TechFriday: Simple Savysoda RSS News Reader App is best

Posted By on December 19, 2014

RSSNews_iPad141218Most media saturated consumers are frustrated using the various apps from big-name news sources for scanning, skimming and reading 100s of news articles each day. Some individual apps are pretty good, others are a real pain … particularly the newer “in your face – ad heavy” versions. The gripes are that each app is different and most tend to be sluggish and filled with self-launching video and pop-advertising.

Enter the old-school RSS reader, something I used regularly 7 years ago on the notebook computer and looking for something similar on the iPad (I do miss the browser add-on Sage sidebar reader). Newspaper and magazine reading is now pretty much all digital and scanning individual sites not realistic … so a good RSS reader is important in order to quickly sift through content.

Early RSS apps for iOS and my iPad were never able to satisfy completely … although they excited me with their cool page flipping interfaces (Flipboard, Newsify, etc). savysodanewsappstoreI would jump between one of these snazzy apps and the browser, or jump to source specific apps – WSJ, CNN, FoxNews, USAToday, etc. Very few were quick and easy and news reading became cumbersome particularly as the popularity of Twitter to announces stories grew. It was easier to follow the up-to-the-minute headlines from story creators or socially connected “watchers” and then click the links (and it still is). 

BUT I think there is still a need for something that scans headlines from a variety of RSS feeds and pops up a preview or the entire article/post/content. Australian app maker SavySoda.com has a reader called News or Newsrific (they are very similar) which I’m using (each for a different set of feeds). They are not perfect, but collect feeds from many of the sources that I use to look at individually and then displays most articles on the same page … free is ok too. One on the hidden benefits is that I can gain back some storage space on my iPad … who really needs all those bloated brand media apps?

Comments

Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
My Desultory Blog