Favorite Four: Apps for Reading News

I’m a news junkie. I read various news sites and blog posts for hours a day. And all of it is read on my iPad or iPhone. This week’s Favorite Four are apps for people who love to read news. Lined up are two RSS readers, a personalized magazine, and a must-have app for anyone who reads news online.

Reeder
I’ll start with the RSS readers. Reeder (available on both the iPad and iPhone) is one of the more popular RSS readers. The user simply enters their GoogleReader account (which is basically a requirement for anyone who uses RSS) and receives a simple interface that aggregates all desired news and blogs. Reeder is great for people who want a simple RSS interface.

Pulse
My RSS reader of choice is Pulse (iPad only). Pulse presents RSS feeds in a five page format (organized in any way the user chooses). The feeds are arranged in a way that only shows a few feeds at a time with only a few posts for each of those feeds. Thumbnails of pictures on each post are shown if available. The Pulse interface is great and is second only to Flipboard (which is more geared toward Twitter and Facebook than news reading).

Zite
Zite (iPad only) is the place to go when all of the RSS feeds have been read and more news is craved. Enter some topics upon downloading Zite and it creates an awesome mix of personalized “Top Stories” on the homepage. After finishing the top stories, more news can be read by specifying which chosen topic to read on. Zite’s interface is also great looking.

Instapaper
The must-have app for anyone who reads news online is Instapaper (iPad and iPhone). Instapaper is a service, not just an app. A bookmarklet can be installed on any browser that allows any page to be saved for later. Instapaper downloads the text from that website (recognizing which text is the post) and saves it to be read offline at a later time. For someone with a WiFi only iPad, Instapaper is MANDATORY! Many news apps (like Pulse and Zite) have built-in Instapaper support that allows users to add posts to Instapaper without leaving the app. Boot up Instapaper, download some posts, and save them offline to read for later.