news rack make it my key news reading app.
£9 later and I have found a comprehensive full featured RSS reader in the form of NewsRack. Like most mobile apps I won’t be deleting NetNewsWire in a hurry I suspect there will be considerable updates in the months ahead. I would love to hear your opinion.
Rating for News Rack :
Links:
More From AngelinaRoberts
AngelinaRoberts Recommends
- The Best Ways for Increasing Height (jen5251)
- Kick The Car Habit With Ridekick Electric Bicycle Trailer (U.S. Green Technology)
Did you like this post?
Please Pass it On!
May 30, 2010 at 6:39 am | Maeltj
I like too much Reeder. For now, I’ll wait for the iPad version. I use feedler free, but just for read some favorites/starred. Too many clicks to read my feeds…
May 29, 2010 at 8:52 pm | Angelina Roberts
@dorian I thought I saw in the settings the option to select 25, 100, and 200 items ?
May 29, 2010 at 8:44 pm | Ian Cull
I’ve been using the free version of Feeddler, and expected to pay for the full version – but the latest update eliminated the “view all in folder” option, which makes it basically useless for me right now (for example I have a “comics” folder with one-a-day feeds from loads of places, tapping/viewing each in turn is much less useful than seeing all in a single view list).
At the moment, I’m moving towards using the RSS viewer built in to the Safari browser; it gives a surprisingly good view (no offline, of course, but I have WiFi everywhere I need RSS).
It’s a shame the Google Reader website doesn’t work properly in it’s desktop form – it’s too limited in it’s mobile form.
May 29, 2010 at 7:06 pm | Tom
I’ve discovered FeeddlerRSS which is free, connects to Google Reader and satisfies my basic RSS needs. At this time I’m not ready to spend money on an RSS reader for iPad, with new versions or entirely new programs certainly just around the corner.
Sent from my iPad – which I’ve received today
May 29, 2010 at 6:36 pm | dorian_grey
Newsrack only syncs 25 new items per feed = epic fail!
Waiting for Reeder …
May 29, 2010 at 6:03 pm | Angelina Roberts
If you browse a site click on the rss link and hold to “copy” it. Then in NewsRack click “edit” on the top of the feed list then the + sign and paste the address in.
Newly added feeds are then synced with Google Reader. I think we will see a few improved reader apps in the next few weeks though, for now I am sticking with NewsRack.
May 29, 2010 at 4:54 pm | Khürt
I’m confused by something. Where do you get the feed URL to post into NewsRack? I assume that you are browsing the web in Mobile Safari, come across a cool blog and decide to subscribe. So for TotalApps, I tap the feed link in Mobile Safari and I am presented with several option of news reader to use. One of those is Google Reader. If I choose that one, I am to Google Reader where I can log in and subscribe. I don’t need to copy and paste into NewsRack.
Why do you care if NewRack comes with a set of feeds? You already have your feeds in Google Reader which you want to sync to your news reader. What about a lack of subscribing to feed directly in NetNewsWire makes it a poorer choice over NewsRack?