Keeping tabs on all the news and social media apps downloaded to your phone can be overwhelming. There’s only so much time you can spend scrolling, swiping, and posting.
Downloading yet another app to combat this blight may seem counterintuitive, but the updated Reeder mobile app offers a way to pull your disparate resources into a single, unified timeline.
whether Reeder sounds familiar, that’s because it’s been around for years as a traditional RSS reader. This app is now Reeder Classicwhile the new Reeder is a new experience and design that supports more resources from around the web. The idea is for users to open one app throughout the day instead of jumping between several different apps.
“The new Reeder is more about presenting different types of content in a better way rather than re-fitting everything into a classic RSS feed article viewer,” Reeder developer Silvio Rizzi told me via email. “And, of course, also to get a little more out of it, like, for example, replies and conversations on Mastodon posts (using the API).”
Power users can still add a feed, site URL, or OPML file to make the app work as a basic RSS reader, but now there are easy methods for adding podcasts, YouTube channels, subreddits, comic strips, Flickr users and Bluesky and Mastodon social accounts. There are ways to keep tabs on audio and video content.
“One reason to rebuild the app from the ground up was to make sure it would be easy to add other services and types of content, whatever that might be,” says Rizzi.
So far, the amount of pre-configured services available through Reeder is in the single digits. Services without API access, like Instagram, probably won’t appear anytime soon.
“Everything” apps can be overwhelming
The Home Feed on Reeder throws all your followed accounts into a single stream of posts. This is what I thought I wanted originally; all mixed together. However, I quickly found myself looking at the various content sections, such as Reddit and Mastodon, individually.
The Home Feed was just too chaotic and overwhelming for me, with about 75 imported feeds and accounts. I would often get several hundred pieces of content by the end of the day. Seeing social posts and responses mixed in with news posts and podcast episodes was a little confusing.
Reeder’s value as a single, convenient app is likely to be unique to everyone, depending on how they configure and use it. There is a lot of flexibility in it, even in its early stages.
Reeder mobile interface with a Priority folder (Credit: Tyler Hayes)
To tame my content, I created one folder for my primary sources and another for secondary stuff. This helped me sort the information better so I could get in and out faster. I’ve found that I still enjoy browsing through the flood of everything from time to time, but the key to the app finding a place on my phone’s home screen has been the ability to mix and match different feeds into custom folders – rather than having to to open different applications.
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I’ve also enjoyed some of Reeder’s finer details, like the ability to open individual pages in text-only viewer mode while opening other resources in a full in-app browser. There’s also a Shared Feed feature for those who want to curate a stream of content for other people. The public feed for each tag can be viewed in a browser or imported into any RSS reader that supports JSON. And beyond the iOS mobile app, there’s also a Mac version.
Reeder isn’t the only game in town when it comes to moving beyond a traditional RSS reader. With food is probably one of the most popular options. It can also include other content like newsletters and Google News feeds for $8.25 per month. Reeder currently costs $10 per year.
There is also Inoreader AND Feedbinand Flipboard creates a “magazine” out of sources from around the web. Of course, the most common version of news gathering is Apple News, or Apple News+ which includes access to paid sites such as The Wall Street Journal AND Wires.
Reeder’s new direction briefly got me thinking about whether other popular social apps might eventually incorporate other content sources to become more super apps. Rizzi doesn’t think so; he sees this transformation as more of an obvious evolution for Reeder.
“It’s something that’s already happening for readers and RSS services, so I don’t think of it as a new approach, but more of a next step for reader applications,” he said.
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About Tyler Hayes
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