Reeder 4
Never miss a headline again
$9.99 From Silvio Rizzi, reederapp.com Made for iPhone, iPad Needs iOS 12 or later
If you enjoy reading online publications, RSS is the best tech you’re probably not using. With an RSS client, you can subscribe to website feeds, so you’ll never miss a headline; and articles can be browsed in–app and read using a built–in browser. Reeder has long been a premium RSS client for iOS, and the latest release is no exception.
The new Reeder interface is familiar but different: everything’s moved around. There are new features and missing features, but the vital bits remain.
You can keep your account on-device only, or use a range of sync services. The reading view offers content cruft-free — text and images only — and one button pulls down entire articles from feeds that otherwise only offer synopses. The article view can be customized — handy, since the defaults aren’t big on clarity.
Some new features are hit and miss. The shift to iOS’s Share sheet for sending articles elsewhere will irk longtime users, but is a net benefit, opening up Reeder to more services. The built– in iCloud read–later functionality is fine, but not feature–rich enough to draw existing users away from Pocket and Instapaper. Its interesting Bionic Reading feature emboldens initial characters in every word — this slows you down, encouraging focus.
In use, polish and care is evident, but the app sometimes feels a bit sluggish, and the paned interface on iPad makes it finicky to dip in and out of individual feeds.
Gripes aside, Reeder looks good, works well, and only demands a single payment rather than a subscription. Also, this is a ground–up redesign, so should be regularly updated in future. That’s great to know, given the stagnation that afflicted the previous major release. Here’s hoping the app’s creator makes good on the promise of this broadly impressive — if slightly flawed — new foundation.
THE BOTTOM LINE.
Different from v3 rather than better, but solid ground to build on.