Byline RSS for iPhone

September 10, 2009 in Mobile Apps by David John

Now that my favourite desktop RSS reader has moved to sync with Google Reader it was time to reinvestigate the best iPhone news offering. At the end of this month the brilliant NetNewsWire moves from syncing feeds and subscriptions with Newsgator over to Google Reader.

Firstly if you are new to the concept of RSS you are really missing out on a great way to keep up to date with your favourite sites and blogs. For an explanation of what RSS is and how to use check out our overview article.

A number of friends have been trying to convince me to move to Google Reader for the last year but I have remained loyal to NetNewsWire and at the end of the month they have enforced the move upon me and it is no bad thing !

Although I featured the iPhone version of NetNewsWire in our top 5 education iPhone applications (see the full list here)  it hasn’t yet been updated to sync with Google Reader so a few twitter followers have pointed me towards the brilliant Byline.

Byline is a brilliant iPhone RSS reader when you read an item, it stays read. The same goes for the items you star: Byline will let Google Reader know the next time you have an internet connection. Even when you have no internet connection, Byline’s offline browsing feature gives you instant access to complete web pages.

Byline will cache the web pages linked to by your notes, starred items, and (optionally) new items. This allows you to save any news item you read and any website you visit for offline browsing.

Getting started couldn’t be easier. Enter your Google Reader username and password and Byline will sync your fields. I group the 170 feeds I subscribe to in folder groups and Byline copes brilliantly.

To download a copy of Byline visit the Apps Store.