App of the week: Reeder

This week’s app of the week: Reeder, a Google Reader client for iPhone that is beautifully designed, easy to use and powerful enough to keep up with all the latest headlines that your favourite websites throw at it. In real time.

I’m a big fan of online content, I love how information and news can be spread like wildfire all over the ’Net, and that you can read it, comprehend it and spread it as quickly as it takes you to sip your morning coffee. My problem lies in the fact that there is just so much content online that it would take me forever to remember all the sites that I read on a daily basis and open each one to see it has been updated or not.

So naturally, I’m a big fan of Google Reader, as many of us digital natives are. It’s simple; easy-to-use and I open it up in a tab before I even check my personal email. It stays open on my browser most of the day while I work and whenever I have a minute, I feed my need for fresh, interesting content. When I travel however, I’m lost without my news, and I dread getting back to my MacBook to be greeted by over 250 new articles that I just HAVE to read. Sure I’ve created a home screen icon for my reader on my iPhone, but it’s just not the same.

Enter Reeder, the best Google Reader client in a long line of apps that I’ve bought, tested and ended up deleting. Apart from its elegant and simple look and feel, Reeder blows the competition out of the water with its speed, efficiency and intentionally minimal user interface.

After a quick installation (due to it’s small file size, another plus), you’re greeted with a login screen where you enter your Google account details. After submitting this, Reeder pulls in all of your unread content, exactly as it’s setup on your web interface, folders and all. It then quickly checks for updates on your account and displays the number of unread articles in each category. To read these articles, you simply tap on the category and Reeder displays the headlines, a short blurb for each of the articles and a nice little icon of the site that it comes from. Tap on the headline and you’re given the full article, read through the content and keep scrolling to see the next article, no need to go back and choose another article.

The developers have done a great job with the user interface. I really like the swipe to mark functions; swipe left to star the article and store it for reading later, or swipe right to mark it us unread. The controls at the bottom of the screen are just as simple and easy to use. One of the best features of Reeder however, is the ability to share the article with other apps/services like Instapaper, Twitter and Facebook, make notes on the article, mail the article and add it to your Pinboard account.

On the loading front, Reeder updates your feeds, caches the images and presents your articles in a flash on all connections (even when you’re stuck in a missile solo and you’re doomed to use EDGE). So checking up on articles between meetings or while waiting in a queue at the bank is quick and easy to do, without killing your data cap in the process.

Something that I would like to see in future updates of the app however, is the ability to subscribe and unsubscribe from feeds within the app. Sometimes I read through my feeds and realize that I’m really not getting anything out of reading ten different iPhone 5 rumour blogs, and it would be great to get rid of at least nine of them on the go, without having to sit down at my desk.

Over the past week, Reeder has moved from my probation screen to my approved screen, from a productivity folder on my folders screen to my daily use screen, and eventually nestled between my phone and Whatsapp icons on my dock, next to Listbook so that I can access it all the time. Definitely worth the $2.99, I highly recommend Reeder to anyone who makes use of Google Reader and needs to take it everywhere.

Name: Reeder
Publisher: Silvio Rizzi
Category: News
Price: $2.99
Size: 2.7 MB

Available for iPhone. A (free) Google Reader account is required to use this app.