I’ve always considered Unread one of the most attractive RSS reader apps. However, there has never been a Mac version. Today marks the release of Unread for Mac. It’s an RSS reader made with taste. It has great typography, themes, search, and compatibility with the usual suspects. I love having this app on my Mac.
I’ve been working on the RSS Feeds. Now there are three of them.
This feed gets you everything. It includes the MacSparky Labs posts as well, but you’ll only see content in those posts matching up with your membership level.
I publish a lot of content for the MacSparky Labs Members. If you don’t want to see any of that, use this feed.
I have custom feeds for each level of the MacSparky Labs. These are generated individually for each Member. If you are a MacSparky Labs member…
You don’t have access to this RSS feed..
I have been busy with a skunk-works project to transition the website to WordPress for the last several weeks. I’ve been a happy customer of Squarespace for years, but I am looking to add some new features as we move into the new year, and I needed a bit more flexibility. The website’s look will remain the same (except for a few minor tweaks). Nearly all of the changes are happening under the hood. Regardless, I’m about to push the button, and this will be the last post going out through the old system.
New RSS
Once the publication goes live, there will be a new RSS Feed:
https://www.macsparky.com/feed
We are trying to automatically direct the old feed to the new one, but you never really know about these things. If you don’t get any more posts after this one in your feed, the auto-direct didn’t work, and you will need to re-sign up above.
I can’t wait to roll out some new features with the new site.
RSS and read-it-later services are near and dear to my heart. We gave coverage to both of these topics last year on the Mac Power Users (MPU 550: The World of RSS) (MPU 554: Read-it-later Services). I remain a believer in the RSS format and use it daily.
Looking at my toolset for managing RSS, it’s getting expensive. I currently use a Feed Wrangler account ($19 per year) to manage my feeds, Unread ($20 per year) to view my threads, and Instapaper ($30 per year) for read-it-later. In addition to being expensive, there is a certain amount of mental overhead that comes with managing data between three services that I would prefer to avoid.
I used Reeder awhile back but moved to the above concoction of apps for many different reasons that I’ll refer to as “nerd-based app creep”. When Reeder released version 5, I decided to give it a try again. With this most recent version, the Reeder developer has included tools to view your RSS feeds (Reeder’s original purpose), manage feeds, and save articles for reading later using your iCloud storage.
As someone who is normally skeptical of all-in-one applications, I like the idea of this update, but I wasn’t so sure about whether it would solve my problems. In short, it does.
This newest version of Reeder does a good job of managing your feeds, displaying your articles, and giving you the ability to set them aside to read later. It does all of this in one application, and in addition to the iPhone and iPad apps, there is also a Mac app. A nice bonus is that Reeder is a one-time purchase. There is no subscription involved. Instead, the developer releases a new version every few years that you buy over, but it is still far less expensive than what I paid for subscriptions. Reeder for iPhone and iPad is $5. On the Mac, it is $10.
If there is one trade-off, Reeder doesn’t display the articles as nicely as my previous RSS reader, Unread. Unread has more options for color schemes and designs for the article view. I thought that might be a deal-breaker, but the convenience of having everything in one app wins in my book. Also, while Reeder doesn’t look as nice as Unread, it looks nice enough, and it has lots of features aimed at making the reading process easier. It is still an attractive app with an opinionated design.
Having used Reeder 5 now for a few months, I’ve got a couple of tips:
Keyboard Navigation on the Mac
On the Mac app, keyboard shortcuts are your friend. I have mapped as follows:
j – next
k – previous
m – read/unread
l – read later
; – copy link
Some of these are the built-in shortcuts, and some of them are custom shortcuts I added in the preferences. Either way, I can navigate my RSS feed quickly on the Mac using just one hand on the keyboard.
Swipe Action on iPad and iPhone
Instead of keyboard shortcuts, swipes are the speed move on Reeder for iPhone and iPad. This is made even easier since I’m using Reeder’s own read-it-later service. I can jump to the next article or add to the read later list with a single tap in the article view. In list view, however, the trick is to use swipes. For me, a swipe-right marks as read, and a swipe-left adds to the read later list. I also added the optional swipe-up from the bottom to mark all as read.
As a nerd, it is always fun when I find new, more efficient workflows. Getting all of these activities (RSS management, reading, and read-it-later) combined into a single, quality app has made the whole process more streamlined and enjoyable for me. I’m sold.
For several years now, the trend among geeks has been to abandon the RSS format. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a way to queue up and serve content from the internet. The MacSparky RSS, for example, gives RSS applications a list of all the articles I post here since you last checked int. It is a great way to read blogs and the backbone of podcast distribution. As social networks took off, a lot of my friends that were previously big RSS fans gave up on the technology and instead relied upon sources like Twitter and Facebook to get their news.
