Tag: Rss »

Reeder 2 has just made its way to the App Store and it's looking like quite the RSS reader. Possibly even better than the original.

The app functions as a reader and client for Feedbin, Feedly, and more, syncs to most feeds, offers local RSS with no syncing, and supports multiple accounts. The overall look has also seemingly been redesigned in order to fit in with iOS 7. Plus it's Universal now, yay! Check the list below for the extensive list of sharing services.

And also consider downloading it. You know, if you're into the whole "RSS thing."

- QUOTE.fm (recommend and read later)
- Buffer
- Readability
- Instapaper
- Pocket
- Evernote
- Pinboard
- Zootool
- Delicious
- App.net
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Messages
- Mail

With the Web eventually came gobs of written material and sifting through it has become a chore to find the good information. Sure, using RSS feed readers is nice, but they're sometimes clunky and take time to curate and setup. Nick D'Aloisio, a 16-year-old kid from London, might have an answer in his new app called Summly. The app works to simplify the way people browse and search the web by automatically summarizing search results, webpages and news articles.

The interface seems easy enough in that the user simply enters a search term or enters a URL and the app automatically provides the top information from the source in a bulleted list as well as the link to the full article. And Summly seems to be onto something as researchers from MIT tested the company's patent pending summarization technology and found that it indeed was accurate in providing precise results. Best of all, it can produce results in any language, but is optimized in English, French, German, Dutch and a few more. The app is available now on the App Store for free.

[ via Gigaom ]

There are many out there who believe that the current mobile explosion will save the dying news industry. Newspaper and magazine publishers have been loving Apple's Newsstand App for the increased visibility it gives their content. Now Google has released a rival, more Flipboard-esque, mobile reader of their own, Google Currents.

Google Currents offers optimized, magazine-style versions of articles from Forbes, TechCrunch, Saveur, Popular Science, Good, 500px, Fast Company and more. Google Reader subscriptions are also used to provide users content from the blogs and feeds they follow. Popular, trending stories are collected from all of these sources and given special placement with photos, slideshows, videos, live-maps and social streams intact.

Users can also save articles for "high speed offline reading", share them, and sync them across all of their devices. Content scales to fit whatever sized screen a phone or tablet may have. Google Currents is available now for free and is compatible with iPhones and iPads.

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Jack in the Box (the social media blog, not the blacklisted burger joint) has released their own iPhone app, designed to cram everything from the website into a more iOS-friendly package, even including their Facebook and Youtube feeds. Ten of the tech industry's biggest websites are featured, and funneling their news feeds through the tiny clown head in a box is as simple as a few quick taps. Setting it all up takes a minute, at most.

From there it's a simple matter of checking-in with Jack every once in a while. The two newest articles appear in a speech bubble over the tiny toy's head, and once something good pops up a tap is all that's needed to check it out. Of course, the tiny bubble can also be expanded to make browsing the list easier. Searching through the plethora of news stories is all done using an in-app browser with a handy "tab left/right" function that makes jumping from news item to news item a breeze. Simply tap the right arrow and it loads the next news item.

And what if it's a slow news day? Well then there's an entire history of social media to read up on, of course. Hidden under the not-so-hidden Evolution tab is a tree that chronicles the growth of digital and social media, which itself contains a fairly extensive encyclopedia of terminology to help out the less tech-savvy. Not sure what the word "aggregator" means? Tap it and get the definition. It doesn't do much to help with news-gathering, but it's still a nice feature to have for anyone who isn't entirely up to date on networking sites such as Twitter and the like.

Sure, information-gathering isn't a new concept for the App Store., but that doesn't make AppJack any less handy to have around. It puts the content of ten major tech sites in one convenient place, and does so for the low low price of absolutely nothing. Not a bad deal, eh?

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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.

Taptu is a useful app for users who want to easily be able to keep an eye on multiple websites, such as their favorite blogs, Facebook, Twitter and more.

The app works by allowing you to subscribe to different RSS feeds and websites and then easily view those feeds within the same app. The advantage here is that you don't have to switch between different RSS feed apps and social network apps. Instead, everything is easily accessible within Taptu.

There are quick view and full view options, allowing you to either get a quick view of the page and story or pull up the entire page in a full-screen mode.

One of the nice things about Taptu is the Facebook and Twitter integration. You can comment on your friend's status updates, as well as like/dislike them. What's more, you can Tweet and reply to your friend's Tweets. Using the app, you also quickly share links you find on your favorite websites with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

There's also integration with other social networking sites, like LinkedIn.

Best of all? Taptu is completely free.