RSS isn’t dead at all if the steady release of great news reading apps are any indication. There have been a flurry of newly released RSS apps for the iPhone and even Google has gone to great lengths to release an official Google Reader app for Android. For the iPhone owners, here’s a look at 5 of the hottest new releases (and updates) to RSS apps in the App Store.
FLUD (3/5)
Price: Free (iTunes Link)
Awesomesauce Feature: The interface in FLUD !
Previously only available for the iPad, FLUD has recently hit the App Store as a free app for the iPhone. A competitor to Pulse Mini, FLUD will display up to 25 feeds of your choice in a beautiful interface. Feeds are shown in their own “card” that you can casually flip through. *UPDATE: A rep from FLUD left a comment noting the search feature can be used to add any website feed into the app, originally I couldn’t get that feature to work.”
Slide Reader (5/5)
Price: Free (iTunes Link)
Awesomesauce Feature: This app is super smooth and I love the layout styling of the feeds.
Slide Reader is another iPad exclusive that finally makes its way onto the iPhone. My favorite by far, Slide Reader takes the cake with amazingly designed multiple layout options for catching up on your Google Reader subscriptions. There’s even an extra theme included if all-white is too much for you. The biggest downsides are the ads, weird navigation for accessing sharing options, syncing is erratic, and you can’t add any new feeds.
Feedly (4/5)
Price: $2.99 (iTunes Link)
Awesomesauce Feature: Feedly’s clean UI is one of the best in its class.
I think all readers of SheGeeks are aware of how much I love Feedly RSS Reader. It’s a RSS reader available in Chrome and Firefox web browser that spices up your feed reading time. Here’s what I’ve gathered from my early beta access of Feedly for iPhone.
Feedly employs one of the most simplistic interfaces for reading your RSS feeds. The focus is on the content as always with clean layouts displaying the latest news. One tap on the Feedly icon will give you access to all of your feeds along with the My Feedly section present on the web interface. The app makes good use of gestures within the interface like swiping up to mark all as read or tapping just to the left of an article to save it for later. Noticeably absent is the plethora of layout alterations that I’ve come to love in Feedly’s web service. Also, playing videos from content inside of Feedly requires me to exit into Safari.
Reeder (5/5)
Price: $2.99 (iTunes Link)
Awesomesauce Feature: Extensive Sharing options!
With a built in browser, just like its new Mac companion, Reeder’s interface is reminds me of a baby’s face. It’s just that smooth. Reeder also features what looks to be the most extensive sharing options out of all the mobile RSS apps listed here. You can check-out my full review of Reeder for iPhone.
Pulse Mini (4/5)
Price: Free (iTunes Link)
Awesomesauce Feature: The dashboard layout stands out like no other with futuristic swag.
While its iPad companion is headlining the news with Facebook integration, the Pulse News Mini iPhone app is making smaller waves on the iPhone. Sporting a dashboard layout of news feeds, Pulse mini is one of the few apps listed here that supports offline syncing. Again, you can’t add any new feeds outside of what’s available within the app, but Pulse does release new publisher feeds every friday. Not as effective as having it my way, but it’s a neat workaround to find new sites to read.
Have you recently made a switch or do you have a favorite RSS Reader for your mobile phone? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear what you’re using.