Reeder 4

I’ll write a more detailed review later but the take home message is this is the one of the greatest iOS apps ever made. I’m not being hyperbolic here — the design puts many of Apple’s own apps to shame, the simplicity of the UI is stunning, and there’s one feature that nobody seems to be talking about that I think is massive... a dedicated “Reader View” button on webpages. Of course ideally speaking you’d never need the web view to load in the first place but sadly a lot of websites don’t offer full article RSS. My only problem with this app? Getting people to buy it. I’m not saying there should be a free version... I just gift it to people and force them to use it... but I’m worried this could limit growth of the app. Word on mouth helps though. If you’re on the fence about getting this app, here’s one random internet dude telling you to go ahead and make the plunge. You won’t regret it.

After Reeder 3 wasn't updated for around a year I worried that my favorite RSS reader was gone, so I'm totally and pleasantly surprised to see that it's now back as an entirely new release. That said, some things are missing from Reeder 3 that would be nice to have back, and what appear to be a few possible bugs still need to be fixed. "Group by Feed" is missing and should return, hyperlinks should be underlined to differentiate them from bold text, Fever's "Hot" feeds is missing, and for some reason when re-opening Reeder in portrait mode I just get a blank page with the Reeder icon and the name of the account or folder I had selected but no feeds displayed (I'm not sure what the difference is between most of the layouts are or if changing this option would fix this behavior or if it's a bug). Like image caching, I hope that these just didn't make the 4.0 release and will be back soon. I'm not sure if I'm ready to switch over from Reeder 3 quite yet but I can see myself transitioning over as Reeder 4 matures.

I am loving the upgrade from Reeder 3. Having it be free would be nice but this is not some one-off update. Using Feed Wrangler, I pull in a lot of items through a lot of subscriptions sorted into a lot of smart feeds with and without image previews. This new version feels more responsive and my feeds seem to be ready to read through more quickly compared to the same setup using Reeder 3. Using the new “Bionic Reading” feature with a serif style font and dark mode enabled along with a little extra line spacing does make extended reading sessions easier to get through. I think this is a great new feature Silvio as integrated into this new version of Reeder. It did take me about one hour of reading to get used to it, so I say give it a try and you might like it too. I would like to see the return of image caching soon. That is the only bit of feedback I have right now that resembles a complaint. I can live without it and I don’t think it missing (just for a short while I hope) requires me dinging my five-star rating. Given the consistent quality of what Silvio Rizzi delivers and the pretty decent improvements that Reeder 4 provides over Reeder 3, the one-time price for this app is certainly worth paying.

My first instinct when I saw the screen captures in the App Store was that this didn’t look like much of an upgrade. I questioned the $5 purchase, but bit the bullet because Reeder hasn’t disappointed since I first started using it. I’m glad I got it. It’s definitely hard to capture what’s so nice about this app in a screen grab. Everything about it feels smoother and snappier. The reading experience feels much better as well, given some of the changes in the font and linking. Quite simply, there are a lot of small, subtle details that you don’t really notice until you use them, and once you do, you’ll find them quite satisfying. Whether you’re a returning Reeder user or a new RSS customer, buy this app. You won’t regret it.

I’m not sure why others are critical of this app, because Reeder 4 is a more refined and polished version of Reeder 3. For me, the app has been stable and now downloads articles faster and more consistently. The new features are also great. Is it my imagination or do the animations and swipe gestures feel more fluid and polished? It’s rendering and display of articles is truly improved and cleaner—it’s just beautifully simple. I’ve tried so many others, but if you are a serious reader who appreciates an app that gets out of the way to allow you to focus on content, this is the gold standard. And, thankfully, it’s a one time purchase instead of a subscription.