That was never me. The reason I’ve stuck with RSS is the way in which I work. Twitter is the social network that I participate in most and yet sometimes days go by where I don’t load the application. I like to work in focused bursts. If I’m deep into writing a book or a legal client project. I basically ignore everything else. I close my mail application, tell my phone service to take my calls, and I definitely don’t open Twitter. When I finish the job, I can then go back to the Internet. I’ll check in on Twitter, but I won’t be able to get my news from it. That only works if you go into Twitter much more frequently than I do. That’s why RSS is such a great solution for me. If a few days go by, I can open RSS and go through my carefully curated list of websites and get caught back up with the world.
A long time ago, I used Reeder as my primary RSS application. It’s clean, fast, and attractive. Then a few years ago I switched over to Unread, which I found to be slower but a little more delightful. For the last week, I’ve been using Reeder again just for giggles. Their addition of dark mode for iPhone X is great, but ultimately I don’t know where I’ll land between these two great RSS Apps.
If you are thinking about using RSS, I have a little advice. Be wary feed inflation. RSS is so easy to implement that it’s a slippery slope between having RSS feeds for just a few websites and instead of having RSS feeds for hundreds of websites. If you’re not careful, every time you open your RSS reader, there will be 1,000 unread articles waiting for you, which completely defeats the purpose of using RSS. The trick to using RSS is to be brutal with your subscriptions. I think the key is looking for websites with high signal and low noise. Sites that publish one or two articles a day (or even one to two articles a week) but make them good articles are much more valuable and RSS feed than sites that published 30 articles a day.
Today Reeder 2 hit the iOS App Store. The new version looks great and works on both the iPad and iPhone. Using Reeder again on my iPhone and iPad feels like slipping under a warm blanket on a cold night. For more details, check out the MacStories Review.
Well … sort of. Today’s Reeder for iPhone update supports Feed Wrangler. It does not, however, support Feed Wrangler’s Smart Streams feature so for now you just get one big master unread list. I understand that drawback is temporary. Even with this limitation, it’s nice to have Reeder available again.
If you haven’t already exported your Google Reader subscription, today is the day. Google is pulling the plug on Monday. If you are still flummoxed as to how to export your Google Reader feed list, Katie Floyd made an excellent tutorial (using MPU sponsor Clarify) to show you the way.
I was a bit coy in the MPU RSS show about exactly what I’m doing about RSS as the big change is upon us. Here it is, plain and simple.
Feed Wrangler is innovative and exactly what I was looking for with this change, something to move the ball forward. I’m not sure if I’ll still be using Feed Wrangler in a year but I suspect I will. Creating Smart Streams that serve me up posts I’m particularly interested in is great. Letting me create filters to automatically mark posts including words like patent, lawsuit, and Ballmer as read so I never see them is magical. (If you are trying to wrap your head around Smart Streams and Filters,Shawn Blanc explains further.) Feed Wrangler’s developer explains they are going to put even more logic into these features so I can create filters that contain Boolean logic terms (e.g., Filter: Samsung AND commercial). There are other tempting services out there but for me, Feed Wrangler scratches the itch.
I most often check RSS on my iPad. I took a few cheap shots at Mr. Reader’s icon yesterday on Twitter and received a mixture of scolding and agreement. I can’t help it. Those RSS eyes creep me out. Once you open, Mr. Reader though, it is a really nice experience. I’m using it for now. When Reeder lands on the iPad with Feed Wrangler support (which is promissed), I’ll switch back to my precious Reeder unless Mr. Reader wins my heart in the interim, which isn’t out of the question.
I know Reeder is coming but have yet to find an attractive app for the iPhone. The free Wrangler App is not a long term solution. I suspect a lot of good RSS app developers are consuming vast quantities of coffee right now.
The Feed Wrangler website isn’t bad. It has keyboard shortcuts, runs fast, and is in your browser so you can quickly open articles in additional tabs for sending to your read later service. Again, I’m not convinced this is a long term solution. I just bought ReadKit and am playing with it as a possible replacement. I also expect we’ll get back Reeder for Mac when they add Feed Wrangler support.
As you can see, this is still a bit of a work in progress but even with the juggling I’m doing on the client side, the Feed Wrangler Smart Streams and Filters have me feeling really great about Google’s decision to pull the plug. Innovation in RSS is back.
Over the weekend, the Mac Power Users released the latest episode about managing the onslaught of data thrown at you from the internet and RSS. I’ve come up with a Google Reader/Instapaper workflow that really works for me. I hope it helps you as well.
